Mary Johnson, GIS/Technical Writer

Mary Johnson joins Azavea as our GIS/Technical Writer. She has previously worked in the civil engineering field as a technical writer for municipal GIS and cartography projects. In addition to proposals and other marketing materials, she has written about GIS and digital mapping for various GIS conferences around the country. She has also served as writing consultant for the petroleum industry in the Midwest, and she contributed to an interactive CD-ROM that teaches reading to elementary school children. In her spare time, Mary enjoys reading, classic movies, writing children’s stories, and doing all kinds of craft projects, particularly quilting.

Tom Johnson and John Semmel

John Semmel joins Azavea as a Software Developer after many years in the insurance industry where he worked primarily on creating rating and quoting applications. His greatest hits in his previous position with Aetna were an enterprise census collection and analysis tool, as well as an application that enabled business people to enter, review, and test the rules that drove product selection in a major quotation application. At Azavea, he is working with the Law Enforcement team on an incident notification project for the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the second phase of ATF’s Firearms Analysis System. John is a native Philadelphian who counts cycling, writing, and finger-style guitar among his hobbies.

Tom Johnson joins Azavea as a Software Development Intern from Drexel University. He will be working with the Law Enforcement team on several of the projects they have underway, including building some features for HunchLab, Azavea’s geographic crime spike detection and early warning system. Currently in his 4th year of a 5-year program at Drexel, Tom is completing his third and final Co-Op experience here at Azavea. During his first two internships at PPL, a power utility company, he supported their engineering and design GIS by developing software enhancements and participating in design sessions for new software projects. Tom’s first exposure to GIS came in 2005 through his activities as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown outside of Allentown, PA. Tom enjoys music and reading, and the company of his family’s 2 black Labrador retrievers while on visits home from school.

Andrew Jennings joins Azavea as a Software Developer. He will start out assisting our Operations Manager with systems projects and providing quality assurance/software testing for the developers. Andrew spent five years at PENN Medicine‘s office of Development and Alumni Relations, where he rolled out a telecommuting program, helped implement an Active Directory infrastructure, developed databases to assist the fund raisers, and “fixed” a lot of monitors and printers by plugging them in. He’s currently wrapping up his Master of Computer and Information Technology degree at the University of Pennsylvania and is excited to help the pros at Azavea develop applications. Andrew enjoys bad horror movies and good science fiction novels. He doesn’t enjoy being bested in online games by teenagers with better reflexes, but it’s a regular occurrence.

Tamara Manik-Perlman joins Azavea as a GIS Intern and will be supporting the Cicero team, researching and gathering new, updated spatial data and maintaining the Cicero Elected Official database. She’s currently finishing her Master’s in Geography at Temple University, where her research interests are focused on the geography of immigrant health and the changing relationship between government and the nonprofit sector. As a freelance GIS consultant, she recently worked on a project in which she mapped data from the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia hotline and analyzed the relationship between caller needs, program locations, and target neighborhoods. While it seems hard to remember a time before graduate school, Tamara has also worked as an editor and at environmental and health non-profits. Off the clock, she spends her time knitting, printmaking, and cooking vegetarian feasts from locally-grown, organic produce. When she’s not wearing out her passport traveling to far-flung corners of the earth, Tamara takes every opportunity to extol the virtues of South Philadelphia.

We continue to seek qualified candidates for two positions - Software Developer and Software Tester and have recently opened a new (temporary, 4 to 6 months long) Web Developer position. We are looking for colleagues who are curious, open-minded, and wish to contribute to their community, and make a difference through their work at Azavea. We welcome candidates from all walks of life and value diversity in our company. Available positions are thought-provoking, challenging, rewarding, full-time, and offer a competitive salary and stellar benefit package. Visit the ‘Careers’ page on our website for more information.


Join Megan, Abby, Rich, Keith, Robert, Chip, David (during the dedication of his ‘Geese’ sculpture), Jeff, and Michael for our monthly Brown Bag Lunches! Not in the pictures: Aaron, Reed, Andrew, Sean, Dave, Cecelia, Josh, Carissa, Deb, Rachel, Tamara, and Dana.

To apply, please send your answers to our applicant questionnaire, your cover letter and resume to Abby Fretz.

Sean McGinnis and Reed Lauber in Philadelphia
(mmm… someone went a bit crazy with Photoshop!)

Reed Lauber joins Azavea as a Software Developer and will be working with the ‘Land Records’ team. He has over six years of experience building web-based applications. He recently has worked on a series of products for college Student Employment offices to help students find jobs and record their time worked. Reed enjoys music, movies, cooking and eating great food, beer and wine, tennis, and Flash games. Reed also spends a lot of his spare time tinkering with new web application ideas.

Sean McGinnis joins Azavea as a Project Manager. He will be working on a variety of projects, focusing initially on our HunchLab and ‘Land Records’ projects. He most recently worked at Civil Solutions where he was a Project Manager/Senior GIS Specialist. While there he was responsible for designing and developing business processes for specific geospatial applications and designing, implementing, and managing enterprise GIS stacks for public, private, and nonprofit organizations. Outside of work, Sean likes hiking with his wife and dog, whitewater kayaking, rock climbing, brewing and drinking beer, and cooking for friends (not always in that order).

