Recently, a publicly accessible archive went live, containing essays and articles by Geoff Zeiss, an internationally renowned pioneer, expert, educator, mentor, and thought leader in the utilities sector.
Between the Poles – The Geoff Zeiss Archive is now hosted by GoGeomatics. Geoff’s insightful blog, spanning two decades and over 2,400 entries, covers all aspects of not just utilities but also geospatial policy and technology. Included in the Between the Poles archive are Geoff’s blog entries, links to his numerous articles (published in GoGeomatics and many other industry publications), as well as some guest articles.
Geoff’s blog has been a go-to for many in the utilities and geospatial sectors: a trusted voice in matters of technology, industry strategy, and related policy. If you browse back in the blog entries, years or even decades back, you will notice that the subjects are still timely and relevant; in some ways, Geoff predicted years ago where our industries would be today.
There had not been a subject matter expert like Geoff, who could help people understand very complex matters in these fields, and none have emerged since his untimely passing in 2022.
A few examples of the variety of topics covered:
2006 – The importance of accurate and current landbases for infrastructure mapping.
2009 – The speed of technology adoption.
2011 – Pipeline accidents and maintaining high-quality data about facilities.
2012 – New standards proposed for NIST/SGIP smart grid Catalog of Standards.
2013 – Economic value of open data estimated at $3 trillion annually.
2016 – Efficient low-cost nano-scale catalyst directly converts CO2 to ethanol.
2021 – Modern reality capture technology efficiently provides accurate as-builts for underground utilities.
2022 – The challenges of subsurface digital twins.
Browse the archive. They are listed with the most recent first, then going back to the oldest. An idea is being explored to make the archive searchable by keywords. However, if you enter ‘Geoff Zeiss’ and keywords into a web search, entries in his archive will appear towards the top of the results.
Geoffrey Davies Zeiss (Geoff) 1944 -2022
From his https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/geoffrey-zeiss-1086231686obituary in the Ottawa Citizen:
“Geoff received his undergraduate degree at Cornell in 1967. He completed his PhD in theoretical chemistry at McGill in 1976. Postdocs followed at the University of Western Ontario and UBC. By 1981, he had transitioned from research to a new career as an information systems analyst in the Vancouver offices of the DPA group, a planning and management consulting firm. In 1986, he embarked on what would become his future career passion in geospatial analysis, first in Ottawa with TYDAC Technologies, then with Vision Solutions, and finally to Autodesk. After leaving Autodesk, Geoff continued to offer his knowledge and experience to the world via lectures, papers, organizing conferences, and advisory roles for industry associations and national and international conferences and organizations concerned with public infrastructure and spatial software. Geoff created a thought leadership blog, Between the Poles, where he addressed infrastructure issues and updates, which continues today under the care of GoGeomatics Canada.”
In addition to his many industry articles, blog posts, lectures, appearances in podcasts, and contributions to utility policy advocacy initiatives, Geoff published 27+ scientific papers; many related to the chemistry of utility mechanisms and processes.
Geoff was a tireless advocate for open standards and data, noting that these would be essential in overcoming the tremendous shortfalls in the state of underground utilities mapping worldwide. As we joked about years ago, the underground is the final frontier. Folks in the geospatial sector often say that we know more about the surface of the moon and Mars than we do the floor of the Earth’s oceans. Well, we think we know more about our underground utilities, but in reality, those records are quite often flawed to the point of liability and hazards. Geoff was never one to let anyone off the hook in their responsibility to map accurately, correctly, and completely.
On a personal note, I am not alone in considering Geoff a mentor. His examples and advice helped me improve my own writing. His lectures were like sermons: Map it accurately, document it consistently, and make this invaluable data widely available, in as useful a format as possible.
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