Fran Harvey

Founder & Executive Director

Fran Harvey is a Louisiana native with a background in Environmental Studies and Political Science from UC Santa Barbara and an advanced GIS certificate from the University of Denver. After beginning her career at the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, she applied GIS technology in disaster recovery efforts for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Ike, as well as the BP oil spill.

In 2012, she founded Global Geospatial Solutions LLC to bring GIS tools to the private sector. Two years later, she launched the nonprofit Global Geospatial Institute to expand GIS and remote sensing education in K–12 schools. Harvey is an alumna of ESRI’s T3G Institute and has led outreach programs such as Maps & Apps, GIS Day, and Mighty Map Institute.

She currently serves on the Louisiana Governor’s Climate Initiatives Task Force, the Louisiana Geographic Information System Council, and the board of the Pennington Biomedical Research Foundation.