EPCAMR is happy to be able to promote Kelsey Biondo, our GIS Technician, and former Watershed Outreach Intern, to GIS Specialist today! Kelsey has been working on the Mine Mapping Project for the last 8 months part-time and during that timeframe has become very proficient in scanning, working with our scanning equipment, cataloging mine maps from the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields into the Commonwealth’s PA Historic Underground Mine Map Inventory System (PHUMMIS), indexing, and geo-referencing the maps using ArcGIS software to keep the project moving forward smoothly and efficiently. Kelsey has scanned thousands of maps and has gained valuable experience from the EPCAMR Staff, Staff from the California District Mining Office who are overseeing the project, and the PA Department of Environmental Protection’s Pottsville District Mining Office Mining Specialist, Jim Andrews, on the interpretation of the underground mine maps, the symbology and legends from the various coal companies and coal collieries from up and down the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys, and she has been instrumental in creating the processes and inventory control system that will eventually help the Commonwealth of PA to properly index the mine maps from each of the Coal Fields for the Mine Subsidence Insurance Program as well as to help the PA DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation and the Pottsville District Mining Office have access to all of the coal vein maps, surface mine maps, cross-section maps, reclamation project maps, geology maps, mine fire maps, and mine pool maps, in a high resolution (400 dpi) image collection that will benefit the public who will also have access to this digital collection once completed.
Kelsey is a hard worker, efficient, often quiet, yet focused, on fulfilling the scope of work of our MSI Mine Mapping Project. She has agreed to step into a leadership position where given her seniority and experience in the EPCAMR Office, she will now be able to train other Staff coming in to work on the project as positions are filled. She has done a great job to date and will be providing some training and technical assistance to David Svab, another former Watershed Outreach Intern, who is now in the GIS Technician position, fulfilling the scanning and cataloging of the mine maps for the Northern Coal Fields. EPCAMR is still taking resumes to fill the other GIS Technician position that has room to move up, following training and provided that they can show they have achieved a high level of competency in the work load that they are given.
Robert E. Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, stated, “I’m confident that from my very positive evaluation discussion with Kelsey earlier today, that since she is moving into the GIS Specialist position, knowing I expect her to take a more assertive leadership role from within the EPCAMR Staff, especially within our GIS Team, which, albeit is small at the moment, she will do an exceptional job! She is easy going, soft-spoken, goes with the flow, is a problem solver who works around hurdles, is getting more and more comfortable with the EPCAMR Staff, who are also laid back, yet very professional, have strong work ethics, and are very efficient and produce high quality work products, no matter what we are working on. She represents EPCAMR’s exceptional work standards that are a cut above the rest. It’s my job to put my Staff in positions where they can shine, allow them to grow professionally, mentor them, help them to find their passion, interact with the public, and develop strong positive working relationships among the Staff to build the strongest team that I possibly could to promote and support the mission and goals of EPCAMR. Like I’ve told her today, I am as sincere as they come and I like to treat my Staff like Family, because we spend as much or more time with each other on a daily basis than we do at home with our own families, and when we can make work seem like play and do it together as a family or team, it makes all of our work that much easier and enjoyable.”
Mike Hewitt, EPCAMR Program Manager, who oversees the GIS Team working on the project even went out of his way to create name templates for Dave and Kelsey yesterday with their titles on them out of fancy recycled bond paper and provided them to the two of them today. They were surprised and had a chuckle at the same time. Noone has ever made them a homemade name plate before. Robert joked, “It’s the little things we do to make our EPCAMR Family happy!” The smile on her face was priceless and bigger than the one that she had when she was an intern and I caught her off-guard and took a photo of her for the Staff Page when she first started with EPCAMR.”
Kelsey Biondo, who was promoted today from her old title of GIS Technician to EPCAMR GIS Specialist is all smiles as she gets handed her new homemade name plate.
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