We continue to seek qualified candidates for two additional positions – Software Developer and Software Tester. We are looking for colleagues who are curious, open-minded, or wish to contribute to their community, and make a difference through their work at Azavea. We welcome candidates from all walks of life and value diversity in our company. Available positions are thought-provoking, challenging, rewarding, full-time, and offer a competitive salary and stellar benefit package. Visit the ‘Careers’ page on our website for more information.

To apply, please send your answers to our applicant questionnaire, your cover letter and resume to Abby Fretz.

For those of you who are just getting to know us, we are a small, customer-focused, Philadelphia-based company that seeks out interesting and complex web-based software projects. We develop innovative software that uses mapping technologies and geography to solve complex, interesting, and novel problems. We have particular expertise in natural resource planning, economic development, crime analysis, real estate property analysis, and cultural resources, but are engaged in a wide range of other interesting projects.

We have recently opened three positions – Software Developer, Project Manager and Quality Assurance Engineer/Analyst. We are looking for colleagues who are curious, open-minded, or wish to contribute to their community, and make a difference through their work at Azavea. We welcome candidates from all walks of life and value diversity in our company. Available positions are thought-provoking, challenging, rewarding, full-time, and offer a competitive salary and stellar benefit package. Visit the ‘Careers’ page on our website for more information.

To apply, please send your answers to our applicant questionnaire, your cover letter and resume to Abby Fretz.

Deborah Sting and Josh Marcus

Once again we have some ‘New Staff’ introductions to make! Deb and Josh joined Azavea in October and November.

Deborah Sting joins Azavea as a Project Assistant and will be providing support for PhillyHistory.org and assisting with the marketing of Sajara. Prior to joining Azavea, Deb lived in Chicago where she worked as an intern at the Winnetka Historical Society. She was also an educational interpreter at John G. Shedd Aquarium where she developed programming, interacted with guests, and constantly tried to decide if it was the Giant Pacific Octopus or the Beluga Whale that was her favorite animal. In the spare time that comes from no longer being in graduate school, Deb deals with a serious book obsession, enjoys pestering people about how they can save the planet, and gets a little itchy if she can’t travel at least twice a month.

Josh Marcus joins Azavea as a Software Developer and will be working with our Kaleidocade and Cicero teams. Josh has ten years of experience applying his software engineering, system architecture, and management experience to building sophisticated, scalable web-based applications. Prior to joining Azavea, Josh served as Chief Technology Officer for Solutions for Progress, a public policy technology company. In that role, he led the development of The Benefit Bank for several state governments, a web-based application that helps low income households gain access to tax credits and public benefit programs. Josh is passionate about finding new ways to use his geek powers for good. For example, he went to Kenya last winter with his wife, a community radio activist and grassroots lobbyist, to build community radio stations and teach technology skills. He is a long time resident of West Philadelphia, where he loves to read science fiction and political theory, bike, brew beer, play board games and literary games, and wander aimlessly in search of new urban wonders.

Dana Bauer, Carissa Britain, and Aaron Ogle

Azavea welcomes several new additions to our team. We continue to experience unprecedented growth and, in recent months, have opened several positions and met with many exciting candidates. In September we welcomed three new staff members (and we look forward to welcoming some more colleagues in the next newsletter).

Carissa Brittain joins Azavea as a software developer on our Sajara team. Carissa has over 9 years experience in software design, development and maintenance. Most recently she was employed by the United States Air Force with the 2nd Weather Group, HQ Air Force Weather Agency, where she supervised a weather report customization/GIS team and developed GIS applications. Carissa enjoys computer and tabletop games, great restaurants, hiking and backpacking, and is an avid reader. She has recently moved to Philadelphia from Omaha, Nebraska with her husband, Delany, and Great Dane, Bella.

Aaron Ogle joins Azavea as a software developer with over five years of industry experience and will be working with our Land Records team. He most recently comes from Seattle, WA and the Varolii Corporation where he was responsible for developing client-specific communications software and integrating it with corporate enterprise systems. Azavea was able to lure him away from the Great Northwest with the opportunity to join his passion for urban sustainability with his skills as a software developer (and to allow his baby boy to be closer to his grandparents). Besides being a tech geek, Aaron is a distance runner, a transit advocate, an amateur theologian, an environmentalist, a liberal, a conservative, a backpacker, a coffee aficionado, a writer, a reader, a husband, and a dad.

Dana Bauer joins us as an intern and will be spending most of her time working with the Cicero team. She is pursuing a master’s degree in geography and urban studies at Temple University, where her research interests are in the areas of GIS, spatial statistics, and the urban environment. Ask her about her thesis on Philadelphia green spaces; it’s almost all she thinks about these days. In her previous life, Dana worked as a science writer and PR flack at a major research university in central Pennsylvania (Go State!). Dana likes reading, running, hiking, politics, urban sleuthing, digital photography and her husband’s gourmet cooking. She truly believes that GIS can make the world a better place.

Welcome to all!