Blog Post

Cody Wolfe, GIS Technician Welcome to the first of three posts in which we will cover the fundamentals of reading legal descriptions – a task that is vital to tax parcel information and other land records-related work. To understand legal descriptions, it’s necessary to first understand the Public Land Surveying System (PLSS). The PLSS was…

Kendis Scharenbroich, Pro-West President & CEO As someone who has spent 20 years in a technology market with a rapid pace of change, no amount of change that I have experienced in the past compares to the frequency of change we are all faced with today. And, while the COVID-19 pandemic brings quickly evolving challenges…

Alisha Becker, Pro-West GIS Technician ALISHA BECKER, GIS TECHNICIAN College: Brigham Young University – Idaho Degree: GeoScience Computing I was originally a geology major and I took a GIS class as a requirement. Shortly into that semester I realized I wanted to be doing something in the field of GIS. I really liked that GIS combined a…

Pro-West was recognized at the 2020 Esri Partner Conference with Esri’s Web GIS Transformation Award. Pro-West president Kendis Scharenbroich and Business Development Manager Brandon Tourtelotte were at the Esri Partner Conference in Palm Springs to accept the award on behalf of Pro-West’s team. The award acknowledges Pro-West’s ability to serve its clients with high quality web GIS solutions…

Pro-West is building up to our home state’s GIS conference, MN GIS/LIS Consortium’s Annual Conference, this year moving to St Cloud’s River’s Edge Conference Center and taking place October 2-4. The Pro-West team will be out in force for the 3-day event, sharing projects and technical updates through presentations, connecting at our exhibit booth and…

For many communities, the annual flood season is reaching its peak, with GIS playing a more critical role than ever in flood mitigation and planning efforts. In the Red River Valley, where flooding has had a devastating impact in past years, local government organizations are deploying customized, interactive applications based on the ArcGIS platform to…

Pro-West & Associates today announced the retirement of President & CEO, Annette Theroux, and promotion of Vice-President of Programs, Kendis Scharenbroich, to the role. Ms. Scharenbroich, of Bemidji, MN, joined Pro-West as a GIS Project Manager 17 years ago and became Vice-President in 2009. In her current role she has been responsible for leading hundreds…

Annette Theroux A: I returned to college in my 30s and was intent on a career that invigorated me. I naturally gravitated towards geography. Organizing the world through location and using maps to tell the story made sense! A rich and engaging endeavor – I was hooked. Although, I must admit, just plotting color thematic…

Baxter Elementary School’s (in Baxter, MN) 4th grade classes celebrated GIS Day November 14th, when students learned about the importance of geography, maps and geographic information systems. The GIS Day celebrations were led by local GIS small business Pro-West & Associates, whose Solutions Engineer, Kyle Wikstrom, partnered with the 4th grade teachers to share with their students…

Attendees came from organizations around the state to join the event and discover how to power organizational success using GIS technology. Topics of discussion included field mobility, enterprise GIS implementation, leadership engagement, public access to data, and a focus on efficient land records management that covered value analysis, system integration, and ArcGIS Online-based solutions such…