Biography
Jan Garbers is the Director of Geomatics and Emergency Management at TMG Consulting, a Planning, Economics & Engineering Firm based in New Orleans. He earned his Master of Science in Geodesy and Civil Engineering at the University of Hannover, Germany.
He arrived in New Orleans in September 2005, as he led a team of first responders from Germany to help to dewater the city of New Orleans. After this mission, Mr. Garbers met his future wife, Laura, and made New Orleans his home.
Mr. Garbers is responsible for on-site planning studies, mapping, GIS, and facility management. He has provided professional services to various public infrastructure organizations such as the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, the Regional Transit Authority, and the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office. He also applies GIS technology and gravity model methodology to the analysis of gaming markets.
Mr. Garbers teaches graduate and undergraduate level courses in Critical Infrastructure Protection in the Emergency and Security Studies program at SoPA. He holds numerous certifications from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
Prior to his arrival in New Orleans, Mr. Garbers worked for the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) in Bonn, Germany, heading the section for Policy and National Operation Management. In addition to serving as Head of Mission for the Dewatering of New Orleans, his missions include serving as an Operation Center Commander to coordinate Tsunami Response for Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia and Captain of Operation Shelter for East German Refugees.
Mr. Garbers also led at the Office for Agriculture and Land Development in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany where he was responsible for land consolidation and rural development, including village renewal, resolving land use conflicts, surveying, mapping, and construction monitoring. He focused on rural land reorganization and active rural development with cross-community development of villages and the integration of large-scale infrastructure projects to improve the quality of rural life. Mr. Garbers also taught as an instructor at Magdeburg-Stendal University and at the Institute for Community Consulting in Bernburg. He instructed students in surveying engineering, land management, and rural planning.
What is the best advice you've ever received?
"Education is not the learning of facts, it’s rather the training of the mind to think."
What are your favorite activities when you are not working?
My family!