Experience

The Water Institute

• United States
• Non-profit Organizations
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Director of Product Strategy

  • Nov 2022 - Present

  Asheville, North Carolina, United States https://thewaterinstitute.org/media/press-releases/jeff-hicks-joins-the-water-institute-as-director-of-product-strategy



Fernleaf

• United States
• Environmental Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Chief Innovation Officer

  • Jul 2022 - Nov 2022

  Asheville, North Carolina, United States

• CEO

  • Apr 2014 - Jul 2022

  Asheville, North Carolina Area I am the co-founder and CEO of FernLeaf Interactive, the private-sector side of the NEMAC+FernLeaf public-private partnership.



NEMAC+FernLeaf

• CEO

  • Jan 2018 - Jul 2022

  Asheville, North Carolina I lead NEMAC+FernLeaf, a public-private partnership formed between UNC Asheville's NEMAC and FernLeaf Interactive. We use data to empower communities and companies to make the right investments for effective resilience and adaptation. Our team co-developed the Steps to Resilience with NOAA—the Federal resilience process for understanding risk and building resilience to climate threats. We have partnered with Esri to tailor this process to the local government level on the ArcGIS… Show more I lead NEMAC+FernLeaf, a public-private partnership formed between UNC Asheville's NEMAC and FernLeaf Interactive. We use data to empower communities and companies to make the right investments for effective resilience and adaptation. Our team co-developed the Steps to Resilience with NOAA—the Federal resilience process for understanding risk and building resilience to climate threats. We have partnered with Esri to tailor this process to the local government level on the ArcGIS platform. Our collaborative actively supports local-scale community resilience directly or in partnership with A&E firms throughout the United States. Our collaborative produces AccelAdapt, a software product that delivers affordable and regularly updating climate exposure and vulnerability assessments for a full range of climate and weather threats. Show less



JMH Consulting

• Principal

  • Feb 2014 - Dec 2017

  Asheville, North Carolina Through JMH Consulting, I have been taking time to pursue projects that I find fun and interesting. I have been focusing primarily in the areas of: + geographic data visualization and map viewer technology; + scalable geographic data processing and service architecture in the AWS cloud platform; + and technical patent analysis. Some key accomplishments at JMHC: + I have been immensely fortunate to have co-developed the geographic component of the Climate… Show more Through JMH Consulting, I have been taking time to pursue projects that I find fun and interesting. I have been focusing primarily in the areas of: + geographic data visualization and map viewer technology; + scalable geographic data processing and service architecture in the AWS cloud platform; + and technical patent analysis. Some key accomplishments at JMHC: + I have been immensely fortunate to have co-developed the geographic component of the Climate Resilience Toolkit announced by Vice President Biden on 11/17/2014. Specifically, I worked with Mark Phillips at NEMAC to build the Climate Explorer and the underlying station data processing program, and we benefited massively from the interface design help from David Stroud at NOAA. + I have written several DevOps tools and helped manage migrating large proprietary geographic databases from hardware servers into scalable and cost-saving open source cloud stacks (for the curious: PostGIS on top of Amazon's RDS). + I have been focused on R&D recently for migrating large numbers of geographic services from the processing-intensive WMS protocol to storage-intensive (but cheap) pre-rendered tiles. I have built an early prototype that removes the middle tier entirely by leveraging Amazon's CDN, CloudFront (thanks to Nathan Batson for the reminder about CF and related conversations over coffee). Early tests show image latency has been reduced from a 2-3 second response with WMS to around a 50ms response with pre-rendered tiles at a trivial cost (<$1.00) per year. + As a bit of a stochastic jump, I have also worked on several technical patent analysis projects. I have touched on many areas - from portfolio mining and claim charting, to (here's that aforementioned "fun and interesting" part) evidence gathering and reverse engineering focused in the field of video game technology. Show less



Locus Technologies

• United States
• Software Development
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Software Engineer

  • Oct 2011 - Feb 2014

  Asheville, North Carolina Area Lead client-side integration engineer on the Locus Cloud Platform for environmental enterprise resource planning. I am responsible for: + architecture strategy with a focus on performance, UX, and extensibility; + building innovative client-side plugins for intuitive visual configuration modeling and run-time rendering; + developing Java REST APIs and utilities for system configuration and data interaction; + and the jQuery AJAX interface between the API and UI… Show more Lead client-side integration engineer on the Locus Cloud Platform for environmental enterprise resource planning. I am responsible for: + architecture strategy with a focus on performance, UX, and extensibility; + building innovative client-side plugins for intuitive visual configuration modeling and run-time rendering; + developing Java REST APIs and utilities for system configuration and data interaction; + and the jQuery AJAX interface between the API and UI tiers. Addendum: I have departed from Locus with a very positive impression of the group and an optimistic outlook on the direction the company is headed. I cannot thank them enough for the opportunities for growth during my many years there and wish them the best of luck moving forward.

• Geospatial IT Consultant

  • Jul 2008 - Oct 2011

  Independent contractor developing several web-based geographic solutions for Locus Technologies including: + engineering a server-side dynamic GIS interpolation and contouring program to visualize groundwater chemistry data; + combining several core map functions into one reusable map library API that enables rapid map deployment into multiple Locus applications; + designing a streamlined map UI for a new EPA site search application built on the map library; + and… Show more Independent contractor developing several web-based geographic solutions for Locus Technologies including: + engineering a server-side dynamic GIS interpolation and contouring program to visualize groundwater chemistry data; + combining several core map functions into one reusable map library API that enables rapid map deployment into multiple Locus applications; + designing a streamlined map UI for a new EPA site search application built on the map library; + and writing several new map features including an object-oriented "spider diagram" feature that allows for multiple floating graphs to be associated with map locations.



University of North Carolina Asheville

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Geospatial Software Engineer

  • Nov 2006 - Oct 2011

  Support NEMAC’s business model to translate temporal and spatial data into decisions by: + co-designing a MODIS data-based forest early warning system in partnership with the US Forest Service (USFS) Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center and NASA Stennis Space Center at all levels including experimental automated threat detection logic design, online threat asset tool coding, GIS data preparation, creative satellite and forest phenology concept communication, and project… Show more Support NEMAC’s business model to translate temporal and spatial data into decisions by: + co-designing a MODIS data-based forest early warning system in partnership with the US Forest Service (USFS) Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center and NASA Stennis Space Center at all levels including experimental automated threat detection logic design, online threat asset tool coding, GIS data preparation, creative satellite and forest phenology concept communication, and project branding and graphic design; + leading information design, cartography, layout, and forest science communication for a collaborative effort with the USFS to author a Western North Carolina Report Card on Forest Sustainability; + pioneering experimental research to integrate Bayesian predictive statistical networks into a geographic framework; + creating methods to display geographic data in fully interactive 3D visualization environments using video game technology; + designing geographic data-graphics and environmental visualizations for a variety of contexts including outreach materials for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Renaissance Computing Institute, museum installations for the Colburn Earth Science Museum and the Swannanoa Valley Museum, and maps to support regional planning charettes at the Southwestern Commission and Land of Sky regional councils of government; + communicating NEMAC’s work through publications and audience-appropriate presentations at public fora, specialized technical meetings and larger user conferences; + mentoring several student interns and undergraduate researchers in GIS analysis, 3D modeling, graphic design, web coding, animation, and computer programming; + and serving as UNC Asheville university admissions liaison for NEMAC. Show less