One Day, One Job » gps

Casey Trees

Willy Franzen — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:00:42 +0000

Although it may seem bad that millions of trees are cut down every year for Christmas, the truth is that most of the trees are farmed and are a completely renewable resource. Most. It was not the case with the tree that some frat boys that I went to school picked out. Their foyer had extremely high ceilings, so they picked out a very tall tree from the front of someone’s yard. They cut it down, loaded it up in their truck, and sped off. Unfortunately for them, someone spotted their plates and called the police. The cops saw the tree through the fraternity house’s windows, and they nailed the culprits. Whoops. What’s the point of this story? Trees are important, and they face lots of risks. In forests trees are often left to do their own thing, but in urban environments they need a little help. That’s what Casey Trees does. They are “a Washington, DC based not-for-profit dedicated to restoring, enhancing and protecting the tree canopy of the Nation’s Capital.” Whether they’re planting trees, protecting against development, or fixing damage done by idiot frat boys, they’re doing their best to reverse the “trend of tree cover loss in the District of Columbia.”

Oh, Christmas Tree… Oh, Casey Trees

It’s amazing how complex Casey Trees’ work gets. It’s not just about planting seeds and pruning branches. It’s about a broader movement to ensure that trees continue to be an integral part of the DC landscape. As they put it:

Casey Trees plants trees, trains people to become Citizen Foresters, engages thousands of volunteers in tree planting and care, teaches students in District schools about trees, monitors the city’s tree canopy and provides guidelines for better planting space design so trees will thrive in the city.

It’s a perfect organization for the forestry types who aren’t quite ready to give up urban pleasures. If that’s you, then you need to check out the Casey Trees Jobs page. They’re typically looking for people who have strong skills in Urban Forestry, Arboriculture, Ecology, Landscape, Architecture, Public Policy, Communications, Community Outreach, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Mentoring. Specific opportunities include Tree Planting Laborer and Urban Forestry Crew Chief. The application instructions vary, so check out the specific postings for the right instructions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Where’d you get your Christmas tree?

Facet Technology

Willy Franzen — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:57:50 +0000

In my day… Columbus Day was a real holiday. Now there’s a huge portion of the population that doesn’t even get the day off. Yes, I understand that Christopher Columbus was a bit overrated as a historical hero (and a lot of the things that we learned about him in grade school were inaccurate), but I’m still amazed that he had the guts and the persistence to make a voyage across the Atlantic happen. Now we’ll barely take a walk down the street without a GPS enabled device in our pocket. Navigation and exploration have a long history, but I’m not sure how much more advancement is possible. Facet Technology would disagree. They’re an Eden Prairie, MN based software and services company that is changing what state of the art means when it comes to the Transportation, Mapping and Food Processing Industries. They’re another Inc. 5000 company with 110.4% three-year growth, and I think they’re going to shoot up the rankings over the next few years.

Explore Every Facet

Computers are pretty good at identifying objects when they know what to expect. For instance, a factory that makes widgets can quite easily set up computers that use vision technology to ensure that the widgets are consistently produced. Every widget should be the same, so detecting differences isn’t all that difficult for computers. This all changes when you leave a controlled environment. This is how Facet Technology responds:

Many environments, however, don’t allow full control over all the parameters that make standard computer vision tools easy to use. By changing one of the parameters – either moving the man-made object into an uncontrolled environment (outdoors) or by changing the man-made object into a natural object (grain, fruit, meat, poultry, etc.) – the identification and inspection task becomes several times more difficult. This is where Facet’s patented technology shines and allows computer vision tools to now be used successfully. Facet allows you to control the uncontrollable.

Think about how this technology can change the way we navigate—the possibilities are endless. It really is the next step after GPS and location aware devices. If you’re intrigued by what Facet Technology is up to, then you should check out their job postings. Right now they’re looking for an Associate Software Engineer, a Computer System Specialist/Software Tester, and a Data Acquisition Vehicle Operator. While the latter doesn’t require a college education, it sounds like a pretty cool gig (driving around a camera equipped, ultra high-tech SUV to collect data). You can apply to any of the jobs by sending a cover letter and résumé to jobs@facet-tech.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How important do you think Facet Technology will be in the future of navigation?

