Heidi Putnam
Heidi (she/her/hers) is a double degree master’s student in Urban and Regional Planning and Water Resource Management focusing on community engagement and watershed-scale planning. She is also a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture for LA695: Applications of GIS for Natural Resources.
Most recently, Heidi was a Watershed Program Specialist for Vilas County training citizen volunteers and compiling data for use in a pilot watershed protection plan. She graduated with a BS from the Natural Resource Planning program at the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point (UWSP) and strives to be the middlewoman between ecologists, engineers, and planners. With an integrated background in natural resource planning, geographic information systems (GIS) for urban and regional planning, and sustainability reporting, Heidi works toward guiding communities to a sustainable future.
Heidi previously was a Water Resource Specialist for a private environmental engineering firm conducting wetland delineations, land and water surveying, providing GIS and AutoCAD design support, and completing the engineering portion of Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans for Wisconsin farms. She was also a GIS Project Assistant at the UWSP GIS Center developing a mobile web application for the Green Circle Trail and creating a new database to store the updated ESRI ArcGIS Pro files. With the UWSP Office of Sustainability, Heidi worked on multimodal transportation advocacy and conducted greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability reporting for the three UWSP campuses.
Heidi has traveled to over 21 countries across the globe studying the intersection of natural resource planning, GIS, and sustainability. It is this worldly travel that provides a unique perspective when tackling resource management issues and addressing stakeholder involvement. She looks forward to gaining more experience in site design for environmental protection, watershed scale resource analysis, and community engagement tactics during her time at UW-Madison.