Digital Coast

About Charles Molnar

I am a full-time button-clicker and mouse-scroller at the NOAA Coastal Services Center. My average typing speed is 50 words per minute—kinda slow I know, but I can scroll pretty darn fast. I generally use these skills to build rich web-mapping applications focused on marine and coastal issues.

I originally started my path forward as an environmental and marine science field grunt, sampling water of dubious origin, collecting fish innards, and occasionally standing around with a stick all day for a shoreline survey. I eventually made the jump to desk jockey working for local governments as a GIS specialist; this was my intro into full-time button-clicking and mouse-scrolling. For several years, data and maps were my life. There is nothing better than a map with good cartography, built on solid and trusted spatial data; it can solve any problem. Then one day a colleague asked me to make a small mash-up using Google Maps and some flood data. Thank you colleague—that opened a new door.

I’m still all about maps and data, but now they are served in nice little “bundles of mapping love” over the Internet. Additionally I am always looking for new tech sponsors, so if any companies such as ESRI, Google, or Adobe need a new fanboy, I’m your guy.