Luke Hester,

GIS Specialist

Specialties: Spatial analysis, GIS, site selection, LiDAR data collection and processing, Part 107 licensed drone pilot, mitigation site assessment, stream and wetland design, geomatics, hydrology, data collection apps, remote sensing, photogrammetry, story maps

Mr. Luke Hester earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of North Georgia in Environmental Spatial Analysis. On top of his degree, he also earned certificates in Geographic information science and Fundamentals of spatial analysis from the University of North Georgia. He spent the last four years working solely in mitigation banking across Georgia and Tennessee. He is a FAA Part 107 licensed drone pilot and has flown and processed over 5,000 acres of LiDAR and photogrammetry data. He has automated stream and wetland site selection tools that assess the feasibility of mitigation sites on a HUC4 scale. Mr Hester has experience in map production, cartography, assessing sites, automating workflows, calculating credit generation, photogrammetry, volumetric analysis, terrain analysis, archydro tools, watershed assessments, and classifying land cover using aerial imagery. He is proficient with various GIS, remote sensing, and hydrologic data processing programs such as ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, Agisoft Metashape, Pix4d, Carlson Survey, LP360, and Rivermorph. He has completed NC State River Course 101. He Has been married for 5 years. His hobbies include hunting, fishing, dendrology, and traveling.