Walter Bremer

Biography

Shortly after graduating in 1977, Walter Bremer began teaching at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. During the four years at Ball State, he taught in the introductory design area and, building on his experience at Utah State, developed a geographic information system (GIS) program for the department. In 1981, Walt headed west again, this time to San Luis Obispo, California where he continued with his academic career at Cal Poly State University. In addition to teaching in many areas of landscape architecture, the integration of technology in to education and the profession continues to be a strong interest for Walt. He is active in numerous committees and groups to explore relevant technologies and processes that have direct application to landscape architecture. Exploration of how the range of computing activities fits into the design process is of particular importance today with technology changing so rapidly. Multimedia is another area of importance that is currently engaging much of Walt’s time. Walt continues to actively pursue his interests in geographic information system technologies. He created the GIS program at Cal Poly and is a major player on the central coast of California as GIS becomes an important tool in the environmental decision making process. He directs the Department’s Geographic Information System Technology research unit (GIST – http://landarch.calpoly.edu/gislab) which has undertaken a wide range of projects at various scales. Walt has been actively engaged in department and university level curriculum development and is a member of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cal Poly. He has presented several papers at conferences in the US and Canada describing a process underway at Cal Poly and has developed workshops for the university.