Meet Ohio Employee Robert "Bob" Parkinson

State GIS/Resource Inventory Coordinator & Geodata Administrator
Columbus, Ohio
 

Since June 12, 1972, State GIS/Resource Inventory Coordinator Robert “Bob” Parkinson has worked to provide a scientific inventory of the land, soil and related natural resources and then get it into an information system. As a soil scientist from 1972 to 1989, Bob has mapped over 370,000 acres in 5 Ohio counties and 20,000 acres in northern Alaska at the Prudhoe Bay oilfield. As a data manager, Bob served with 6 others on the initial SSURGO development task force -- dubbed “The SSURGO Seven” -- in 1995 and has managed the National Resources Inventory (NRI) for Ohio since 1990. Bob also serves as State Geodata Administrator, providing geodata support to all USDA service centers in Ohio. In his current position Bob says, “As State GIS Specialist, it’s exciting to see the rapid adoption of geospatial technology by NRCS, USDA and society at large.”

According to Parkinson, “Spending 17 years in the field mapping has given me the opportunity to train under some great mentors, map in some great places and work with a wide range of professionals from agronomists to zoologists. I was lucky to have also met a few Ohio soil surveyors from the 1930's and get some good anecdotes.” Bob has co-authored two Ohio soil survey reports, several research papers and worked on the Geo-botanical Atlas of the Prudhoe Bay Region. His master’s thesis was abstracted by the Soviet Academy of Science in 1980. In all those years in soil survey, while he commonly had wet boots, he only fell into a stream by accident once – “and that was doing NRI!”

In 2007, Bob served as an adjunct instructor at the Ohio State University School of Environment and Natural Resources teaching a course in Aerial Photo-Interpretation.

Recently, Parkinson used his computer skills and knowledge of soil history to create a popular PowerPoint presentation on the Dust Bowl, complete with music by Woody Guthrie.  Check it out by downloading it from the link on this page.

This document requires the Microsoft PowerPoint reader.

The Dust Bowl and Beyond (PowerPoint; 14 MB)

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