From his everyday projects at Palmetto Engineering to presentations on virtual stages viewed worldwide, Zac Petix’s passion for GIS is evident! In a recent Directions Magazine webinar with Eos Positioning Systems, Zac presented a complex use case for high-accuracy GIS data collection in the heat of the Arizona desert. Zac’s presentation was filled with valuable information and enthusiastic storytelling, and he provided an excellent example of how a mobile team can overcome challenging field conditions. After hearing his stories, Eos knew we had to delve in further into Zac’s work with Palmetto in a customer spotlight.
Read on to learn more about Zac and his work!
1. Why are you passionate about your job?
My career in geospatial technologies, specifically in building and deploying spatial applications for my clients, allows me to indulge in a lot of passions. Today, my work combines science with art, economics with humanity, and technology with nature. Ultimately, this allows me to explore many of my curiosities all at once. I compare having high-accuracy GIS technology to borrowing the magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes: with geospatial data, we can find clues, analyze relationships, and study phenomena — in order to solve any mystery!
2. How did you first find out about Eos Positioning Systems’ GNSS products?
If memory serves me, I first met the Eos team back in 2014 briefly at a conference. But I really started engaging with their team while at an event in 2019 in Orlando, Florida. I had been an early adopter of ArcGIS Online and was looking for a way to collect high-accuracy field data by using ArcGIS Collector on iPad®s. There was a buzz on the floor that a new survey-grade GPS solution was available — and that it could communicate natively with Collector on iPad. Rumor had it that this GPS receiver was affordable. I can recall circling the Eos booth like a shark waiting my turn to see if it was true or not.
3. What do you use Arrow Series® GNSS receivers for?
At Palmetto, we predominantly use the Arrow GNSS receivers to make high-accuracy GIS data collections and inspections in our engineering and construction work, for both electric and telecommunication utility clients. In this way, through their GNSS support of our own work, the Eos team has really become an integral part of our field engineering solutions.
4. Do you have a favorite experience or memory from your projects with Eos Arrow?
One of my favorite memories was working in the Sonoran Desert on an electrical field inspection in Arizona. Because of the extreme heat during the summer months, we would start work several hours before sunrise. I can clearly remember pausing my work to see the first rays of the soft orange sun backlight the cactus-covered mountains. I remember how the inky-indigo sky would transform to a brilliant turquoise blue. And I remember listening and watching as the desert awakened.
5. Do you have a favorite feature of Arrow GNSS receivers?
I have several favorite features! I think the reasons why the Arrow GNSS receivers were preferred by our inspectors over other hardware solutions were that the Arrow receivers were easy to configure, simple to deploy, lightweight, rugged and above all else, accurate.
6. Is there anything we didn’t ask you that you’d like to share with us?
One of the biggest kicks I get is watching the smile on my client’s face when they realize for themselves that the Arrow GNSS receivers really are as easy to use as I promised.
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