NAVTEQ

Willy Franzen — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:35:14 +0000

Before my fishing trip to Canada last week, I ordered a couple of books from Amazon for some pleasure reading. One of those books was Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). I bought it on the recommendation of Ben Casnocha, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the first 200 or so pages (I’ll finish it soon). The book has taught me more about driving than I’ll ever want to know, and it also put me on to NAVTEQ. They are headquartered a half mile away from me here in Chicago (with lots of international offices too) and “a world leader in premium-quality digital map data and content.” One of those premium map features is traffic tracking, which is why they were mentioned in the book. By informing drivers with up to date traffic maps in their vehicles, they not only make driving easier for their users, but they’re also mitigating traffic jams in real time by diverting drivers.

Take a Shortcut to a Job with NAVTEQ

NAVTEQ is the trusted supplier of map data for vehicle navigation systems, mobile devices, web sites, fleet management systems, government systems, and more. That means that you’ve almost certainly used NAVTEQ’s maps to navigate somewhere at some point. They’re a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nokia, but they’re pretty big all by themselves—they have more than 4,000 employees across the world. They also appear to do a significant amount of College Recruiting as their College Recruiting page indicates. They have a calendar for all of their on campus recruiting events and they encourage students who can’t attend those events (from any school) to send a résumé to careers-corp9@navteq.com. Their entry level opportunities seem to be focused in two areas: Research & Development and Accounting; however, they’re a huge company that does a lot more than those two things. Their job search function isn’t very good, so I’d recommend sticking with e-mail or an on campus event if you want to work for NAVTEQ. Be sure to check out their links on Why You Should Work at NAVTEQ, NAVTEQ’s Culture, and Employee Testimonials too.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you read Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)?

TeleNav

Willy Franzen — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:46:26 +0000

I have a first generation iPhone, and despite the fact that it uses cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots instead of GPS for location, I have still become entirely dependent on using my phone to find my way. It’s blatantly obvious that the cell phone is the convergence point for all kinds of technology – cameras, video cameras, computers, GPS devices, voice recorders, address books, and video games now exist in one device. The next step is tying location awareness into all of these functions, and that’s what Sunnyvale, CA based TeleNav is all about. They were the “first to launch a GPS navigation and mobile workforce management service on a cell phone in North America,” and they’re also the “fastest growing company in Silicon Valley” according to Deloitte. They’re partnered with “every significant wireless carrier and device manufacturer,” and they’re primed to make the most of the GPS chips that are now found in most phones.

Find Your Way to TeleNav

Right now, TeleNav’s focus is on their GPS Navigator software. It looks great, and when it comes out for the iPhone 3G (as has been rumored), it might just push me to make an upgrade. As great as TeleNav’s software looks, working for them looks even better. They’ve won a litany of awards, which you can find out more about on their About page, including being named one of the Best Places to Work in the Bay Area for 2007. The TeleNav Blog is one of the better corporate blogs that we’ve seen, and it seems like it gives a great insight to what life is like at TeleNav. Maybe that’s because it includes a Flickr stream.

So how can you, a new or soon to be college graduate, get a job at TeleNav? There’s no clear cut path for entry level hires, as they don’t seem to be hitting the campus recruiting trail; however, there are a number of jobs listed on their Jobs page that look like they might be worth considering. Current opportunities at their Sunnyvale, CA office include Inside Sales Representative, another Inside Sales Representative job, Marketing Associate (Kirkland, WA), QA Engineer, Software Engineer (J2Me), Software Engineer (Web), and Backend Software Engineer (QA). You can apply through the application forms at the bottom of each of the job descriptions that we just listed.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you have GPS on your phone?

Garmin

Willy Franzen — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:43:43 +0000

Ok, it may be politically incorrect to celebrate Columbus Day, but it’s just about the only holiday that I had off in college. Maybe it just happened to be a convenient weekend for Fall Break, but I still can’t believe that I didn’t have class on Columbus Day, but did have class on Labor Day (when I went to a School of Industrial and Labor Relations). Anyway, Christopher Columbus wasn’t much of a navigator. He had no idea where he was going, and he tried to take the long way around the world. Still, his ineptitude was the reason that he “discovered” the Americas. Had Garmin been around in the 1490s, Columbus never would have ended up where he did. Then again, the existence of a company built on GPS technology would have changed a lot of things for famous explorers five centuries ago. (Much like the existence of iPods – like the one we’re giving away – would have changed the world for musicians back then.)

Find Your Way to Garmin

Since Garmin started in 1989, their goal has been to “create navigation and communication devices that can enrich their customers’ lives.” GPS has certainly enriched my life, and I’m sure it’s done the same for you. Getting lost is a thing of the past, right? Ok, maybe not yet, but we’re getting there. I can say with certainty that with a GPS system I never would have started my first drive home from college during Columbus Day Weekend by driving for 45 minutes in the wrong direction. Garmin keeps improving their navigation devices, and they rely heavily on new grads to help them do it.

