Where Are They Now?

Graduates of Earth & Mineral Sciences (GEMS) Geography Representative Jose Cowen (B.S. '90) at Nextel Communications

GEMS Geography Representative
Jose Cowen

October 30, 2003

Jose Cowen (B.S. '90) represents the Geography alumni on the Graduates of Earth & Mineral Sciences (GEMS) Board of Directors. The GEMS alumni society is open EMS alumni who are members of the Penn State Alumni Association. Board Members serve three-year terms and attend two meetings each year at University Park to coordinate activities between departments in the College, networking with students, faculty, staff, and planning events for prospective students.

What kinds of work do you do as a Senior Analyst for Nextel Communications?

It's always difficult for geographers to find careers where job descriptions match exactly to what we do. It's not straightforward like accounting or engineering. However, it's getting easier now with GIS putting geography-related positions in the forefront.

I would call myself a GIS Analyst. I work in radio frequency engineering, so I work with electrical engineers to analyze cell site locations, coverage, antenna locations, and future tower sites. Before joining Nextel, I worked in demographics as a consultant to cell phone companies, analyzing where to put new towers. Now my job also involves working with people in marketing, sales, and management to create maps that justify why and where we should build new sites.

A map can really tell a thousand words, and companies are realizing that they need cartographers and people with good graphics skills to create these maps. Often, engineers and programmers need to be able to justify to senior level management why something should or should not be located in a particular place. It's really a question of presentation, and who can make a better case? Some engineers have mapmaking experience; but many of them are more analytical, thinking more in terms of numbers. GIS Analysts understand why, where, and can justify a better case monetarily as well.

Could you describe a project you've recently completed?

I recently worked in the Baltimore/Washington regional market analyzing network traffic usage. We try to analyze patterns to identify and help engineers balance traffic to eliminate the need to build new sites. We often deal with why people drop calls or encountered interference. I worked to figure out what events might cause spikes in network traffic. I looked at the data spatially instead of using lists and reports.

I also develop tools for telecommunications. We're building applications, using MapInfo, to simplify data where sites are having problems-along interstates, at stadiums, etc.-wherever problems cluster together. Then we can figure out a cell neighbor list. This can divert calls by transferring them to adjacent cell sites to avoid dropping calls. I worked to optimize how sites talk to each other by visualizing and quantifying the numbers of calls from site to site.

How did you discover geography? Why did you decide to major in geography?

Originally, I was an aerospace engineering major. I needed to change majors, but I still wanted to do something technical. Geography seemed creative and artistic but analytical too. It was an easy choice to make.

Now that people see GIS on the local news and use Mapquest, it's a lot easier to understand what geography is. I've volunteered at EMEX (EMS Exposition) talking to prospective students several times. It's fun to talk to people about opportunities in EMS. Some people are already interested in geography-maybe only two or three people per year-but even parents have a better sense about geography. They see digital maps in the war coverage and say, "Oh, yeah, OK, I get it".

What encouraged you to serve on the GEMS Board of Directors?

Actually, they called me about an opening on the Board. I was happy to do it because it's a great chance to come back, talk to prospective students, and meet with the faculty. It's a nice opportunity to share my real-life perspective with the faculty. We've been looking at changes in the curriculum to see what the needs are. We're looking at the world outside academia to match that real-world need. It's nice to come back and possibly have some answers to share.

Would you like to share any advice or words of wisdom to current geography students?

It's good to focus. You don't necessarily need a minor, but focus on something like programming courses or computer science. No matter what option you've chosen, you're going to be evaluating data. Ultimately, you'll need to automate, simplify, and customize products to your job.

Take a Visual Basics course or another scripting language course. It doesn't really matter which language you learn first, because there are only minor differences in the syntax. It's all about crunching numbers, whether you work with Census data, tree rings, across time and space, you need to be able to make your tools do what you want them to do.

You just have to be you. Understand your personal accountability. Meet your deadlines, and know how to communicate effectively with your customers. Even employees at entry-level positions have to talk to customers, and members of senior-level management, so it's important to be able to communicate effectively.

If you are interested in becoming a GEMS board member, or if you know someone who is, please contact us at gems@ems.psu.edu. We are interested in keeping our board membership diverse and are always looking for energetic, interested volunteers to bring their unique perspectives and ideas to our table. Please take advantage of this rewarding opportunity.