Sophie Ryder GIS Specialist

Personal Details
Name Sophie Ryder D.O.B. 12/12/1981

e-mail sophieeryder@googlemail.com

Skills

•2 years professional experience in GIS

•Experience using OS data e.g. MasterMap, Raster maps, AddressPoint
•Experience using flood plain data supplied by EA
•Excellent GIS experience with MapInfo, ArcGIS, Northgate Blue8 xd
•Beginners Developer Skills in VBA, VBScript, VB.NET, VB6, MapBASIC, SQL
•Advanced data mining skills with Crystal Reports
•GeoDatabase experience with MS Access, Oracle 10g, ArcSDE
•Understanding and use of the geodemographic dataset MOSAIC
•GIS Analysis skills in producing hotspot, thematic and temporal mapping
•Experience of project management using PRINCE2 project methods
•Experienced in presenting analysis to senior management
•Excellent report writing skills

Qualifications

Qualification Date Location

BSc (Hons) IT Systems Management (2:2) 05/07 UCLAN
HND Computing (Software Engineering) 06/05 Lakes College West Cumbria
NVQ Level 2 Engineering Operations 06/02 Norton Radstock Col. (Somerset)
A-Levels (Bus. Stud., Gen. Stud.) 2 x D 06/00 Keswick School

Work Experience

October 2007 to Present

Sophie Ryder GIS Specialist

Systems Support Analyst, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service

•Provide support for internal systems, in particular GIS
•Produce geographical analysis to enhance understanding of tabular data
•Manage relational databases from sources including MS Access, Oracle
and SQL Server using tools such as Crystal Reports.

My role at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service ranged from supporting

the information management systems in place to extracting and
analysing data. The variety of work I was asked to undertake meant
that at any time I could be working on several tasks of very different
nature from taking support calls to resolve an issue from fire crews
about incident data management systems, providing hotspot mapping
analysis to target areas of high risk to producing a Crystal report for
managers to see a summary of the past 24 hours.

I often use SQL for my role to interrogate relational databases using

tools such as Crystal Reports and Access. I also use SQL to
interrogate geographical information such as to extract data from within
certain areas using MapInfo and other emergency services specialist
GIS. An example of this would be to extract incident data from
MOSAIC postcode polygons. I would then go on to analyse this using
cross-tabs to show the lifestyle types most at risk to certain types of
incidents.

It is my responsibility to ensure the data I extract is fit for purpose. I

cleanse the data to remove any carriage returns as well as check any
geocodes to ensure the data is geographically correct.

As the fire service is one of the main agencies involved in flood

planning I have done some analysis using flood plain data from the
Environment Agency. Tasks I am often involved in are extracting
records of at risk properties such as hospitals, nursing homes and
schools to allow an emergency planning strategy to be created in case
of a flood.

Further to this role I am also appointed project manager for the

corporate gazetteer project. The project aim is to provide one source
of addresses for the whole organisation. For this role I have had formal
PRINCE2 training to help provide a successful solution. I give regular
board meetings and interact with several external sources giving
updates, presentations and writing reports.

June 2007 to September 2007

GIS Data Capture Technician, Carlisle City Council

•Quality check planning data captured by external source
Sophie Ryder GIS Specialist

•Use internal data sources to capture data external company were unable
to do

During this role I was tasked with checking the data returned from an
external data capture company using ESRI ArcMap. I quality assured
the data the company was able to capture as well as searching through
all planning records held by the council that were not available to the
data capture company. This included computer records, hard-copy
paper files and microfische. The data produced would be a geographic
layer to show areas where planning permission had been granted,
rejected and/or completed. This would then allow the planning team to
quickly decide on other planning applications without having to sort
through and read many files.

As part of this role meant the creation of datasets I used ArcSDE to

create and manage several datasets for the data capture task. This
included defining parameters for the datasets, adding metadata to the
datasets and managing permissions for each layer. I also used
MapBASIC to perform tasks such as converting multi-points to single
points.

April 2007 to June 2007

LLPG/GIS Officer (temporary to cover sick-leave), Carlisle City Council

•Maintain the LLPG for Carlisle City Council
•Provide GIS support to users within the council
•Provide daily change only update reports to the NLPG hub
Responsibilities for this role included adding and changing records in
the address database to BS7666 standard using Plantech Acolaid
software. As the council is contracted to providing daily updates to the
NLPG hub it was my duty to extract all records that had been added or
changed and send this file to the hub.

As part of the role was also GIS officer I was also responsible for
providing training and support to other GIS users within the
organisation. This meant answering queries on the use of GIS tools
and ensuring each department had a member of staff trained to use
basic GIS functions. This is critical as the increasing implementation of
intranet mapping meant GIS tools were available to access from any
computer connected using ArcIMS. I did gain some experience with
managing the higher level aspects of maintaining the intranet mapping
by modifying the layers available to users and their default display
properties using XML.

Other Employment

Location Role Date

Trespass, Keswick Sales Assistant 12/2006 – 04/2007
Sophie Ryder GIS Specialist

Carlisle City Council GIS/LLPG work experience 07/2006 – 10/2006

Luca’s Ristorante Waitress 08/2003 – 08/2006
Polamco Ltd. Engineering apprentice 09/2001 – 12/2002

Interests
Travelling - I have travelled to a number of places round the world such as
Canada and the USA as well as many places in Europe and would love to
experience more diverse cultures in the future.

DIY - I'll try to fix something before sending it off or replacing it. I like to open
things up and see how things work. I’ve built several PCs for myself in the
past but I’ll have a go at fixing anything up.

Technology – I try to keep up to date with the latest technologies. I am

especially interested in mobile phones as the rate of change in that area is so
fast paced there’s always something new to see.

Referees

Name Address Phone

Paul Terry Merseyside Fire and Rescue 0151 296 4000
Services, Bridle Road, Bootle,
Merseyside, L30 4YD
Marion 4-5 Paternoster Row, Carlisle, 01228 592666
Jones Cumbria CA3 8TB