Tom Patterson

Industry Specialist—Wildland Fire, Search and Rescue, and Mobile

Mr. Patterson has served as the wildland fire specialist for Esri since 2006. His primary responsibilities include understanding the critical issues and challenges facing federal, state, local, and tribal agencies involved in wildland fire suppression and management and applying geospatial technology to solve these challenges.

Professional Experience

• Retired from U.S. Department of the Interior after 30 years with the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
• National park ranger responsible for law enforcement, search and rescue, emergency medical services, and wildland fire suppression in Richmond National Battlefield Park, Virginia; Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Pennsylvania; and Joshua Tree National Park, California
• Founding member of Joshua Tree Search and Rescue Team
• Detailed to U.S. Forest Service Redding Interagency Hotshot Crew
• Fire management officer, Joshua Tree National Park, and deputy chief, BLM California Desert District
• Developed techniques for using GPS with mobile GIS applications for real-time mapping of ongoing wildfires and searching for lost hikers in wilderness areas; cadre member of national GPS for Fire Management training course
• Qualified as incident commander type III and GIS technical specialist on Type II Incident Management Team
• Member of San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department Incident Support Unit

Education

• Bachelor of science in administration of criminal justice—Virginia Commonwealth University