Hello World!

Hi! I’m Charlie Hofmann, the geographer/data junkie/wannabe programmer behind Mapping Vermont. I currently work as a GIS analyst in VT, and am hoping to use this blog as an opportunity to get outside my esri comfort zone. I’ll be putting together webmaps and graphics with Leaflet and D3, while trying to develop some sense of design/style along the way.

In addition to improving my programming skills, I hope to dig deeper into Vermont culture and history. I grew up in Grafton, VT, and have always been fascinated by the diverse landscapes across the state. I attribute a great deal of this interest to my place-based elementary school education and to one particular local history-obsessed teacher. In the time before widespread standardized testing, we often wandered around town, visiting the historical society and hearing stories about life in Grafton long ago.

Most posts here will likely skew more toward the technical rather than the local history side. While I realize that using Javascript to pull data from a Google Spreadsheet into Leaflet might not captivate the Vermont history audience, I hope that the resulting webmap will be of interest. We’ll see.

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