GIS Tools, Following your Passions, and Being an Adrenaline Junkie with Nicolas Holm

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Nicolas Holm, entrepreneur about GIS Tools, Following your Passions, and Being an Adrenaline Junkie.  Read his full bio below.

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Showtimes:
2:29  Nic & Laura discuss EPR
8:27 Interview with Nicolas Holm Starts
17:17 GIS Tools
22:03 Following your Passions  
36:50  Being an Adrenaline Junkie

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Nicolas Holm at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-holm/

Guest Full Bio:
Nicolas is a self-taught GIS mastermind and lifetime entrepreneur. He is mission focused, having assembled and given away over 2000 free GIS tools, maps and dashboards for Defense, Public Safety, Oceans, Hydrology, Oil Spills, Natural Disasters, Geo-AI. Nicolas creates Centralized Intelligence platforms called GIS Superclusters for Earth surveillance, that transform data into decisions. His work is focused on helping others, by raising awareness around key issues and tackling climate change. He is multi-lingual, world citizen and traveler, yogi, gemstone photographer, pianist, drone pilot, windsurfer, horseman, expert skier. Nicolas is a proud and grateful father who can be found at home on a beach or mountain biking in nature.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Chapters

• 2:29 Nic & Laura discuss their Show
• 8:27 Interview with Nicolas Holm Starts
• 17:17 GIS Tools
• 22:03 Following your Passions
• 36:50 Being an Adrenaline Junkie

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Laura 
Hello and welcome to NPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Nic and I discuss the show. We talked to Nicholas home about GIS tools following your passions and being an adrenaline junkie. And finally, lunar moths do not have a mouth. They live for seven days and slowly starve to death Oh. During this time, males frantically fly long distances to mate with females. Once females lay eggs they die. Oh, so live free and diehard. Now,

Nic 
I have to say though, the reason I brought this up is because when I was reading about it, it said males had to fly long distances to meet with females if necessary. And I love the idea that they meant that no, they meant that for distance but what they actually what it reads as is like the meeting if necessary, you know, it's not really you have seven days to live. You live your life how you want to, could make babies, but you know what, it's your life. So that's the message I want to get across.

Laura 
is I can't imagine a life without eating. That's the sad part to me.

Nic 
They literally don't have they have no now.

Laura 
Anyway, play that music

[NAEP Event News]

Nic 
Registration is now open for any piece next advanced NEPA workshop on Wednesday, November 9 from 9am to 5:30pm Eastern time. These workshops are intended to provide participants with practical tips and tools about how to refine preparation and review of environmental documents prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. Check it out@www.hp.org 60% of listeners have bought something from a podcast and we are up to over 25,000 downloads with over 400 per episode. If you'd like to sponsor the show, please head on over to www dot environmental permissions radio.com and check out the sponsor forum for details. We will appreciate you immensely as you keep the show going for that. Let's get started.

[Nice & Laura discuss the Show]

Nic
How we met it was a starry night and that's funny because it's just like we've talked about it a little bit on the show before chemistry is something that you can't you just can't fake it just it's very real very very hard thing to get in if you have it. You have a pretty fun. I'm just glad it worked out or being like okay, I guess I'll do this thing with this lower person, whoever she is. And then yeah, I really should find the clip. I think I still have it somewhere where I'm like, t shirt and I'm like wait, this is

Laura 
my email. I remember your face. It was great. I don't really remember anything else about it.

Nic 
Which is not at a site it means just doesn't remember stuff guys.

Laura 
It was you know now, right? 1000 times over that I don't remember things. But it is nice. What is this? A year and a half later? Almost almost two years?

Nic 
Yeah. Almost 90 episodes we're gonna have we're gonna hit 100 here and another couple of months. So two years. That's crazy.

Laura 
I'm ready for the next bloopers episode

Nic 
behind me are gonna say I'm dreading. It's no fun. It is hard to do. The end results. Great. And we also haven't had any any outtakes in the most recent episodes actually. But we have plenty. There's plenty now. Is it 30 files to sift through so yeah. Don't worry.

