This week on The Geoholics, we sit down with Karen Schuckman, Subject Matter Expert in Remote Sensing and Geospatial Services at RRC Companies—and someone who has had a front-row seat to the evolution of modern lidar and airborne mapping.
Karen takes us back to the early days of airborne GPS, before IMUs became standard, and shares how she helped develop groundbreaking data-processing workflows following Hurricane Floyd and supported North Carolina’s pioneering statewide lidar program. We also explore her work supporting major FEMA initiatives, her passion for positional accuracy and data quality, and the continued importance of understanding geodesy, datums, projections and metadata.
This conversation goes well beyond lidar. Karen shares valuable lessons about:
Turning emerging technology into trusted, defensible deliverables
Why industry standards and ASPRS guidance matter
The fundamentals professionals still cannot afford to overlook
Helping engineers effectively use survey-grade geospatial data
What lidar’s evolution can teach us about AI, automation and digital twins
The mindset required to adapt, evolve and stay relevant in a rapidly changing profession
We also discuss what even experienced professionals still misunderstand about lidar, which technologies never lived up to the hype, and what continues to excite Karen after more than two decades of pushing the geospatial profession forward.
Oh—and did we mention Karen was an alternate gymnast for the 1972 Olympics? This episode delivers history, technology, education and one incredible career journey.
Buckle up for Episode 283 and join us as we add value, make friends and explore how accurate geospatial data gets to the right place on the ground.
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