Ken Bates is the GeoSpatial Extension Specialist at Kentucky State University currently focusing on extending the reach of GIS to students, faculty, researchers and extension staff in the College of Agriculture, Food Science and Sustainable Systems.
He holds a B.S. in Agriculture from the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture (1997) and postgraduate study in soils and geology.
Prior to Kentucky State University, Ken Bates has worked as a GIS user, manager, and consultant for the last 30 years. He is an expert in GIS and IT assessment, planning, design, and project support. In addition to his education and project experience with GIS, he has substantial experience with hands on GIS projects and was one of the first persons to receive the ESRI Desktop Associate Professional Certification (November 2010). In this capacity he provided technical and managerial support across agency and political boundaries, consulted with state, provincial, and national governments with specific focus on GIS application, data standards, business processes and end user training.
In the education and training arena, Ken has over 20 years experience as an Esri Authorized Instructor training thousands of students in the professional as well as academic environment, Ken now develops custom training programs for federal, state, and local government agencies, and the public at large. He also designed, organized and maintains hardware and software for KSU’s College of Agriculture, Food Science and Sustainable Systems GeoSpatial Education and Analysis Center consisting of 19 workstations, servers and a large format scanner/plotter.
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