The ability to solve complex problems and help people is ultimately what drove Melissa Brenneman, GISP to pursue her career in GIS. “I love how putting the pieces together in a map allows us to make a decision,” she replies when asked what excites her about GIS.
Melissa’s path into GIS started while studying biology at Ball State University. She needed to learn GIS for a class project and found herself hooked on the coding and troubleshooting side of GIS. That experience was the foundation work on her Master’s thesis where she used GIS for vegetation mapping at Mammoth Cave National Park. What really got her excited about GIS, though, was when she served as a student assistant at the Esri User Conference. She fell in love with the energy, the community, and the work itself enough to pursue a career in GIS at Esri in Redlands, California.
After earning her degrees, she joined Esri as an instructor, teaching GIS courses. While at Esri, she managed Esri Arc/Info courses before moving to the virtual campus team. Her work on the virtual campus team did not go unnoticed. She soon worked her way up into management, leading the team of virtual campus course authors. Melissa’s skills and passion for teaching extended beyond her work at Esri. While still part of the Esri team, she was also an adjunct professor at California State University and University of Redlands, teaching new generations the power of GIS.
It was at Esri that she met her husband, Tom, who also works in GIS. As one of the early “GIS Power Couples” both Melissa and Tom continued working and making their mark on the GIS industry. When they began building a family, though, Melissa decided to leave the corporate world behind. In 2003, while they were still in California, Melissa took the leap into private practice and started her own business, TopoWorks. This allowed her the flexibility to continue working in GIS while raising her family. In 2005 the family returned to Indiana where Melissa continued to run her own company, TopoWorks, and has done so ever since.
Melissa’s approach to consulting is built around empowering her clients. Combining her background in teaching and technical expertise, she works on-site with staff, helping them build their GIS capacity by training staff to maintain their GIS long after her project work wraps up. It’s a win-win where Melissa gets to do some of the technical work while at the same time passing on her knowledge. She also gives back to the GIS community at large where she’s developed and taught numerous workshops through the Indiana Geographic Information Council (IGIC).
One of the longest threads in Melissa’s career, spanning over 20 years and rooted in her biology background, is her work monitoring the Mojave desert tortoise population for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her work has been critical in monitoring the status of this endangered species. In addition to developing GIS tools for database design, management, and quality control, she produces the final databases used annually by scientists for density analyses.
Melissa earned her GISP certification in 2009, the same year as her husband Tom. For her the decision was practical as much as it was personal: certification strengthened her resume and made her, a solopreneur, more competitive for RFPs and federal contract work. “It makes your resume much better,” she says. “I’m glad I did it.” Her advice to anyone considering GISP certification is simple: “Just do it. The process can be daunting, but the longer you have it, the better it’s going to be for you.” She’s also quick to point out that learning doesn’t stop at certification. Motivated by whatever her work demands next, she’s continued picking up new skills like Python and statistics throughout her career.
The same mindset carried into raising her daughter, Sarah, who recently earned her own GISP at a young age with Melissa’s encouragement. Sarah’s interest in GIS started early, even if she wouldn’t have called it that at the time. As a kid, Sarah used GIS to track her Girl Scout cookie sales. Today, with Melissa, her husband Tom, and daughter Sarah all GISP-certified, the Brenneman family offers a rare look at how deeply (and how personally) this field can take root.
When asked what GIS project still brings her joy, Melissa points to her work with the Department of Public Works at the City of Fishers, Indiana. She loves the variety of projects she works on and the chance to make the city’s operations more efficient and data-driven. The solutions she has developed for them include tracking potholes, patches, sidewalk cuts and panel replacements; turf and median maintenance; street maintenance; sod and mailbox damage; and even snowplow status for city neighborhoods. With her guidance, the department has been quick to adopt field work that integrates into long-term monitoring of their streets and facilities. Melissa is proud to be part of a project where the return on investment has been real: in just one snow event, real-time GIS tracking of neighborhood plowing saved $6,000 in labor, plus fuel and mileage savings on trucks.
Ultimately, that’s what excites Melissa the most about GIS: its ability to help people solve complex problems and make better decisions. She compares the troubleshooting side of her work to running a marathon, challenging in the moment but deeply satisfying once the pieces come together and you cross the finish line. For Melissa, GIS is a way of seeing the world and, as it turns out, a way of bringing her family together, too. 