Garmin has a great recruiting site for college students called GarminU, although it’s easy to miss when you visit their Careers site. It’s just a little link on the left side of the page, but it’s well worth visiting. It includes behind the scenes videos with Garmin’s entry level employees, interview preparation tips, internship testimonials, and info on why you should pick Garmin. There’s also a link to Garmin’s campus recruiting schedule. You should definitely check that before applying for a job online, since campus recruiting is usually a much more effective way to make your first contact.

If Garmin isn’t visiting your campus, or if you’ve already missed them, then you’ll have to browse Garmin’s online job listings to find the right opportunity for you. They don’t have specific listings just for entry level opportunities, but we’ve identified which jobs that we think will be good fits for new grads. The listings are easy enough to browse, but we can’t link specifically to the jobs. We’ll list the titles, but you’ll have to search for them yourselves. Most of Garmin’s job opportunities are at their Olathe, KS headquarters. These include Cartography Technician, Web Content Writer, Web/Interface Designer, Test Software Engineer, General Accountant, Component Engineer, Software Engineer – Development Tools, and Software Engineer. There are also opportunities in San Francisco, CA (Software Engineer – Web Services and Web Developer); Minneapolis, MN (Software Engineer – Information Services and Web Software Developer); Salem, OR (Aircraft Systems Engineer); Tempe, AZ (Software Quality Engineer – Applications); and Los Angeles, CA (Software Quality Engineer – Automotive OEM). Garmin accepts online applications, so you’ll have to find the jobs that interest you and apply from there.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do any of you have any embarrassing travel experiences that would have been prevented by having a Garmin GPS unit? Please share in the comments.

Dash

Willy Franzen — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:00:47 +0000

You’re driving home from college to spend a night with your family before you head to the airport the next morning to go on your final Spring Break with 11 of your closest friends. You’re behind schedule because you waited 45 minutes for some kid that you said you’d give a ride because he lives in the same town as you, only to get a call from him saying he left yesterday and didn’t need a ride anymore. It started snowing about 15 minutes into your drive, and you’ve been going 45 MPH on the highway the whole time. It’s dark and you’re gripping the steering wheel so tight that your fingers are numb. You see road flares ahead and can see that a snow plow has been hit by a tractor-trailer. The highway is closed, and you have no idea how you’re going to figure out how to get home on back roads. Luckily you have a Dash Express. It tells you that the detour that everyone else is taking is also backed up because of an accident, and it gives you two other alternate routes to get back on the highway past the closure. It also tells you that the coffee shop coming up on your right isn’t worth stopping for because there’s a better one a mile down the road. Maybe you will make it home tonight after all.

By combining location data from global positioning satellite with information retrieved from the Internet over a cellular network, Dash has put together one hell of a GPS product. It is a bit pricey, and Dash is likely to see significant competition from other GPS manufacturers as well as cell phone makers (like a GPS-enabled iPhone, for example), but we think they’re working to solve some pretty interesting problems. We’re all about companies that solve new problems, because they’re always in need of new talent. Dash is no exception. They do have an entry-level or two; however, some of their more interesting jobs require post-graduate degrees and/or significant work experience. Clearly, it takes a lot of engineering know-how to implement the functionality that the Dash Express has.

We found Dash’s job openings quite fascinating, as they tell the story of where Dash is moving as a company. The only job opening that appears to be purely entry-level is as a Web Application Engineer. Prior work experience isn’t necessary, but you’ll need excellent coding skills to get hired. You better have a project that you’ve worked on to show them what you’re made of. The other job that Dash is offering that is kind of, sort of, entry-level is as a Computer Software Engineer, Applications. They want someone with a Master’s Degree for this position, and we’re not sure if they’d be flexible on that. Once again, coding prowess is a must.

What we really liked about Dash were some of their jobs that require previous work experience – they have titles like Vehicular Traffic Data Analyst and Mapping Data Architect. It also looks like they’re starting to build out their marketing team with mid-level professionals. Maybe some entry-level marketing jobs will pop up on their site soon. Or you could try e-mailing Dash about an unlisted position at jobs@dash.net. They say that they’re open to such inquiries on their careers page.

Note: On April 25th we revisited entry-level jobs at Dash.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Tell us about your most interesting drive-home-from-college story in the comments!