Laura 
At least more than that on you know, Sam, the new volunteer can help you so

Nic 
yeah, but there might be more Nick centric ones as a result, actually. So maybe I don't want her to be in charge of finding bloopers.

Laura 
I think there's just going to be naturally more Nick bloopers anyhow

Nic 
interesting will have a cara cara manage like minutes?

Laura 
For sure. Me to care, homage and a pocket homage?

Nic 
Oh, yeah, man. The changes for the pod this year. My goodness. But there's there's like, I don't know. Like we can spend some time talking more about what we want to do. I think for this year, too.

Laura 
Yeah. I know we cut each other off. We've never done I hear I hear people will like I'll just be listening or so when we talk about something like oh I'm gonna start a podcast are like, Oh, I'm gonna you know, me and my friend are gonna do this thing. And I'm like, Okay.

Nic  
Sure, okay. Yeah.

Laura 
I don't know if people realize how hard it is to do this every single week and if you're not like he said, half the chemistry

Nic 
is that makes that part easy, right? Because there's other challenging things, added things. You know, it takes time and coming up with people finding people asking questions, coming up with the questions to ask. Oh, yeah, I'm still amazed

Laura 
that you find the time to edit these things.

Nic  
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's actually kind of fun. Yeah, I mean, helps that you enjoy it. Yeah, it's you can put something out you can put like something on TV and mindlessly for like music. I mean, you can put music on and mindlessly do it. It's kind of fun. And be like, oh, like, I don't know. It's weird to be like, I can take out an entire sentence that someone said and then it will seem like they've been ever said it. I don't know that kind of

Laura 
Oh, see like the plane Gods syndrome.

Nic 
Yeah, kinda. Are you surprised? Come on. It's not. No, not really. No, but it didn't know me All joking aside, it is pretty fun. Now it's a cool thing to see the end result right? You get in result it's hard to do in our business sometimes. And I guess I'm Wow, look at me going right into a segment. Because your products are long. There's a long term. You don't see the end result. But yeah, this this is instant gratification. So

Laura  
I know but you also feel like you need the the chemistry or if you don't have that just host by yourself, I guess. But even then, like I don't know, if if I was hosting by myself, I'd feel the obligation to show up every week, you know, right. Yeah, that's true. But you also have to enjoy the work part of it. Like I like looking at the people and figuring out what we're going to ask them and stuff and he liked editing like, you know, I won't even watch, watch them, listen to them. So there's no way that I could help or do the editing part.

Nic 
If I sound like an idiot here, delete all of my work.

Laura 
It would end up being just just Nic on here.

Nic 
So that's just me and then like there's just a weird transition when we're talking about why Wales Why did it change? Yeah. I love it but yeah, that's the fun part of the show. And like I say it is fun to you know, we talk about work a lot but it is it is a lot of you know, some you have to have fun just in general. Right. So it's good to have a fun sec.

Laura  
Yeah. You know, it's been cool. Also, you know, it helps that it's growing and we know that we're hitting people All

Nic  
right, so let's pull requests from people about stuff and that's pretty cool. Yeah, so hi

Laura  
friends around the world. Yeah. You're something like live? No,

Nic 
no, no, that was something we kind of have been talking about mulling over you know, it's like we want to try to get field correspondent, I don't mean that literally, someone that goes around and ask questions about field stories, and we can bring those in as well. That'd be really fun. Manual, right.

Laura  
I feel like we're connected. And this is really great. And we connect well with our guests. But then there's the audience like connection. I think we're, we're at the point where I think that has the chance to really grow.

Nic 
Yeah, exactly. And we're gonna try to do a few things like that for everybody to get involved with this a little bit more. That's pretty exciting. But that's why that's why it's fun, right? There's always more more and new things and you know,

Laura 
yeah, so all those against me fans out there that are listening.

Nic 
Yes, yes.

Laura 
You're welcome on the team anytime. All right. I think that's a nice recap of our little history. So let's get to our interview.

Nic
Cool.

