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As you may have guessed from the domain name, my name
is Brandon Price Ellis. I was born at Woman's Hospital
(as was almost everyone else in the area) in Baton Rouge
on June 14th, 1977 to Marvin and Phyllis Ellis. I lived
in Baton Rouge until my parents divorced when I was
2. My mother and I moved to a small town 12 miles south
southwest of Baton Rouge called Plaquemine. The spot
was chosen because her parents lived here and there
was a hospital where she could work. And work she did.
So much so that my grandmother raised me through much
of my childhood.
I went to public school system in Iberville Parish
until my seventh grade year, when I was transferred
to St. John School's Junior High, which was the town’s
only private preparatory school. The experience is akin
to moving into a small town where everyone in that town
has known everyone else all their lives and they are
all a bit wary of new people. In other words, it was
not the friendliest place on earth. But it was still
somehow better than the public school system. I made
it through the awkward teenage growing process in a
new environment and even made a few life-long friends
along the way. I graduated near the top of my class
and scored pretty high on the ACT, which made me a shoe
in for any college in the state.
I chose to go to Louisiana Tech University without
much debate because of their strengths in engineering
and forestry. I joined the Louisiana Army National Guard
to subsidize this ambitious journey and it made a substantial
difference in my outlook on the world as well as my
career goals. I started the Chemical Engineering program
my freshman year at Tech and made good marks in all
of my classes except algebra. The lower maths had been
the bane of my schooling since grade school and the
memorization of the times tables. The more advanced
maths, such as calculus, were a point of strength for
me. Despite my perfect marks in calculus, my low marks
in algebra blocked my path in the engineering program
during my sophomore year. Luckily, math was not the
focus of the Forestry program and I graduated in 2000
with a 3.2 overall and a 3.5 in my core Forestry classes.
Before graduating, however, I discovered GIS. It was
a perfect fit for me. I got to quench my natural curiosity
through spatial analysis and play with a computer all
day.
My job search began with a bang when I landed the first
job I interviewed for. Alas, it was only an interview
for a short order cook at a local restaurant. Not exactly
career path employment, but it paid the bills while
I searched. My pickiness caused problems and I had very
little luck initially. After a year of lukewarm interviews
and rejected offers I finally accepted an offer as a
contract GIS analyst with Florida Power and Light in
Juno Beach, Florida. My increasing responsibility levels
led to several pay raises during my year at FPL. Towards
the end of that year however, the climate at FPL changed
as their focus shifted to their new AMS (Asset Management
System) and GIS was slowly being phased out. I thought
it best to make a move before things went sour so I
moved to Washington D.C. armed with little more than
the knowledge that GIS jobs were aplenty and the confidence
that I could land one. I could not have been more correct.
Within a week I was employed on a three month contract
by Focus Humanitarian Assistance as a GIS manager. My
contract was renewed for an additional three months
after the closure of the first. I reluctantly left Focus
despite the offer of a six month contract and a raise
to carry out my plans for a Masters Degree in Geography
from Louisiana State University.
Shortly after being accepted into the MS program at
LSU I garnered one of the coveted research assistantships.
This assistantship paid for part of my tuition and provided
me with a stipend. My research position has introduced
me to ERDAS IMAGINE and the world of image processing.
During my appointment I created the 1998 DOQQ parish
mosaics for most of Louisiana and performed all of the
2004 DOQQ processing. I have processed, stored, and
disseminated an estimated 4 Terabytes of data, most
of which is available through LSU's ATLAS
web site.
I am currently in my third year as a masters student
at LSU and working on my thesis. My research interests
can be found in my curriculum vita
and my work experience is detailed in my resume.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you were here to give
me a job!
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