​With over 25 years’ experience in geo-spatial fields, Eric Schmidt still approaches his profession with the zeal of the newly converted. As co-founder of EMgis Partners, Eric leverages a career that began as a pen & ink cartographer and spanned into the mobile GIS age. Holding international certification (GISP) and state licensure (South Carolina), he has also served in several leadership positions within the profession. He is a past Vide-President of the Nevada Geographic Information Society (NGIS). NGIS serves as the state of Nevada’s professional organization for GIS practitioners, and he still serves as a member of their Board of Directors. Eric holds a Master’s Degree in Geography from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC as well as a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Over the span of his career, Eric has had extensive experience in the arenas of wildland fire, flooding, and other wide-spread and localized natural hazards. As a result, he is versed in both ICS and NIMS and understands the role of GIS in supporting both systems. Eric has also served both the fire service and Emergency Management and has both advocated for and expanded the role of GIS within his sphere of influence. He has worked on projects involving standards of cover, ISO certification, hazard mitigation planning, and pre-planning. He has also worked with law enforcement in the application of geo-spatial technologies to better understand crime patterns and tendencies. Additionally, he has significant experience supporting the training and response efforts of search & rescue. In his career, Eric has been just as comfortable out in the field wearing wildland fire gear as he is in a shirt and tie. He also has many hours in helicopters collecting GPS data, snapping photos, and recording video. Through it all, however, he has never forgotten that all of these efforts and systems tie back to creating effective cartographic data and products that tell a compelling story and serve a critical need.