The people you work with are what make an office great. I can say with certainty that the Interfor Adams Lake office is full of incredible people. To my luck, I happen to have one of those people as my supervisor. Alex Saavedra is a GIS specialist and has been with Interfor just over a year. Alex’s passion is in GIS development. Ask him about JavaScript, machine learning, or deep learning, and he will be stoked. Alex is currently working on his Master of Science in Data Science at Eastern University. I am Alex’s first intern, and I am sure his learning curve this summer has been just as big as mine.
I sat down with Alex to ask him a few questions about his GIS background and his experience with Interfor.
What is your background and how did you find GIS?
I initially started my career as a wildland firefighter with Alberta wildfire and worked my way up to be an IA crew leader. Through these years I learned more and more about the forest industry as well as the capabilities of GIS. I appreciated it so much I decided to go back to school at Selkirk college to do my Forest Technology Diploma. Through this program I was exposed more to the world of GIS, and it gave me an avenue to explore interests I’ve never been able to before like coding. I decided to take the leap and complete my advanced diploma in GIS at Selkirk as well which once I got into the content, I knew it was the right fit for me.
What made you decide to work in the forestry side of GIS?
Having a bit of a forestry background as well as the education made the transition into the workplace a lot easier. All my school projects had forestry applications to them as it was easy to apply my forestry education in GIS. Furthermore, the municipal type of GIS work didn’t interest me as much as I wasn’t a fan of using AutoCAD. I feel there are a lot more fun projects I can work on within forestry, especially with building machine learning models from LiDAR data.
What is the best part of your job?
Working with my awesome intern this summer as well as the rest of my co-workers without question. It’s a very relaxed environment and in my tenure here, I have been given a lot of creative freedom to solve problems how I see fit. I am also given the avenue to explore new developments and practices for the company to better leverage our data and enhance our decision-making processes.
Tell me about how your experience working with Interfor has been?
My experience at Interfor has been a very positive one. Everyone in the Adam’s Lake Division is extremely supportive, contributes to a very healthy work culture, and has a wonderful work life balance. I am also given multiple avenues and opportunities to grow my skillset and develop skills whether it’s through courses or shadowing others in different departments. There is a high level of commitment to the company values, especially towards engaging employees, our safety, and staying proactive, which resonates extremely well with me. I feel I can take any concerns to my manager or other management within our office without concern which is a huge green flag for me.
Why do you think internship programs are important?
Internship programs are highly important as they give students opportunities to gain experience in fields of interest to them. This is important for personal development as it allows them to put skills learned in the classroom into practice which helps solidify concepts. Along with gaining experience, it gives the opportunity for students to try a company to see if it’s a good fit for them before committing to a potential permanent placement, especially if the job may require relocating. Additionally, internships also allow students to network within industry and can allow for permanent placement a lot easier as opposed to someone who has no work experience out of school.
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