[Interview with Nicolas Holm Starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today, we have GIS mastermind Nicolas Holm on the show, Nicolas integrates data and creates platforms to save lives. He builds custom ArcGIS tools around climate change, world events, renewables, public safety and is completely self taught. So welcome, Nicholas.

Nicolas Holm 
Thank you. It's a pleasure, but also an honor and a privilege to be speaking with you and sharing, you know, a layer of my professional life.

Laura 
Yeah, we're really excited to have you here. As we talked about, we're always striving to encourage more inclusivity in the industry, and part of that is providing opportunities for people who can't afford or just, maybe, quite frankly, don't want to go to a traditional educational track like others. And so we really appreciate you being here and being an example for one of those alternatives. So first question how did you or when did you first realize you had a passion for GIS?

Nicolas Holm 
Well, three and a half years ago, I was working with drones and doing thermal inspections and we needed to map a building the scope out of sight beforehand. So I made my first map and I integrated that that time, you know, the built up environments will build things, and then lead to parcel boundaries. And then I brought in weather layers. And then it just kept on growing and I just started bringing in increasingly more layers and complexities. So that's how it started. And then I wanted to push the boundaries of ArcGIS to see can this thing handle traffic so I built a 3d tool that has 120 cities fully built with infrastructure and vegetation. And I posted it and it hits 1000s of clicks from all over the world simultaneously. And it worked. So it gave me confidence to keep on building increasingly more complex platforms. And then it went towards a solution based in world events and truthfulness all the data is up for grabs. If you understand just basic principles of REST endpoints WMS is you can connect to everything. And these capabilities are growing every single day. So GIS is is like almost a form of Wizardry.

Laura 
Yeah, so you said that was just three and a half years ago. So what were you doing prior to that?

Nicolas Holm  
Oh, I wasn't ready for that question. Well, I worked in cryptography, that was in mobile cryptography, developing software in the voice encryption in BlackBerry Enterprise, encrypted Blackberry. I've always been soft heart and I've been an entrepreneur all my life.

Laura 
Yeah, so can you speak to that a little bit like I think some people listening even myself I'm self taught in a lot of areas to how do you learn to learn? You know, that's not even that is a skill that some people don't readily have. So, where did you you said, I want to do this and then how did you take the next steps to make it happen?

Nicolas Holm 
It comes from a genuine curiosity. So I think it starts with that it starts with really wanting to understand and thinking it through and then seeing what I need to learn to be able to deliver what I'm trying to accomplish when I'm trying to build. So it starts with a lot of questions and then a lot of trial and error and a willingness to fail. And then somehow through that, I see the light at the end of them.

Laura 
Awesome. So if I wanted to jump off this call and go improve my GIS skills, where would you recommend I would go next when I watch some YouTube videos, or what I download the software and just start playing like what do I do to self teach myself that?

Nicolas Holm 
Well definitely sign up for an Archos developers account and then start inside that world to see you know, pick something that is of interest to you. And then through that, if you find something is of interest to you, then you're going to want to delve into it in deeper but at the same time, my way of of doing is really quite different because I don't click on every single drop down menu to try to understand what in thoughts, I work backwards and I have like a real technical issue that I'm trying to resolve. So now my motivation is real because it's a real world thing. So we'll tackle things that are important to you. And then it will drive you to want to create.

Laura 
Okay, awesome, I get that. And okay, so this was a project when you first were doing the GIS was a project that you already had, and then you just added this on to it. So it wasn't like you had to start saying I'm a GIS person and go out and try to get to work in the area.

Nicolas Holm 
Really didn't start out in GIS at all. So I just started out where I built the map and then through time I built the network. Through that I built like so many different you know, so many different tools I mapped COVID for example. So I mapped the COVID flypasts out of Wuhan at the onset of the pandemic. It was at the end of November beginning of December 2019. I posted a video on YouTube in February 2020. And there were 600 deaths and video and my first dashboard started out with 100 cases. And then when war broke out in February in Ukraine, I was overwhelmed with compassion but also like helpless emotion. So I thought well, what can I do to help? So I read that Google had deactivated the location services but ESRI had not. So I built an escape tool with real time traffic and running capabilities that required no login. And that for me was a technological feat in itself. In the tool, you know the tool was clicked over 20,000 times. It was reshard over 60 times and I received dozens of messages from Ukrainians in Ukraine, on the front lines and abroad thanking me. Wired Magazine reached out and they asked me questions about tools. Incredible.

