Seth Sarakaitis

“The world needs great basemaps.” This has been Seth’s mantra since beginning of his career. For the last 24 years he has listened to and followed this quest to power the world with basemaps. This journey has landed Seth as the team lead, building and maintaining Esri’s basemaps as part of the Living Atlas of the World.

Seth began his career mapping utilities, converting stacks of paper maps to GIS data and many tiring miles of field mapping with a GPS on his back. Early in his career he developed this desire for the ultimate basemap for presenting information on a digital map and continues this through to today.

Seth currently manages the basemap data team for Esri and runs the Community Maps Program. This position allows Seth to work together with the world’s best cartographers designing the data needs for basemaps. He works with a team of amazing data analysts to model databases with billions of features and design and develop geo-processing tools and workflows. Seth enjoys interacting with his Community Maps contributors demonstrating the Editor App and developing and coaching his team.

Seth has a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography from Elmhurst College Illinois and presently holds Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.