Bo Wilmer

Bo began his career in conservation geography as an undergraduate environmental studies and geography major at Middlebury College in VT, where he focused on geospatial analysis applications to conservation. His first job after college was at USGS in Anchorage, Alaska, where he digitized geologic maps, became deeply familiar with GIS software and technologies, and designed and taught the first graduate and undergraduate GIS curricula at Alaska Pacific University. He also started Ripple Technologies and published a geography textbook atlas for high schools in Alaska.

Recognizing the importance of applying such powerful tools to conservation and land management strategies, Bo completed a master’s degree in Forest Ecology at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, where he compared landscape patterns of human disturbance in the Targhee National Forest with the natural disturbance patterns of the 1988 Yellowstone fires.

Bo began working for The Wilderness Society’s Center for Landscape Analysis in 2000, where he designed geospatial analyses to understand ecosystems, identify threats and management challenges, and design conservation solutions for federal land management.

After 11 years at The Wilderness Society, Bo went on to serve as Natural Resources Program Manager at Critigen, now Locana, where he oversees delivery of geospatial solutions under national geospatial services contracts for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

In this capacity, he works directly with federal land management agencies to build national, scalable geospatial solutions to inform land management decisions with timely relevant authoritative data.  He fosters inclusive collaboration, from proposal development through project closeout. Throughout his career working with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, he has advocated for a more cohesive, scalable, and public geospatial strategy to inform land management decisions.