Lansdale Hires GIS Analyst

Borough Manager Timi Kirchner announced to borough council this month that Lansdale Borough has begun its implementation of a new Geographic Information System for its departments with the hiring of a new GIS analyst.

"Yet again, as we have said before, we don't let reports sit on the shelf, gathering dust. We identified a comprehensive IT report for the borough and ... brought aboard a new GIS analyst," she said.

The new analyst is Justin Smith, of Doylestown, who recently graduated from Rutgers University with a 3.6 GPA.

"He's a very bright young man," said Kirchner. "He's really excited about doing this. Other folks are really excited too, as are other departments."

Kirchner told council that Smith has begun working with the public works department, the electric department and the wastewater treatment plant with understanding and implementing the GIS system.

"We are moving full speed ahead with GIS put in place for all departments to use," Kirchner said. "There are lots of smiles on people's faces since he came on board."

In other news, Kirchner also announced that an entire Lansdale Borough staff and department head meeting was held recently, in order to update all employees on projects in Lansdale.

"We like to keep communications wide open for borough staff," Kirchner said. "Really at the request of a number of department heads and staff members, we held our first ever boroughwide employee meeting to provide them with information on all the projects we have going on."

Attendees included Lansdale Library staff and Lansdale Police, she said.

"We shared everything," she said. "This gave them the benefit of hearing it all together in one room and commeting on it. It received rave reviews, and we intend to kep doing these things periodically, so staff can be kept up to speed."