Karl Musser | Senior GIS Specialist | Straughan Environmental

Karl Musser has over 27 years of experience using GIS in urban and natural resource management applications. He has over 22 years of experience as a web developer. He is an experienced project manager and subject matter expert who brings his extensive experience with hardware, data, and software to Straughan’s team. Karl’s expertise with programs includes ArcGIS Suite (ArcGIS Pro, ArcMap, Spatial Analyst, Server, ArcGIS online, and Arc web application tools), IDRISI, GRASS, Google Earth, Tableau, Access, dBASE, Informix, Paradox, SAS, SQL, SAS Base, Shell Scripts, JavaScript, AutoCAD, Illustrator, Inkscape, and Photoshop. He also has recent experience with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) processes.

Relevant Experience

Resource Analysis Assessment and Policy Support for Resources Assessment Branch (RAB) and Resources Inventory Branch (RIB) GIS Lab | USDA NRCS | Prince George’s County, MD. Senior Analyst/Senior GIS Specialist/Project Manager responsible for designing and producing maps and performing GIS analysis for the Resource Inventory and Assessment Division (RIAD) of USDA NRCS totaling over 4,000 maps. Karl is the lead cartographer for the National Resources Inventory (NRI) and provided the graphics for every national NRI publication since 2001 resulting in over 1,000 maps. He has supported the NRI expansion into Alaska with both the survey design and the processing and reporting of the results. This also includes cartographic support to the Conservation Programs staff, providing over 1,200 program status maps. He provided the watershed ranking and prioritization used in the initial implementation of the Conservation Security Program (CSP). He produced maps for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 for the Office of the Vice President. Karl conducted Tribal Lands resource assessments in 2005, 2008, 2022, and 2024. Karl provided analysis on threatened and endangered species that utilized the NatureServe database and produced over 100 maps. He led the development of GIS layers and maps addressing the departmental priorities of climate smart agriculture, equity, and urban agriculture from 2019-2024, tracking over 300 county-level variables, this work received the Secretary Honor Award from USDA in 2024. He develops and documents new geographic data layers used in prioritizing the delivery of NRCS conservation services such as the rangeland soil vulnerability layer (rSVI). He develops web applications for data visualizations of geospatial products, including the use of emerging technologies such as Esri StoryMaps and Tableau. Karl conducts webinars and other presentations on the use of geospatial products and web applications to NRCS leadership. He was involved with the founding of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP), which assists NRCS scientists with presentations and publications analyzing the effects of conservation practices and works directly with NRCS conservation partners such as the US Forest Service, conservation districts, and Native American tribal entities. He conducted an analysis of all conservation practices on Public Lands in 2016. He assisted in the production of Resources Conservation Act (RCA) reports to Congress including the production of all NRCS RCA graphics in 2002 and 2011. Karl has been the lead web developer for the NRI, CEAP, and RCA websites and their precursors since 1997. These pages included dozens of individual web pages and over 300 publications. He produced the maps used by most of those publications. The RCA site includes the RCA data viewer, an interactive web application, which serves over 500 individual reports that are updated annually. He was involved in the design and production of both the data viewer and reports. He oversaw web modernization efforts and re-designs of the above sites to new web servers in 2004, 2011, and 2022, including the introduction of Tableau dashboards to the RCA data viewer. He designed the project management system used by the current RIAD contract which has tracked over 2,000 projects that have produced over 7,500 cartographic products since 2002. Karl oversees the maintenance of enterprise level databases used in the above projects, including the NRI and the National Planning and Agreements Database and involves regular quality control testing and analysis. He has prepared data for automation, AI and ML processes, and he manages junior GIS staff and database specialists on the same contract and reviews all analysis products, including documentation and metadata, before delivery to NRCS. Karl also represented NRCS at the Esri User Conference in 2010 and 2012 and the ESRI Federal User Conference in 2024.