Hannah Staples has been with City Light for five years. Starting out as a college intern in her first year, Hannah moved between a few temporary positions before moving into a permanent role with the Spatial Analytics team within Geographic Information System (GIS) Services as a GIS Analyst.
“I was born and raised in Bremerton, which is just a quick ferry ride from Seattle. Growing up, making a visit to Seattle was always a special occasion and I have loved making Seattle my home! I have thought about moving to other cities, but being around water, mountains, and forest all feel necessary to me and it’s hard to find that combination anywhere else!”
In this week’s (spot)Light, Hannah shares more about her work at City Light, her creative hobbies, and her life in Wallingford.
“Very simply put, I make maps. Basically, if there is any type of data that has a location associated with it, I can analyze that data and create interactive web maps that help various business units at the utility gain more insight into their data. Some examples of work I’ve completed in the past include an interactive map of the crossover between poles of a particular height and scenic routes, maps exploring the relationship between various demographic data and Utility Discount Program customers, and work with the Streetlight group to create a map that allows their contractors to spatially update what streetlights they are working on.”
“My husband and I have been living in Wallingford for four years now. We love walking around the neighborhood and enjoying the beautiful residential streets. It’s also lovely to be walking distance from coffee shops and bakeries! I love getting involved in anything creative when I’m not working. Lately that has been photography and painting. I also make and sell jewelry and run my own small business. Outside of art, I spend a lot of time going to dog parks with my golden retriever, Maisie, and I love to go camping, especially in Olympic National Park. My husband and I actually got married at the first place we ever camped together! It was the Staircase campground.”
“I attended four different college campuses when I was studying undergrad. I started out at Western Washington University thinking I would major in Behavioral Neuroscience. I then transferred to UW Tacoma to major in Social Work and ended up graduating from UW Seattle with a bachelor’s in environmental science and Resource Management. In college I had the opportunity to intern with City Light and I quickly found that I enjoyed the work I was doing, and I met so many great people that I have been here ever since!”
“I am so grateful that I’ve met so many wonderful individuals at City Light and having great support from co-workers and supervisors makes for a great work environment. I also appreciate that City Light values maintaining a healthy work/life balance.”