Mark Bruner

Introductions
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1

Name

Mark Bruner

Tell us about yourself

I am a data scientist who stumbled upon GIS work while doing a personal project for my familty to help us buy a new home. Since then I have started to work with local nonprofits in Cincinnati to help them develop low-cost gis and data solutions to help them apply to more grants and make a greater impact on the greenspaces in Cincinnati.

What do you want to learn / contribute

I am just starting my GIS journey and am a newbie so… everything :). I will contribute to documentation to start and participate in this group.

I need an OSGeo account for the following (ctrl+click all that apply)

Report a bug about osgeo, postgis, or osgeo4w, note other projects do not need an account
Publish a QGIS plugin (you do not need an account to download a plugin)
GeoForAll Participation
Create a repository or contribute to a repository on git.osgeo.org
Publish a new community project on osgeo.org

2

Welcome Mark. Have you used any osgeo software yet and any of particular interest to you.
If you haven’t explored the various OSGeo projects, this page might be a good place to start to see what interests you - Choose a project - OSGeo

3

Thanks robe! I will check it out. I am currently using QGIS which is connect to my postGIS database. I am then using QField to collect the geospatial data in the field. This is my current flow but am new to all this so if you have suggestions happy to learn. My use case is to plot the native planting restoration project in Cincinnati, Ohio for a local nonprofit. I will then create story maps to help communicate the impact of this work. Thanks again for the resource!

4

Sounds like you are off to a good start. If you have any questions about QGIS check out the QGIS US - OSGeo Discourse category. Lots of QGIS folks there ready to answer questions. @rjhale1971 runs a QGIS Meeting that I think meets every two weeks or so - the last one was this - Virtual QGIS Meeting May 19th 2026 - 12:00 EDT - #2 by rjhale1971.

On the PostGIS side, I wrote the most popular book on PostGIS - PostGIS in Action, Third Edition - Leo S. Hsu and Regina O. Obe and I’m working on a PostgreSQL book PostgreSQL: Up and Running, 4th Edition [Book] . As far as PostGIS help goes, we have a PostGIS mailing list, matrix chat change - which are listed here - Chat | PostGIS and Mailing Lists | PostGIS which you can find me hanging out in.

5

Thanks so much for all the references. I am going to try to make a meeting on QGIS, I will check out your books as well. Appreciate it!