Petra has over 21 years experience in training and teaching. As Training Manager at ESRI (UK) for 4 years, Petra has taught ArcGIS introductory and bespoke application courses, management overview courses and conducted "Train the Trainer" sessions. Development of training strategies has formed part of the role, as well as leading Training Needs Analysis (TNA) workshops, developing competency assessments and managing the training programme for many large projects.

Prior to ESRI (UK), Petra worked at the global internet security company, Baltimore Technologies, presenting and facilitating training courses and workshops to international clients who were responsible for implementing secure systems over the internet. Petra has travelled to and worked in many parts of the world including Singapore, where she lived and worked as a teacher for 4 years, and in Argentina, designing and developing GIS courses for a bespoke GIS Highway Planning and Management project.

Petra loves to be creative, and tries to make time for craftwork and music. She has a passion for being outside, enjoying nature and physical exercise in all weathers! Her growing children keep her very busy too!

Mark has worked as a training consultant for ESRI (UK) since early 2001. Previously he worked for 2 years as a developer and trainer for Global Mapping Solutions Ltd. During this time he also trained for ESRI (UK).

He teaches many of the ArcGIS desktop courses, including the introductory courses, Building Geodatabases, Cartography in ArcGIS and Geoprocessing. He also teaches OS MasterMap, ProAddress and ProTerritory. He is a qualified technical author and enjoys writing and developing courses and documentation. Mark is a Senior Member of the Institute for IT Training (SIITT).

Mark has 18 years experience as a military surveyor during which he worked on various photogrammetric and mapping tasks. After leaving the military he worked for a major UK travel company and a small reprographics business before becoming a GIS instructor at the Royal School of Military Survey.

He is widely traveled and suffers from severe wanderlust. This gives him chance to practice his photography, listen to music and worry about his garden back at home.

Tim is an ESRI (UK) Training Consultant with nearly 20 years experience in IT development (largely using Assembler and C on mainframe platforms) and IT Training in the UK and abroad. He has also carried out statistical analysis for National Government and spent three years teaching maths up to A Level in secondary schools, but don't let that put you off!

Having been with ESRI (UK) since 2005, he teaches the Introduction to ArcGIS courses, ArcFM, Introduction to ArcGIS for Crime and the Crime Analyst Extension. He has also developed and delivered bespoke training for some of ESRI's customers in Government and the Utilities industry as well as looking into ways of integrating e-learning into our portfolio.

Outside of work he can be found taking photos and spending hours on Photoshop trying to make them look the way he intended (is it art or is it cheating - you decide!). He's also been known to draw cartoons when he's not playing lego with his kids, listening to music or walking in the countryside.

Ed first started using ESRI products during his Masters in GIS at University College London in 1993 and then as a GIS Officer at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Ed has been with ESRI (UK) since 1997 and is based in Consultancy Services at the Cambridge office. Ed has been involved in a wide number of consultancy projects including both Local and Central Government sectors. His main area of expertise is with ArcGIS Desktop and ArcPad, especially customisation using VB6, C#.Net and ArcObjects; or VBScript / JScript.

Ed has been a training instructor since 2002 and is currently an accredited ArcObjects instructor. Ed has also written a number of courses including "Basic Customising of ArcGIS", "Using ArcPad" and also "ArcPad Application Builder".

In his spare time Ed enjoys many types of sport, especially football and cricket. Ed is also a 2nd Dan in Shotokan Karate and is a part time karate instructor at Royston Karate Club. He is also an avid collector of records, specialising in Queen and claims to have over 600 singles in his collection!

Rob McPherson has worked for ESRI (UK) since 2001. Prior to this he had 18 years commercial IT experience with several leading UK companies. Much of this work involved relational databases and the last 3 years prior to joining ESRI (UK) was spent working with ArcSDE/ArcView. He teaches the ArcSDE administration courses for SQL server and Oracle and works as a database consultant on projects for a number of ESRI (UK)'s clients. He also has extensive experience in data migration and management and has recently worked with geoprocessing and data interoperability models and Geodatabase design using ESRI case tools.

Outside work Rob is a keen cyclist, orienteer and an enthusiastic dad. He also struggles to keep an allotment under control.

Matt began working with GIS and ESRI products in 1995 and joined ESRI (UK) in 2000 as a member of the consultancy team based in Newbury.

