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Jeff McKenna
Entrepreneurial Spirit
I am delivering large projects to clients internationally with a group of consultants that are located around the world.
Jeff McKenna
Jeff McKenna doesn't need a map for his commute to the office every day. All he does is walk down the hall to the office in his seaside home in Lunenburg.
"The beauty of this location is that I'm very close to Halifax and the airport," explains Jeff. "And I'm not too far from the top resource in Geomatics in the world, which is COGS." COGS is the Centre of Geographic Sciences in Lawrencetown where Jeff earned his Advanced Diploma in Geographic Information Systems. He enrolled there to pursue his love affair with geography after stints in civil engineering, nursing, even professional hockey.
"I really love maps. I followed my heart to COGS and that's really where I matured and realized there's a future here," says Jeff. "That was in 2002, way before Google Earth came along and so I think I was ahead of my time really." Jeff's specialty is finding and adapting free software on the internet. Through his company, Gateway Geomatics, he helps clients use that software to produce their own mapping products.
"The benefit of a client coming to me is that they can place their money into a custom solution, which is often a website with a map, sort of like one of those Google maps but with their own information. They don't have to buy expensive software or licenses to do it," explains Jeff. "In these tough economic times this is becoming a very good option to organizations."
His overhead is low because his staff is virtual.
"I am delivering large projects to clients internationally with a group of consultants that are located around the world," explains Jeff. "You talk about Twitter, Skype, and other internet tools and everyone is connected no matter where they are. It doesn't matter anymore."
Jeff is also the founder of a conference called Free and Open Source Software for Geomatics. It began with a few dozen people in Ottawa in 2004. Now, it's an international Google-sponsored event attracting thousands, held in places like South Africa, Australia and this year, Spain.
"There's a little more to me than a guy on the South Shore, graduate of COGS. I'm very active in the community, and I mean the global community," says Jeff.
Jeff's local recognition is growing, too. Innovacorp, a provincial corporation that helps new businesses get established, named Jeff one of 15 finalists in a provincial competition in 2010.
Like many NSCC grads, Jeff would love to be involved in helping prepare the next generation of geomatics professionals.
"I would enjoy training the young minds of the future. I seem to have a talent for really bringing it down a level to help people learn and get going quickly and keep their enthusiasm there. So I would love to someday get involved in NSCC and COGS."
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