This page is about the people behind Zoom. We’ll introduce contributors as they contribute. You may have met some of them on trade show floors, or picking over fruit at the market. If so, say hello. For us, this blog is about forming a community.

Note: The views expressed on Zoom are the opinions of the individual writers and do not necessarily represent the views of LizardTech or Celartem, Inc.

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Matt Fleagle
Blog Host

Matt (the big one in the photo) came to LizardTech in 2000 as a marketing copywriter, but got lost in the building one day and subsequently took up with the engineers. By the time they noticed, he’d been documenting LizardTech’s products for several years. Matt has written a number of articles for industry publications and co-written several more technical articles with LizardTech software architect Michael P. Gerlek. Among other things, Matt has worked in the nursery business and propagated fragrant ornamental shrubs, wrangled horses, and written feature articles as a journalist for local newspapers and regional magazines.

When not working, he is almost always hanging out with his wife and daughter.

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Genie Hays
LizardTech Central Territory Sales Manager,
Guest Blogger

Genie says: “I was born and raised in Washington State, graduated from the University of Washington (go Huskies!) in 2004 and began working at LizardTech in Dec 2004 as the Central Territory Manager (a.k.a. sales rep). Sadly, I don’t get to indulge in as much hands-on GIS work as I would like so I am currently enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Denver in the Computer Information Systems program. I travel quite a bit for work and pleasure so look for me at a trade show near you!”

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Michael P. Gerlek
Software Architect, Guest Blogger

Michael (the one with tilted head) was originally trained as a compiler jock and served stints at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oregon Graduate Institute, Intel, and Tera. In 1999, as a refugee from the supercomputing industry, he washed up on the shores of LizardTech and sold all his old compiler books on eBay. Since then, he’s become an expert in cramming whopping big geospatial images into teeny tiny little files. LizardTech’s HR department says Michael’s job is helping to run LizardTech’s engineering team; Michael tends to feel otherwise and as such spends much of his time travelling to far-off lands and/or helping to actually build software.

Michael is perhaps best known across the industry for his hard-hitting and deeply thought-provoking technical articles with noted coauthor Matt Fleagle. In his off hours, Michael lives on an island.

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Mike Rosen
Engineering Manager, Guest Blogger

Mike came to Lizardtech in March of 2000 following work with EDS and other systems integration/consulting firms from Seattle to Singapore. For several years he worked with the company’s document imaging technology (currently managed by the parent company, Celartem Technologies). These days he helps manage the Engineering group in Seattle and does much of the integration with GDAL and ESRI.

When not solving GIS software problems, Mike maintains JBrute, a well-received (possibly because it’s free) English/Japanese dictionary for Windows.

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Michael McInnis
QA Engineer, Guest Blogger

Mike (yes, a third Mike at Lizardtech) began working at Lizardtech in May of 2007 and specializes in QA, testing Lizardtech software from a GIS jockey’s perspective. Mike enjoys having a plethora of GIS related toys (software) to play with on a daily basis. Past work in GIS has been in the environmental consulting arena, simulation and virtual reality work, spatially enabling databases and general GIS ETL (Extract/Transform/Load) programming.

In his free time, Mike likes to ride bikes, hike, ski, travel, take digital photographs and read trashy novels by the likes of Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, and Janet Evanovich, all while simultaneously minding family affairs (wife/daughter/son).

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Jon Skiffington
Senior Product Manager, Guest Blogger

Jon is LizardTech’s product manager for geospatial imagery. He’s responsible for market research, defining features, tracking development, and coordinating the release of LizardTech’s products. A graduate of the University of Washington School of Business and a boomerang employee at LizardTech (2000-2001 and 2003-present), Jon started as a sales engineer and has worked with LizardTech’s customers for most of this decade.

In his spare time Jon enjoys aviation, home theater, and is a wicked drummer in Rock Band.

Photo by Alex Smits.