Matt has experience with requirements analysis, system design and development projects. He is experienced in Desktop and Server development specialising in the ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server products.

Matt started using GIS whilst still serving in the Armed Forces producing maps of military operations throughout the world. Once he completed his service he joined a small GIS company that was later purchased by ESRI (UK). Since then he has worked with Government agencies writing data capture tools, Car manufacturers carrying out Requirements Analysis and software development, National Mapping Agencies creating server applications and finally insurance companies producing system designs and implementations to name but a few.

In his free time Matt likes to find any excuse to go sailing, power boating and spending as much time teaching his one year old son how to fly traction kites.

Ming has been working with GIS from his second year at Durham University when he was mapping eco-systems and modelling their behaviour. The maps he produced were pretty and he quite enjoyed himself wasting the university's A0 paper as he plotted off maps and stuff. An MSc in GIS at Edinburgh and then it was off to find work. Ming landed a job with a international development consultancy that utilised his GIS skills in far-flung places such as Guyana, Tanzania, Lesotho and Estonia to name four places. The overseas work gave him lots of experience in developing GI systems for land and environmental mangement and an appreciation of how GIS can be an immensely powerful tool to assist in the decision making process at the international level. This was also the time he was exposed to ArcIMS and ArcSDE.

In July 2001, he joined ESRI (UK) and carried on his interest in ArcIMS and ArcSDE as a consultant in the Internet Services Group. This group allowed Ming to develop skills in delivering enterprise ArcIMS solutions, performance tuning, troubleshooting and delivering an enterprise GI system was all in his daily task list. Ming now teaches the ArcIMS Administration course.

From January 2006, Internet Services Group has moved in the the UKPG where Ming is now managing the Operations Team and working closely with clients and stakeholders on ArcIMS and web services related projects.

Ming has a wide range of interests that include cross country running, photography, online-gaming, salsa (dancing and eating) and football. He is also an active member of the UK based disaster mapping charity, MapAction where he has assisted in the disaster relief work in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and recently, Indonesia.

Mike has ten years experience in the use and implementation of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). He started his career with ESRI in 2002 as a member of the ESRI (UK) Consultancy Team working on a number of large, ArcGIS-based projects on behalf of the Forestry Commission. These have included systems for maintaining forest roads, predicting likely cash flows and visualisation modelling of forests in the future. Mike now works as a Product Specialist for the ESRI Inc. ArcEngine team and teaches the 'Introduction to Programming ArcObjects with VBA' course.

Before joining ESRI (UK) Mike worked as a GIS lecturer at the University of Newcastle, then as a Senior Planning Analyst for the Glasgow & Clyde Valley Structure Plan. During this time he developed a strong background on GIS theory, analysis and application development.

Mike is a keen rock climber, snow-boarder and hiker and has travelled extensively in pursuit of these hobbies.

Guenter, a native of Germany, first started to work with GIS applications during his Biology degree at the University of Bayreuth. Further in his academic life he used ESRI products to analyse and display plant distributions for his DPhil thesis at the University of Oxford. For this he investigated spatial patterns of higher plant successions on glacier forelands in Norway.

He then became an IT Trainer teaching a variety of courses for SAS Institute for 5 years before joining ESRI (UK) in Aylesbury in mid 2005.

He currently teaches Introduction to ArcGIS I, Introduction to ArcGIS II, Introduction to ArcIMS and ArcFM based courses for the Utilities sector with a view of getting involved in some of the programming courses using ArcObjects and the more advanced ArcIMS courses.

In his leisure time he enjoys looking after his two little girls, photography, music and sports.

Alan has been with ESRI (UK) for over 11 years and in that time has worked in the Technical Services and Consultancy Services groups. His area of expertise is within the RDBMS and ArcSDE arenas including installation, configuration and troubleshooting both environments. Alan has also worked with our ArcGIS extension Data Interoperability and Geoprocessing.

Before joining ESRI (UK) Alan worked at the University of Hertfordshire within the Division of Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a Senior lab technician providing technical advice to students and academic staff.

Alan's past times include badminton, cooking and gardening.

Mark is based in the Newbury office. He has worked for ESRI UK since 2004 in Consultancy Services and specialises in project work involving systems, database design and ArcObjects development.

Prior to working for ESRI, Mark worked for a small GIS company specialising in vehicle tracking applications and public transport information systems.

