Dave is a husband to his beautiful and loving wife Robin and proud parent to a Chihuahua (Finn), Golden Doodle (Tesla) and Devon Rex cat (Sherlock Holmes). He studied at Lakehead University achieving an Honours Bachelor of Outdoor Recreation Parks and Tourism (HBOR), a Bachelor of Arts in Geography (BA GEO), earned a certificate in Tourism Resource Management and achieved a minor in philosophy of occupational ethics.
He works in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Data Management. Before entering the Information Management (IM) and Information Technology (IT) realm, Dave led wilderness adventures for close to 10 summer seasons throughout his high school and university years. In his off hours he is an avid outdoor enthusiast and Telemark ski instructor. He is also an amateur photographer.
As a Certified Information Management Professional (CIMP), Dave combines his subject matter expertise in geography and GIS with the broader field of information management. Dave often finds himself player the role of connector between business leaders and technologists translating business requirements into system architectures and functional systems.
As a budding enterprise architect Dave applies The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) to help guide the architectural process. As an agile project manager Dave subscribes primarily to Agile Scrum, and has introduced agile principles to many project teams acting as an agile coach and scrum master.
As a geographer and technologist, Dave has long been an advocate for Free and Open Source Software For Geomatics (FOSS4G). He brings groups of people together to form technical communities of practice such as being a co-founder of the Ottawa Chapter of Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGEO). From desktop applications such as GRASS and QGIS to enterprise geospatial databases using PostgreSQL and PostGIS to web mapping technologies including Mapserver and Geoserver, Dave has helped architect, design and operate many flavours of GIS systems.
Having received his first camera from hi grandfather at an early age, Dave has been connecting wild spaces with audiences through his photography. Photography seems to be a good fit for a technical, yet creative personality. Dave has developed a line of fine art greeting cards, has had his work on display in community galleries and restaurants.
His recreational pursuits focus on the out of doors and self powered adventure. Dave enjoys backpacking, day hikes, mountain biking, canoeing and skiing. In the winter he runs Freeheelers United, a Telemark Ski School.
Technology plays a large role in both Dave’s professional and extracurricular activities. He continues to participate in many open source software communities as beta tester, requirements analyst and implementer. In the past he has also participated in Project Steering Committees (PSC) as open source projects go through incubation phases before endorsed by larger FOSS foundations (eg OSGEO).