Nic 
I mean, how did you even get the idea? I mean, it's brilliant. But how does that idea even pop into your head? How did you take action so quickly? Because that's not easy. That sounds really complicated.

Nicolas Holm 
Well, looking backwards. It's somewhat complex, but in truthfulness, none of that is nothing I do is difficult. It's very simple. And it's initially there might be some complexity for me to understand it. But really, when I look at what I'm actually doing, it's very, very easy. To do. When you have a motivation to want to, like really help people somehow brings out the best in you and it brings up a strength in you like when I found out about the abortion men in the US. The Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade So in response, I'm at all the abortion clinics to help those in need find a clinic. It had the information about the clinic itself, you know, the telephone numbers and address and then the status by state and even the contact information of the senators in each of those state. Very recently, and I built a tool on the Amazon basin that kept fires and I bought an old one in Ukraine as well, to get a sense of what's actually going on. On a day to day, three weeks ago. Millions of people were suddenly homeless in Pakistan. So of course I had to my dashboard, and then that tool get 1000s and 1000s of views and many reshares and the reshares hyperlinks to organizations where people could make donations. So it was like wonderful to see that we created that action. And you know, sometimes the work that I do shocks people, so I'm not when the war broke out. I marked the war in Ukraine in great detail with live data, and not everyone agreed to making all of that information so easily available, and then later I mapped all the minerals in the Arctic, the diamonds the goal the oil, and certainly people were not

[GIS Tools]

Nic 
how do you how do you use live data? Where's the data coming from? Like in Ukraine?

Nicolas Holm 
Well, if it's aviation traffic, you know that we're mapping so like live planes. There is a lot of open source intelligence data that's out there and available if you have the toolkit to grab it and then map it. So all the informations there, like everything is up for grabs.

Nic 
Interesting, and we're gonna be talking about, you know, building tools. And you know, you've done this over 2000 times, for all kinds of products, not just what we've talked about here, but you know, depends publicly the ocean hydrology, the list goes on and on. You get an idea of what building a tool is versus building a map. I mean, obviously, they both give you different amounts of data, but kind of walk through the process for making a map versus making a tool.

Nicolas Holm  
Certainly, solidly map precedes a tool. So all tools are built from a map from an initial map. So if you pick something simple, like the Amazon forest, the Amazon Amazon Basin, so you start with a blank map, you create the outline of the Amazon basin, and then you will connect to a NASA feed through ESRI have the live reading of the fires. And now you have mapped the live fires in the Amazon basin. And then with the software you take it a step further, and then you convert that map into a web application where you need to bring in now the design elements so that the user interface is easy to use and also pleasing to the eye. If there is any opening sometimes what's more complex is to open the access so that people do not need to enter a username password to be able to access the tool.

Nic 
That's really neat. It's fascinating. It was an unfair question. I'm gonna ask you but you know, we talked a little bit about the projects that you've worked on, but do you have one that stands out as your favorite?

