Cartographic Technician

The incumbent of this position serves as a Cartographic Technician with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Digitizing Center, in Madison, Wisconsin and is responsible for digitizing soil surveys to meet the National Cartographic standards for Soil Survey Geographic Data Base (SSURGO).

This is a full-time term appointment not to exceed 2 years, but the position may be extended up to 4 years.

Duties:

• Develop resource layers using both scanning and manual digitizing.
• Digitize area, line, and point features from soil survey layers at various scales and from various source documents.
• Follow agency standards and guidelines to produce accurate and precise digital reproduction of source documents.
• Generate digital soil maps with various software products such as ARCGIS, ARC/INFO, ArcView, and Orthomapper.
• Work in a Windows operating system environment.
• Utilize ARCGIS software to clean, label, and merge scanned and digitized files.
• Join and edge match digitized soil survey files.
• Register layers to proper coordinates (e.g., UTM or Datum).
• Create digital information and GIS cartographic products.
• Move large complex data sets across the network and write data to tapes and CD ROM’s.
• Maintain daily records of time distribution and work accomplishments.
• Perform quality control checks to make sure data is captured correctly. Make corrections to digital files to resolve problems noted in quality control reviews.
• Work with technical and professional staff at the Digitizing Center and professional staff at several other State and regional offices to solve data problems. Support and participate in Civil Rights (CR) program activities.