Jack of GIS

On April 2, the Regents of the University of Minnesota conferred upon Jack Dangermond the degree of doctor of science, honoris causa. The College of Design was one of four colleges that jointly sponsored the honorary doctorate, in recognition of Dangermond's pioneering work in the development of global information system (GIS) software as a tool for improving the human condition through environmental conservation, urban planning, and, most importantly, education.

"You never really know," said Professor Emeritus Roger Martin, "what's going to happen with your students. Example: Jack Dangermond." Martin is referring to the man whom many consider the father of commercial geographic information systems (GIS). Dangermond spent just a single year at the University of Minnesota, but he considers it a critical one. It was here, he said, that his design thinking and scientific thinking began to come together -- a merger that is at the core of his subsequent 38 years of professional activity.

Dangermond, with his wife, Laura, is the founder of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., (ESRI) a company whose computer software products (including ArcGIS) have revolutionized the way geographic data is utilized and communicated. GIS, put simply, is a database of geographic features visualized on maps. It allows users to analyze spatial relationships, model various geographic processes, and then display the results graphically. Dangermond's powerful tool is used by more than 240,000 public entities and private companies for activities as diverse as determining distribution routes, planning mining and logging activities, and designing urban areas and open-space networks. From its humble beginnings as a consulting firm, ESRI has grown into a software giant, regularly grossing sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Jack really was the first graduate of the landscape architecture program," remembered Martin, the program's founder. Dangermond came to the University in 1967, already in possession of an environmental science degree from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. While officially enrolled in the Institute of Technology's architecture program (before there was a College of Design), he worked with Martin to design a customized course of landscape architectural study that would also expose him to urban design, planning, and the sciences, specifically geography.

He took on a major project that proposed a comprehensive open-space network centered on the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities. He spent a year mapping the region, without the aid of computers, and performed analyses using overlay methods being pioneered by landscape architect Ian McHarg. During the course of his study, Dangermond met John Borchert, a geography professor who was studying systems and processes -- such as transportation networks, settlement patterns, and shopping trends -- rather than physical landscape attributes. Borchert's work was a major contribution to what has become known as quantitative geography: the analysis of human and natural systems using mathematical methods and computers.

Dangermond already had an interest in geography, having undertaken computer-based research of shopping patterns in Southern California while an undergraduate, so Borchert's work resonated with him. Moreover, it exposed him to a scientific approach to landscape analysis, something inherent in his ESRI software. Dangermond began to see that acquiring and utilizing accurate geographic data could better inform large-scale design and that the use of computers could help enormously.

After earning his master's at the University, Dangermond left Minnesota for Harvard University, where he earned a master of landscape architecture degree, and where he further extended his work into computer mapping and spatial analysis. After that he started his company with a simple mission: to facilitate more thoughtful, rational planning.

Although his organization has created a ubiquitous new tool for designers, planners, and policy makers -- a tool he has liberally donated to nonprofits, governments, and schools -- Dangermond is not about to rest on his laurels. "Over the past 25 years," he said, "design professionals have become able to model geography. Then, they get out the yellow tracing paper and begin the design process." The problem with that, he explained, is that GIS remains primarily a descriptive technology -- as its name suggests, informational. Currently, it is difficult to interact with the system from a design standpoint. In many cases, GIS is used merely to generate maps of basic information.

"We are now developing sketching tools," said Dangermond, "to allow environmental designers to draw with the GIS maps." Though he admitted this has been more technologically difficult to create than previous ESRI offerings, his team is working hard to connect the design world and the science world around one platform -- something he calls a geographic information and design system.

Having a complete information system for geographic analysis and design will provide a more integrated approach and allow testing of different design strategies while at the same time evaluating the consequences of these strategies.

"For example, in open pit mining, landscape architects are often asked to design plans that fix up the landscape after mining is done," said Dangermond. "This new approach will enable landscape architects to participate in the design along with mining engineers and other interests, using a common science database that supports all aspects of the mining operations." This is landscape architecture on a grand scale, and it requires the application of a geographic approach to design, something Dangermond puzzled through for a year back in 1968 with the Mississippi River project.

"My interest is in bringing design and geographic science together," he said. "And if you trace that interest back, it goes right to John Borchert and Roger Martin."