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Take a break with Sheila Steffenson, CEO (1Spatial Inc.)

Tell us about yourself? Professionally, I lead the Americas team (1Spatial Inc.) and love my job every single day. Prior to my current 5 years with 1Spatial, I spent 23 years with Esri, moving from a tech role to a sales role then into management, all within the first 3 years.

Personally, I am a very proud mother of 3 wonderful sons and a stepson and stepdaughter. I am also a proud “Nona” to my beautiful granddaughter Tilly (Matilda). I love studying, collecting and drinking wine (so much so that I got my level 1 Sommelier for fun several years back). I also love travel, being near the water and yoga!

Fun fact about you? I used to ride motorcycles and had various bikes over several years. My favorite was an Aprilia Chesterfield Replica which was lightweight and very fast! https://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/aprilia/aprilia_rs250%2096%20rep.htm

What do you enjoy most about working at 1Spatial? The people, the ability to help people solve hard problems and the opportunity to grow something big!

What are your favorite geospatial products/technologies and why? 1Integrate and 1Data Gateway of course! When I first saw what 1Integrate could do, it was an “AHA” moment for me. In all my years in the geospatial industry I had never seen a product that could deal with the problems that all geospatial data users face...ensuring data quality. I knew this had amazing potential in the US and it has definitely proved it time and time again! And the addition of 1Data Gateway, making it so easy for end users to validate and/or enhance their data was the icing on the cake!

What’s the most interesting solution problem or data challenge you’ve tackled? While I wasn’t responsible for the actual solution, identifying tough challenges such as the GIS and CAD integration that was done for NASA or the Google Tririga and CAD work to me are both good examples of interesting efforts solving tough problems. I appreciate them because it really highlights the level of complexity that our tools can handle!

What do you love about working for the Americas Team? Leading the Americas Team is quite exciting as there is so much room for growth! We are a very cohesive, tight knit group that work extremely well together. Each team member’s strengths and skills really complement one another.

What makes 1Spatial a great place to work? Again, the people and their creative minds/solid work ethic.

If you were given an airline ticket to go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? I want one of those round the world tickets so I can stop in Italy (the food, the wine, the art, the history!), Croatia (the people and the wine!), South Africa (for wine and safari), Japan (love Tokyo!), Fiji (because I have never been there), New Zealand because I haven’t been there and of course the UK so I could see all my 1Spatial friends!