Who is Jack Dangermond?
Jack Dangermond is an American billionaire businessman and environmental scientist who is the co-founder Environmental Systems Research Institute. He co-founded Esri a privately held geographic information systems (GIS) software company in 1969 with his wife, Laura. He serves as the company’s president and also works at its headquarters in Redlands, California.
Dangermond has been awarded 13 honorary doctoral degrees. He has had a great impact on the development of GIS methodologies, the GIS software market, GIS technology research, and related analytical methods.
How Old is Jack Dangermond?
Jack Dangermond is about 74-75 years old as of 2020. He was born in 1945.
Jack Dangermond Family
He was born the son of Dutch immigrants. Dangermond’s parents owned a plant nursery in Redlands.
Jack Dangermond Education
Dangermond studied at Redlands High School. He then attended California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) where he studied landscape architecture and environmental science.
Jack got a Master of Architecture degree in Urban Planning from the University of Minnesota. He then earned a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design GSD in 1969.
Jack Dangermond Wife
Dangermond is married to Laura Dangermond. The couple donated $165 million to establish the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve on the Pacific coast—the largest-ever gift to the Nature Conservancy in December 2017. The couple has signed The Giving Pledge.
Jack Dangermond Esri
He founded Esri to perform land use analysis. He founded the company in 1969 with $1,100 in personal savings and is thought of as the godfather of digital mapping technology. Eventually, its focus evolved into GIS software development, highlighted by the release of ARC/INFO in the early 1980s. Dangermond’s early work in the school’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis (LCGSA) led directly to the development of Esri’s ARC/INFO GIS software.
Esri is now the largest GIS software developer in the world and its flagship product, ArcGIS.
Jack Dangermond Net Worth
Through his business and company, Dangermond has earned great wealth. He has an estimated net worth of US$4.6 billion as of November 2019.
Jack Dangermond Awards
- Officier in de Orde van Oranje Nassau
- Horwood Distinguished Service Award of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association in 1988
- John Wesley Powell Award of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1996
- Anderson Medal of the Association of American Geographers in 1998
- Cullum Geographical Medal of the American Geographical Society in 1999
- EDUCAUSE Medal of EduCause
- Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal of the International Cartographic Association in 2007
- Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Minnesota in 2008
- Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 2010.
- Alexander Graham Bell Medal of the National Geographic Society in 2010, together with Roger Tomlinson.
- Fellow of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science in 2012
- Audubon Medal of the National Audubon Society in 2015
