We recently connected with Emma Dirolf and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

As a graduate student, I always dreamed of owning my own business. I enjoy solving problems with GIS; answering questions, automating processes, analyzing data, or providing tools to solve complex problems is where I thrive.

I was fortunate enough to enter into the public sector as a GIS professional embedded in a municipal utilities department. This allowed me to develop skills in working with the end user. I strengthened my skills in helping solve complex problems for those who use GIS as a tool to aid in their work. I had the opportunity to build relationships with colleagues and field GIS users who brought me along for various maintenance activities and helped me to see the issues they were having when responding to events, like high intensity water main breaks and attempting to utilize GIS and asset management to capture important information. This allowed me to advocate for them and customize tools to suit their needs, as well as understand and adjust the tools to make them more easily accessible while capturing the important data we needed.

Working with a municipality, I was able to become a resource for the City of Boulder and Boulder County Office of Disaster Management, which led me to joining the Boulder Incident Management Team as a GIS resource. In addition, I became a main GIS support for Public Safety, working with the radio department, wildland division, and fire and police departments at the City of Boulder. I was a GIS resource on a wildfire that evacuated the mountain town where we live and our recently purchased house, so I had a firsthand view of operations. On that same incident, my husband was responding as a sawyer – we got to eat dinner together at incident command each night, a very nice way to end the day!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I began working remotely time and really saw what it looked like to have more independence over my day to day. I felt I was able to be more productive than I was in an office environment. Meetings became more efficient, and I was able to focus entirely on specific projects without interruption. As a knowledge worker, focus is key!

Many years later, we had our son. I was a few years into working with the City of Thornton as the GIS Developer for Public Safety and the sole GIS resource for Public Safety. My supervisor and I came up with a schedule to flexibly use my maternity leave over a 9-month period while navigating being a new mom and childcare hurdles. I returned to work on a part-time basis from home starting at 6 weeks postpartum. This worked very well for us while our son was young. I often received feedback from my supervisor that I was just as productive as before.

After those 9 months of a simulated part-time schedule from home, I was a bit surprised to hear I was being required to return to work in the office 3 full days per week. My commute was about 2 hours each way, longer during rush hour and inclement weather, and my husband’s job takes him off-grid and out of cell service daily. We were not ready for this shift, so began looking into other options to accommodate our family’s needs.

Over the next few months, I had conversations with my boss and my department heads to try to find a solution that worked for my family. I also began setting up an LLC as a fallback plan. It was nerve-wracking and exciting all at the same time! Ultimately, without an alternative to being required in the office for 3 days per week, I made the shift to launching my business.

I was able to step into my new role in July 2024 as Owner and Consultant at Viewpoint Geospatial. The timing was perfect – I’ve been able to build relationships and my skillset over the years which has given me the opportunity to have several clients lined up. This shift has been so advantageous for my family. I am able to be the flexible caregiver and can work hours that work for my family’s needs, while still making project deadlines. I don’t think this could have happened at a better time.

It is my dream to grow Viewpoint Geospatial and to one day be able to onboard other professionals in similar situations. I am also excited to have the option to step back into the public sector again at some point, if that’s where things take me. I am fortunate to still work with clients in the public sector, so I can still see and feel the direct impact.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I took a wandering path through my time as an undergrad. Ultimately graduating with a BS in Education, I spent time focusing on biology, horticultural sciences, psychology, education, farming, and sustainability. After several years as a public school teacher, then as a Montessori guide, I decided to move away from education and into GIS. I had been interested in a science focus for many years but wasn’t aware of GIS as a career path as an undergrad. After learning about it, I read everything I could and looked into graduate programs. I finally found myself in a place, financially and geographically, where I was ready to make the change. I enrolled in the University of Denver’s Master of Science in Geographic Information Science. I loved every class I took, and each internship experience I had.

I find my background in education helps me connect with GIS users and clients, bridge gaps, find solutions, and share knowledge. This being one of my passions, I aim to equip users with spatial tools they need to solve problems and answer questions. I am also passionate about public safety, as well as asset management. I can get excited about pretty much anything data and GIS related, so it doesn’t stop there!

My goal is to work with users to identify needs and questions, then to execute easy to use tools that provide important metrics and solutions to problems.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I was lucky to be able to build my reputation through regional collaborations before becoming a business owner. Over the years, resounding and recurring supervisor feedback is that I have a strength in bridging gaps and connecting people and technology. I find this to be an important skill to bring to the table in this industry. With a background in local government, public safety, and incident response, I have been able to strengthen my skillset in this area by working closely with customers to provide solutions tailored to their roles. In addition, I get excited about problem solving. I believe GIS does just this. With a multitude of uses, GIS has a broad application. Creating tools and extracting information to show waypoints and answer questions makes me very excited! This leads to conversations with others. Word of mouth and relationships have definitely driven much of my journey and built my client-base.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I am constantly learning, and re-learning is how to embrace imposter syndrome. I often question my knowledge and my work. Solutions I offer to a problem, I tend to go over and over, reviewing other ways I could approach that problem. Imposter syndrome is always with me, so I’m hoping to use it as a tool to excel. Because there are so many ways to solve a problem, write a script to automate a process, conduct an analysis, or build an application, it’s easy to get caught up in the solution being better or more efficient. Even just choosing colors for a map or application can bring this on. I try to use imposter syndrome as a “mentor”, in a way – my idea or solution is not necessarily wrong, it’s that there are many ways to approach it and finding the most efficient and solid way to solving a problem is how I try to learn from this so-called mentor. It helps me be more efficient and improve processes in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.viewpointgeospatial.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-dirolf/
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/viewpoint-geospatial

Image Credits

My husband took my photo while we were on a hike with our son in our town. My logo was a collaboration, designed by my father-in-law and an artist friend, Mary Waggoner