GIS for a Changing World

Team

Max Crandall Chief Executive Officer	Early in life Crandall decided to become a farmer, so he worked at farms in Michigan, Texas and Oklahoma that produced cash crops like corn, wheat, onions and on a 20,000 head beef cattle operation. Then his career shifted into the oil and gas exploration industry as a petroleum landman managing petroleum properties and acquiring oil and gas leaseholds for the major oil companies. During his tenure with the oil companies, he established a specialty crop farm. Max started looking for software to find a better way to make decisions in processing the variables in multiple cropping schemas, and to automate the constantly changing oil field data on very large areas of land for making leasehold maps, and that led into GIS. Crandall became employed at the Environmental Systems Research Institute, ESRI which is a software manufacturer of GIS. He soon was tasked by its founder to establish their global agriculture market and had great success for his employer with organizations like the USDA, European Union’s Ministries of Agriculture, state departments of agriculture, agribusinesses and very large farms. He became a recognized leader in precision agriculture with GIS, satellite imagery and GPS technologies. He also directed the natural resources group which included the forestry, environmental management, mining, pipeline, and petroleum industries. After many years at ESRI, Max needed a change so he did GIS consulting project work and pursued his fascination with commodity trading as a position futures contract trader. With an eye on the carbon trade, and in context to U.S. policy makers considering a cap and trade system, he recognized the value of a biomass data model for managing the metrics used to measure terrestrial sequestered carbon on the 1.6 billion ranch, forest and agriculture acres in the United States. Similarly, Terrestrial Carbon Analytics provides analytical services to source renewable energy feedstock, including delivery logistics, for an efficient supply for operators. These feasibility studies support greater returns on investment and implementation plans for sustainable environmental stewardship of the American landscape. Crandall’s work has been published in trade and scientific journals. He received his B.S. in Crop and Soil Sciences from Michigan State University, and has served on numerous boards and panels including the National Science Foundation and the California Agricultural Leadership Program.
Dan Sherrill Professional Services and Consultancy Director	Dr. Sherrill has over 30 years of experience in earth sciences research applications for geographic information systems (GISs). In 1989, he joined Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), full-time as a consultant and project manager. He managed the ArcData program at ESRI and was involved in the development of database design standards. He also is a consultant on several international GIS projects. He earned a Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Riverside. He is fluent in Spanish and Swedish. In addition, Dr. Sherrill designed and oversaw the development of Cartographic Production System used in many map-making organizations including the US Forest Service and the Source Data Management System in use in the United Kingdom Hydrographic Organization.
Fran Pierce Chief Scientist	Dr. Pierce is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Center for Precision Agricultural Systems at Washington State University. He is the current Past President of the American Society of Agronomy, is a fellow in the American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science Society of America, was the first recipient of the Pierre C. Robert Precision Agriculture Senior Scientist Award, and received the USDA Distinguished Service Award. Dr. Pierce’s research interests in agricultural production include soil management for crop production and conservation, precision agriculture, sensor networks for real-time monitoring and control, and agricultural automation for specialty crop production. He co-authored the National Tree Fruit Technology Roadmap, is the series editor for the CRC Press book series “GIS Applications in Agriculture”, and is a co-editor for forthcoming books on “Automation – The Future of Weed Control” and “Agricultural Automation: Fundamentals and Practices”. Dr. Pierce received MS and Ph.D. degrees in Soil Science from the University of Minnesota and a BS degree in Geology from the State University of New York.