Been continuing to look at continuing education opportunities and certifications I could get in the GIS geographic information systems field. I am really not excited about going back to college, I am so beyond that in my life but I do see some value in having some formal training for more structured thinking around map making – and as something I can list on my resume.

I am hoping at this point to keep my current job for the remaining years of the decade so I can get 20 years in and that extra bump that you get with Tier 4 retirement. But additional skills wouldn’t be back to fall back on should things not go to plan. Plus I will have a gap I need to fill between when I own my off-grid homestead and full retirement. The GIS field is in high demand and I have a lot of hands on experience from my blog and community groups and others I’ve helped out with map projects.

Still something to research further. So far I’ve not found a GIS study program that fits well with my hands on experience, my learn it non professionally way of doing things with a hobby. Something that is actually worthwhile to list on a resume. I should read up more and network with the folks in the state GIS Association. I am also a bit hesitant to learn commercial software and the formal ways of doing maps, as I like the anything goes, if its pretty and works well for my purposes as a hobby. The professional GIS industry just seems so stuffy and set in its ways, resistant to the hobbyist who likes to play with maps. Plus I’m no fan of expensive commercial software and proprietary datasets when I’m such a big user of free government data and open source QGIS.

Certainly there is a lot of things that can be done with GIS professionally. But I can’t imagine ever working for a planning commission or even worse a developer when I’ve used my learned by doing skills over the years to critique and challenge developers and planners. I get there is a lot of money working to be made developing farmland and forest into commercial developments but it’s not an industry I’m particularly interested in supporting. But maybe if it is a good income for that time between my reduced income work when I have my off grid homestead until I can collect all my well earned retirement benefits.