Nicolas Holm  
I would say the best is yet to come. The tool that I would really love to build and that I know how to do is to monitor all oil spills in all the oceans all at once. And with this level of knowledge we could calculate pore volumes of oils floating in the world and then we could find the cause and the corporate to better understand and then act to save our oceans. That would be the you know the tool that I would like to build the most. I'm working through these abilities, centralized intelligence platforms out of pure interest and self motivation. I create platforms that cross pollinate and the integrate in the leverage many existing technologies. And it's how I got in on general minoring that I work with hooked on my work. And now he's mapping chemical negligence for the EPA, and helping the Louisiana bucket brigade and the green army. Just last month, my colleague Michael Nash is one of the great Creighton board partners of the greatest movie directors. He told me he wanted to interview Ilan, who claim that our population is collapsing to the low birth rates and that it's actually a bigger problem to civilization than global warming. So I built a big tool 100 layers plus to shed light on that. And then it shows that there's a steady climb within billion people every 10 years. I'm working with the big wild on building a tool for ecological valuation. So developing a brand new methodology for identifying and putting $1 value on areas that are rich in biodiversity and natural resources that we can and that we should be saving at the moment helping a humanitarian organization in Ukraine with real time geospatial intelligence to help them secure goods that are destined for the Ukrainian people. I work very closely with the DiCaprio family, where I provide maps on many topics ranging from the Amazon deforestation to the intricate Delta Works that protected Netherlands that are helping the Netherlands battle against floods.

Laura 
Boring projects a couple of boring things Yeah, no

[Following your Passion]

Nic 
big deal. Well, that's genuinely impressive. You know, all jokes aside, it's absolutely impressive. I love the passion drives your work because that's something that is really, really important. And you know, I don't even know where to start. Let's see, like, go back to the dream. You mapping all the oil in the ocean, you have the concept. You have the idea. Are you in a pre execution phase for the project? Do you need more information? Do you need better information? Or are you actually starting to dive in?

Nicolas Holm  
Oh, I have the capabilities. So I have I've mapped I've mapped through partnership with Orbital so orbit aos they provide data that shows the location of oil spills and then I will take those shape files and then bring them into tools and model the ocean weather observations for example, and then bring in the live vessels to see where the vessels are, and then all the advanced analytics to build to run calculations on that so the tool is ready for a demo. And as a real world data, awesome. It would be a wonderful tool to bring to life because it wouldn't raise our collective awareness that it is one and Hoshi and is one body of water to just brush it off with an oil spill along your ecological you know, if there's an oil spill, within your economic zone, you will brush it off and you'll say well, it'll just move further down the coast and it'll just hit the Venezuela that's a mistake.

Nic  
Yeah. I mean, it's it's really great work. I think there's some a lot of fascinating pieces and projects that you work on. So we're gonna have to just keep an eye out for Nicholas home unlimited here, whatever we want to call it. But I think it's very fascinating.

Laura 
Yeah, I think you know, it's nice to hear I know some people work to get jobs in environmental field and then there's a level of hope when you first start your career and then it's depending on what your job is, you may feel dissatisfied or underwhelmed by the impact that you actually get to make in your job and it's nice to hear from someone who's making some really impressive tools that are making a difference immediately and in ways that you can see and feel and touch. I think that's not only great for you, but I think it's great for people to hear that these types of projects do happen. And they're out there and follow your passion and you can work on them too. But I was curious, these projects, how long does it take you to put something like this together and then once they're done that, you know, you've 2000 projects in the can so to say how are they maintain? Are you maintaining all of these do some of them, you know, have a shelf life, so to say

Nicolas Holm 
while some of them are you know, they will connect to servers event then for some reason go offline. So you know, sometimes I'll build the lots of things in hydrology and floods that are connecting to, let's say, I know a levy and the NOAA NOAA servers under service so then leave is known in service and I'm not aware of that. Other times, I will copy and then take work that was done by university researcher. And then for a reason unbeknown to me they will take their work offline. So that might be a reason that might be reason that it would cause one of the layers to go offline. But generally speaking, I tap into very robust systems so that they never go down. That's the idea.

Laura 
Yeah, nice. So sort of live data that kind of keeps itself updated.

Nicolas Holm 
Yeah, it's services. You know, a few and also also services. There's an incredible amount of information that is readily made available by the best organizations in the world. So NASA wants you to access their data FEMA, USGS, they all want you to access their data. So everyone, and what I do that's different is that I cross pollinate. And I integrate, and I force all of these services and data points to speak to one another. So that the user can look through all of this information, and then make a decision based on that.

Laura 
Nice, cool

Nic 
when you've been developing them sneaking in here. How much time does it take? Because when you say passion, I want people to understand that it's not like oh, wouldn't it be fun if I decided to build a network of data to talk to each other like it's, it has to take all the time.

