Post-meeting PSA and podcast

2:28:08Boys and wildlife depend on you to keep them healthy. Excess fertilizer, grass clippings, trash, oils, and pet waste wash into gutters and storm drains when it rains. Storm water carries these pollutants directly into our lakes and rivers, creating an unhealthy environment for fish, waterfowl, and other aquatic animals. Storm drains are meant for clean rainwater. Most other discharges are illegal. If you suspect an illicit discharge, please contact Pasco County, Department of Public Works, at seven two seven eight three four three six one one.

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2:34:18You are listening to the Pasco podcast with Mike Garbala.

2:34:31Welcome to Season 3 of Pasco Podcast, a series about leadership and public service. We'd like to thank our sponsors, the nearly 600,000 people of Pasco County, as represented by the Board of County Commissioners. It's through their trust and empowerment of our workforce and leadership team that we're able to bring you this podcast. This podcast is designed to help public servants build leadership skills and leverage them for success by sharing the experiences of our peers.

2:34:58Hi, I'm Mike Carbala and welcome to our 36th episode of Pasco Podcast. November 15th is a busy day this year. We're celebrating two things here in Pasco County: America Recycles Day and GIS Day. In Pasco, we have two very dedicated teams focusing on each of these things. And believe it or not, they even sometimes work together to serve you, the citizens of Pasco County. So joining us today is Solid Waste Director Justin Ressler and Geographic Information Services Manager Jeremy Edwards.

2:35:29So, Jeremy, Justin, thanks for joining us today. Let's just start by learning a little bit about each one of you. So, Jeremy, give us a Give us a little bit of your about your background and your journey to Pasco County.

2:35:38All right. Uh I started uh I moved to Pasco uh in fifth grade. We moved to Lacucci from uh Tampa. Okay. So I've spent most of my life on the east side of the county. Uh I went to uh Pasco Comprehensive High School, which is now Pasco High. Uh I thought I don't want to be in Pasco anymore, let's go somewhere else. So I moved back. Uh started school, uh went to USF, got my master's there. in uh geography, uh decided that really Tampa is

2:36:08not where I need to be. Uh I missed Pasco and I wanted to come home. And this is the place where, you know, I started and I wanted to find uh I use for my skills and in the place that made me feel comfortable growing up. So I came to the county 17 years ago. Seventeen. Wow. And uh I started as a uh an analyst. I was the first analyst actually that they had for GIS in the county, uh, before they were CAD technicians. So they didn't even have a GIS uh actual position in the books

2:36:38until I started. And uh I moved my way up to supervisor and then manager along the way. We took addressing in from a main a mainframe, put it on a map, which caused all kinds of trouble. Uh and um since then we've just been growing our uh our business from the printed map to the 24 hours always available uh data that that's publicly uh available now.

2:37:04And and it's data that we can't live without. Uh I mean I d I don't know what I would do if I couldn't just go cli I'm a visual, a very visual person. And so when I just sit back and and and I look at the tools that you guys have have created and really literally created in this county because uh you know I happen to know we we happen to have been just digitally challenged even even seventeen years ago. Um it it's it's absolutely uh Amazing. And we've actually, I had a great conversation too with some other folks just even before coming here today on new maps and how we're actually going to be pushing to have more more

2:37:34current data, more frequently, uh just given given the pace of growth here. And so I can't imagine what we would do without it.

2:37:40Yeah, when we when we started, there were six of us in GIS, and now we have fifty desktop licenses and about a hundred field workers that are all working. In GIS. We never thought we would be able to maintain that load. And we're about to get new licensing that's going to unleash it to the rest of the county.

2:37:59Oh, that's fantastic. We'll come back to that there in just a second. So, Justin, how about you? Talk to us a little bit about your journey, uh, where you come from, and how you came here to Pasco County.

2:38:08Sure. So, how does one become a garbage man? Um, so I grew up in in Columbus, Ohio. I went to the University of Florida. Florida, studied environmental engineering. I think like most 18-year-olds, you you pick a major based on what you think it

2:38:19is.

2:38:19And so I thought I was gonna go hiking. Um that's not what ended up happening. Uh so kind of got into it, learned a lot more about all the different environmental fields, got an opportunity to to start working in solid waste. Um, just met a lot of great people. Um, got to learn a lot, got to face a lot of different challenges and so uh just kind of continued on that path. Um hung around in Gainesville for a long time, ended up getting my PhD. in environmental engineering, working on a number of issues related to landfills and and waste energy. Um, was out in the private sector for a couple of years and then landed here

2:38:49in in Pasco. I've been here about uh six years.

2:38:51Yeah. Has it been six years? It's been six years. Oh my goodness gracious. Uh it feels like six minutes. I gotta tell you. That's that's great. Um, you know, so you know, Justin too, it uh you know, getting into environment I'm an environmental engineer also, right? So what what what what steered you towards the landfill? You know, I kind of focused on the water side of the house. You you're kind of on that solid waste side. What What got you into that?

2:39:11Really, I think it was just the unique set of problems that that there are in Solid Waste and some of the the challenges that we kind of have to work through and and it's such an important resource, right? And and everybody puts it out by the curb and it goes away. And then you don't really think about it, right? But there's a lot of men and women behind the scenes working hard to make sure that it's handled in the most efficient way possible, the most environmentally protected way possible. And it's uh A pretty complex and complicated industry once you get into the details.

2:39:35It really is. It really is. But I think it's fun. It's all it's all intriguing to me, but I might be a little nerdy on that. So, you know, Jeremy, let's let's talk about GIS day, right? So we talk about Geography Awareness Week. And in its simplest form, we know that, you know, GIS blends geography with data, and you create real world applications for us to leverage and use that data. So talk about what that looks like. Like here in Pasco County?

2:39:57Uh in Pasco, um what we've done is we've uh been able to make uh web browsers uh for the most part. That's how most people consume our data. Uh and the data goes out through a web server. Uh but before all that, it starts in a database. So for a lot of people in GIS, you know, when you when you see data on on the screen, you think it's a map, you know, my mom says, What is that? I'm like, okay, when you see Google Maps, you go to the other side of the screen, that's my job. You

2:40:27know, and sure. And so what GIS really is, is it's, you know, a set of rows in a database that have data attached to it. And we can query those and we can do things with them. We can analyze it. And it's more than just, you know, A printed representation. So when you're working with GIS, you have to be a jack of all trades, which is kind of why we're kind of unique in our our environment, because you have to know some programming, you have to know some SQL, you have to know some design concepts,

2:40:57and you have to know how to lay out on paper, you have to know um how to do keep a server running. Uh, you know, so Well beyond that,

2:41:06you gotta be smart enough

2:41:06too to to

2:41:07know what the average person is going

2:41:08to

2:41:08be looking for and how to make it intelligible to

2:41:11people,

2:41:11right?

2:41:12If if we give them too much, and and the problem that that we have a lot of times is we're so used to seeing and knowing what we know that we have to