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
Technical Writer, 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

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
Director of Engineering

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. When not “directing” the engineering team, Michael tends to be travelling to far-off lands on this wavelet-errand or that geo-junket, and he enjoys helping to actually build software with the team.

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

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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Jon Skiffington
Senior Product Manager

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.

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Justyna Bednarski
Marketing Communications Manager

Justyna joined LizardTech in 2004 as a public relations and events manager to help the company increase its exposure via industry publications and events. She assumed responsibility for LizardTech’s marketing efforts in 2005. Essentially she gets to do what she loves most: talk to editors and marketing folks, spearhead fun marketing campaigns and activities, attend tradeshows and work with some of the most talented individuals on planet earth.

A UW graduate, in her spare time Justyna enjoys all the outdoor activities the great Northwest has to offer like hiking, biking, camping, swimming and snowboarding and of course, showing this beautiful world to her 1-year-old daughter.

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Walter Wittel
Senior Software Engineer

Walter, a recent addition to LizardTech starting in April of 2007, has a rather eclectic background. With two art degrees under his belt he started his career as a medical photographer at a large hospital in Los Angeles, but eventually his interest in electronics drew him to an alpha-numeric display manufacturer. When personal computers appeared on the scene he was an early customer and fielded coworker questions like “What can you do with it other than Pong?”

After a move to Oregon in bad economic times he found work in computer retailing/service during the early days of the industry, then moved to an early manufacturer of PC peripherals where he did embedded programming. Eventually he went back to school for a CS degree and moved to Seattle to work for a large, well known software manufacturer. Following that he sampled contracting and a small startup before landing at LizardTech, where he could participate in the GIS industry he had been increasingly attracted to.

In his free time Walter enjoys traveling, photography, computers (go figure), family (yeah, that takes most of the free time), and looking at art. Eventually he may make a full circle and produce some art again too.