Nicolas Holm 
It really depends on the tool. So let's say the population have built a tool on population. It was quite intricate. It had 110 layers, maybe 10 different categories. So that's the kind of tool you can build in, let's say, two and a half sittings. So two blocks of 10 hours, beyond 10 1214 hours at a sitting, then you become maybe not so productive. So two, three days, I would say to build the tool on a population, but a lot of what holds me back is the business side. So having authorization to do is hunting the NDAs that are required to do it. Getting access, you know having the organization grant you access depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. That's what takes time the business side takes a lifetime to develop the data side is incredibly quick, because as I said earlier, nothing I do is difficult, which means that I just leverage what is existing, and I connect what is existing. So that's a lot faster than someone who's actually building data from the ground up.

Laura  
So meeting me mentioned people that you've worked with, and I was curious, do you work with nonprofits and private companies or individuals like the decap Rios, are you coming up with ideas and approaching them or are they coming to you with problems and looking for solutions?

Nicolas Holm 
I would say that once people meet me and they see what I do, it raises their level of understanding of what can be done because of their brilliant minds. So now they have they come back with a whole nother set of questions. And then and then that interaction forces me to my game, and then do some research to see okay, what can be achieved? What is possible? You know, I think what I love about GIS is the fact that it forces me to think not to take what they can see if you don't want to outsource your thinking. You need to do the thinking on your own. Think of when you're building them up, you're starting out with a blank map. So that equates that is similar to a blank mind. And now you will bring in the data's of individual data layers, one at a time. So this passion is a discovery. So it's the discovery process of what exists. Of what I can create or what I can learn and then ultimately, what I can communicate and then what I can share.

Laura  
Okay, cool. Are you getting to travel you work remotely? I'm guessing. Do you get to visit the places where you're doing some of these, these maps and tools?
______________
Laura 
doing some of these, these maps and tools. Well,

Nicolas Holm 
you know, I've been in this for three years, and then we had COVID. So there was like so we'll see. We'll see where it will leave me next. But I really do love to travel. So I'm very, very open to that. So let's see. Yeah, tell

Laura 
us about some of the places you've been.

Nicolas Holm 
Well, I was adopted in the Philippines. Now my mother was French. My father is Canadian. He worked as an immigration officer and Canadian embassies around the world. So I grew up in Rome and then in Athens, I live for years in Athens and two years in New Delhi. I live in Bangkok. In Paris in the hall pass, it was a little kid swimming in far pass and then in Victoria and I'm now live in Montreal, but I've been from anywhere from Norway, to the Maldives, and then everywhere in between. So definitely love to travel. It opens your mind and it allows you to spread your wings and then meet incredible people along the way. It makes you very grateful. I'm very humbled, as well.

Laura 
Okay, so what's next on your list? What's the highest someplace you haven't been yet?

Nicolas Holm 
Or I haven't traveled where I would love to travel. Well, there's so many there. I mean, there's many many more places that I have not been a vendor I have been, but as I map real world events, and I realize fee instability, you know, there is the political instability and climate instability. You know, you want to make sure that where you're going is safe because you want to have a good experience through your travel. That's nice, actually limiting the number of places that we would like to go but I've never been to the Philippines. I was adopted very, very, very young. I would like to go back to see where I am from that culture, I think that that would be a worthy trip.

Laura 
Very cool. Yeah. What?

Nic 
One of the things that I hear you say, and I think this is such an important message, and I'd love to get your thoughts on it right? The idea of beginner's mind and experts in mind, right. So when you're an expert in your field, you have all this knowledge, but all the knowledge you got is based on your framework, your ideas, your thoughts, and so your field of vision on a project goes from being very wide to very narrow where you're like, This is what I'm great at. This is what I'm and you know, I think the best the people that that are really, truly inspiring have ways of reminding themselves to be a little innovative. Be a little creative. Stop looking at just the front end, look left and right. How do you incorporate new perspectives into what you've been doing? Do you ever look back and say, I can do this process better I can do it more efficiently. How do I do that?

