Christian Brown, the Program Coordinator and staff assistant for NCGIA and CSISS recently made a “shocking” announcement: “The end of Onward!? Perhaps, at least for a short time. (In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, Onward! is my group email list.). You see, after 7.5 years at this here job, I’ve decided it’s time to move on. My last day will be Friday, July 7th. Then, on Monday, July 10th, I will begin apprenticing as an electrician. Yeah, major change.”
Our Web Manager, Guylene Gadal, comments that: Christian Brown is a fine outstanding gentleman and we wish him the best as he moves on to a new career as an Electrician. Although, I have only known Christian for a few months, his enthusiasm and positive outlook on life will be truly missed by me as well as his friends here at UCSB. When I asked Christian to share more information for this article, he said to include rainbows and unicorns and indicated that over the past couple of months he was “hell-bent on catching every minute of the Stanley Cup playoffs.” Yep, we’ll miss Christian’s sense of humor as well!
“Shocking — what will we do ‘post-Christian’?” commented Program Director Don Janelle. “The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science has depended totally on this guy. For starters, on behalf of CSISS programs over the past 6 years, Christian has (by my estimates) corresponded with more than 1,500 applicants for CSISS programs, arranged for more than 600 stipends for workshop participants, reimbursed travel expenses for about 1,000 trips (half from Mike Goodchild), set up dozens of multi-day specialist-meetings at the Upham Hotel, kept several Santa Barbara restaurants in business with large-group sit-down meals, organized dozens of NCGIA brown bag extravaganzas and Goleta beach BBQs, supplied all of the paper clips and sundry needs of NCGIA operations, purchased tons of equipment (most of which he refused to discard), and helped dozens of NCGIA visiting scholars and GIS junkies– finding them office space and places to live while in paradise. In his new career, I’m sure that Christian will continue to exhibit the spark for electrifying contributions. Thank you, Christian.”