Most of Mark's spare time is taken up by his young family; he has 2 girls and a boy all under the age of 4!

He has a keen interest in how all things work (he likes to take things apart!). He has recently completed the restoration of a 1963 Lotus 7.

Chris first started working with GIS whilst completing a BA in Urban Studies at the University of Sheffield in 1994, a year later and a diploma in Town and Regional Planning under his belt Chris started work in a GIS department of a London borough.

Whilst there Chris became involved in the Crime Mapping Project, one of the first Local Authority and Police Partnerships in the UK to actively use GIS to map and analyse crime. During this time Chris completed his MSc in GIS from University College London, and his interest in Crime and Disorder grew.

In March 2003 Chris was invited to join ESRI Public Safety Unit with general consultant and training responsibilities. Chris developed and teaches the Introduction to GIS for Crime course and the Crime Analyst extension course.

In his free time Chris attempts to perform DIY on a Victorian semi whilst thinking about how much more he would prefer to be out walking or mountain biking through Snowdonia.

Colin was brought up in East Africa. Then having studied in East Anglia to become a Land Surveyor, returned to Kenya where he worked for a survey company out of Nairobi, travelling on projects throughout Africa and the Middle East.

He then worked for a London based Geophysical exploration, company, using photogrammetry to make maps from air photos. The projects he worked on in London were still mostly to do with Africa and involved mineral and ground water prospecting.

As the systems became more computerised Colin became involved in digital mapping and then subsequently GIS. For the last 18 years he has worked on many projects using a wide range of ESRI products. During this time he has also been an ESRI trainer, he has worked on the customisation, preparation and delivery of training at the old Watford office, the new Aylesbury office and at customer sites.

Outside work Colin enjoys sailing golf and plays a mean game of badminton.

Jackie has been working with ESRI products since 1988. Her first introduction to ArcInfo was at San Diego State University, where she was completing her Masters Degree in Geography. On returning home she worked as a Research Associate at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne where she worked at the North East Regional Research Lab. Their remit was to widen the awareness of GIS across a range of industries.

In 1993, Jackie joined ESRI (UK) as a trainer. She has taught both introductory and Advanced courses in ArcInfo, ArcView and ArcGIS course. Later, she became Training Manager of ESRI (UK) and worked with the trainers to expand the range and quality of the training courses offered.

Since 2001, Jackie has continued to work in the field of GIS, and provides training courses for ESRI on a contractual basis. Courses taught include the Introduction to ArcGIS 1 and 2, and the Advanced Editing courses.

Jackie has a number of interests outside of work including tennis, kiln formed glass making, and more recently embarking on a lifetime ambition to learn to play the piano (badly!). She looks forward to meeting you on the courses.

Robert started training for ESRI (UK) in October 2004, and currently trains Introduction to ArcGIS 1 and 2, and Fundamentals of ERDAS IMAGINE. Before then he had delivered training for the European Space Agency on radar satellite imagery, and for the Highways Agency in Argentina on using an ArcView/Oracle customisation.

His background is in Environmental Sciences and Applied Remote Sensing, in which he gained degrees; he then managed projects using satellite imagery for land resource mapping and environmental monitoring in several countries including the UK, Yemen, Paraguay and Algeria. This work led him into using GIS, and he managed the implementation of a Highways Management GIS including national geospatial databases for Argentina. When not training he is a GIS Analyst for environmental applications.

Outside of work Rob likes to get more hands-on geographic information by running or going to wild places on skis or foot!

Cliff's introduction to GIS came during his undergraduate studies in Geography at the University of Nottingham. His interest in GIS developed during postgraduate studies at the University of London, where he first encountered ESRI's GIS software. He then spent several years working in Higher Education as a researcher and lecturer in Environmental Geography and GIS. During this time his focus was the use of GIS and Remote Sensing for environmental modelling and the management of natural resources.

Cliff then began applying GIS in the Local Government sector, working at a number of Authorities in the south of England. In various roles he developed and implemented corporate GIS strategies; ran several GIS research projects; and trained many "novice" GIS users.

In the summer of 2003 Cliff began working with ESRI (UK) and currently delivers a range of introductory courses and advanced courses.

Cliff's leisure pursuits include travel (an excuse for exotic holidays), aviation (getting to the exotic locations) and motor sport (a fast car to and from the airport)!