Nicolas Holm 
I think that what I can actually do is very limited, because I don't have all that GIS training and background right. I don't know most of what the software can do. So in my limited field in my limited view, what are what I can actually do, concretely, basically, lays out the game of what I can accomplish, but I don't see the connection with travel since I have not really traveled in the last few years due to COVID. And I've been in this business three years.

Laura 
I think though, I'm getting back to Nick's point about the expert mind versus the beginner's mind. Okay, so you mentioned that there's so much that can be done within ArcGIS ESRI tools or other even other mapping tools. There are others that exist and you can be an expert and just knowing how to do a thing you don't have to be I think this could be very inspiring also for people who are like, afraid to take on GIS because it feels like it's too much because it is when I learned GIS. It was very small. It was very easy to step into. Now you're stepping into something you almost need a degree for. So I think it's very inspiring to hear that you know, you can be an expert in just using the tool to do a thing instead of having to be an expert in all things as reinjure is put together if that makes sense.

Nicolas Holm  
You have to have the drive is based on based on wanting to build something. You use the software to find a way of building it. Now, because I work backwards and I specialize in web applications. My way of putting all of it together is very different than the way that someone would have had they taken ESRI training. So not only I don't have a degree in geography, but I've never taken any ESRI courses. So I've never taken any online courses, hardly read any manuals and really didn't look at the videos. My point in saying that is it's not because I'm right. It's because it's not that difficult if you know where to click. And if you don't outsource your thinking and you think how to resolve it yourself. It will arise to very easy solutions. Because really, you are just connecting and integrating what has already been built. You're not building something new most of the time.

Laura 
Well, what kind of advice would you have for somebody who was looking to get into like maybe this freelance style of work on or if you'd call yourself a freelancer but into that style of work where you're just problem solving for someone maybe you're really good at something you're not wanting to go to college but you you want to just keep building on a skill that you do have given me advice for an earlier career person on what they should do.

Nicolas Holm 
Pick something that matters to many people where what you can do can really help because we're at a tipping point in our climate, where we really must have had all hands on deck. If not, it's going to be really catastrophic, but people will face so align your career choice with something that will deliver the greatest amount of value for the greatest number of people and then you will make things click

Nic 
better to ask you know, to what you talked about work with the DiCaprio family. You mentioned doing something in the Amazon. What do you typically do with them? Is it specifically for the DiCaprio? Do you do this with lots of other people as well? Do you consider them clients or are they something different?

Nicolas Holm  
Well, I work closely with George so I had a meeting yesterday with George George's Leo's father, so they work on various movies. So the idea is to bring GIS and data into visualization of movies. And then there's also like a friendship as well. But we're working on several projects with them at the moment.

[Being an Adrenaline Junkie]

Nic 
Wow, that's really cool. One of the things we love about the show one of the things we like doing with the show is not just talking to the person about what they do, but who they are, right we speak to hobbies a lot and sometimes it's pretty easy. People have one or two hobbies, but you seem to have a lot a lot of different things that you really enjoy doing, which is really fun. You're talking about intermittent fasting Winback, Tai Chi mountain biking, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on. So what do you like to do in your free time you're not working on saving the world.

Nicolas Holm 
I like to experience nature. I would say that would be on top of the list. That means riding my mountain bike. I ride my mountain bike a lot. And I'm a very reflective and spiritual person. So I do a lot of hot yoga, a lot of meditation on a very, very, very daily basis. It's also what helps me build better maps. But certainly I like adrenaline. So strong emotions. Were in you know, very big horses than windsurf surfing in open sea in storms.

Laura 
open sea, you know Yeah. How do you get out there you go. Do you go for a boat?

Nicolas Holm 
You can go from shore so I used to windsurfing. I lived in Greece. So when Greece lots and lots and lots of wind and lots of waves and I would sail out for an hour in one direction until I could no longer see land.

Nic  
Oh my god.

Nicolas Holm 
It's actually reflecting on it backwards. Now. It's a bit foolish because the winds change direction. And if they change direction, while you are not going to be able to get back the way that you came and if you cannot see land, you actually don't know where you're going. But that's a strong. I will say that that's a that's a great adrenaline rush.

Nic 
I'm literally getting a panic attack at the idea of doing not just doing that's incredible.

Nicolas Holm 
Well, I took a couple steps further, not only I would win SIR for an hour beyond what I could see. But then I would ditch my equipment. So I would leave my Winston and I would die and I grew up swimming so I could dive deep and hold my breath for a long time and I would dive as deep as I could. And when you're diving in open ocean, the sunlight, you can see where the sunlight can no longer reach the ocean floor. So it's black. And if you put yourself in a position in natural positions across because your arms will help you stay what you're thinking but stay afloat if you wish to say and that really puts you in your place. It makes you realize how small you are in this very, very, very big world. So now we'll be on the top of my experiences. I would say that

Laura 
I don't want to try to compete with you or Megan Haney Greer.

Nic 
I had I had a very similar experience I remember being at the beach in North Carolina at away and I'm doing body surfing all day long. No big deal. Slightly larger than normal wave comes and it flips me upside down cracks my entire back and slaps me on the ground. And I had that same thought. You know what the world's pretty strong. I am pretty weak. So you don't have to do that. glad that you did. That's really incredible.

Laura  
Yeah, tell me about I want to hear about the horses.

Nicolas Holm  
Well, I lived in India, so I started horse riding in India, and that men riding in the jungle or riding with you know as galloping as fast as you could gallop in every direction that we would ride with a friend. And we would chase peacocks, peacocks and run in. They don't run in a straight line. So they run in a very exact pattern so you can follow it with a horse. But then that would force the peacocks to lose their feathers. So then on our way back, we would walk in and like collect feathers. So I had a very, very strong bond to horses, and then animals and then all the life through that.

Laura 
Very cool. I love horseback riding. But I've not done this in India in the forest chasing peacocks that just sounds really cool.

Nic 
Yeah. Yeah, a really good sense of adventure. And that's that's really fun. Have you always been that way like as a kid? Were you also doing these things?

Laura 
Were you given your parents heart attacks?

Nicolas Holm 
I've always been unafraid of very keen in exploring and discovering and put me in positions where I would face a cobra or or quicksand or get stranded out at sea. So I got stranded on sea in Sardinia. And lo and behold, they came to rescue me in pedalo. So that was timeless. There was no more vote for the the rescue team was on below. Then bring me back to land so I had no no real concept of danger, but I certainly have no so I have a desire to protect myself all the time. So I do a lot of skiing. A lot of mountain biking I wear a lot of a lot of protective gear. Along the way.

Nic 
That's so cool. Yeah, like you were like casually like it was Cobra. I was stranded. Yeah, that's really neat. Man. You have lived a really great life. already. You still got you still got plenty of time to go with. That's fantastic. But it's been great chatting with you. I was gonna say we have so many of the questions is I wish we could chat longer. But is there anything you want to talk about before we let you go?

Nicolas Holm 
Well, I'd like to thank my LinkedIn network. In almost let I view as an extended family. I'd like to thank ESRI for their technology. And their incredible technical support. Laura Cox, she's a movie producer that has supported my journey. Then I would like to thank Dr. George DiCaprio Leah's father for his experience and passion for life. And then of course, general nori for his strength and his guidance. But above all, I would like to thank my parents for their undying love and support. And my son, Noah, that I am so proud of.

Nic 
That's wonderful. That's really wonderful. And yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for being here. And before we let you go, let everybody know where they can get in touch with you.

Nicolas Holm 
Best is to reach out on your LinkedIn, send me a quick message, and I'll be very happy to engage with you.

Nic 
Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Laura 
Awesome, thanks.

Nicolas Holm
Thank you, Nick. Laura. Thank you, Laura.

[Outro]

Laura
That's our show. Thank you Nicholas for joining us today. Please. Be sure to check us out each and every Friday. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye.

Nic
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai