Robert Rhatigan
LWVLA News:
The League of Women Voters’ community event , Lunch with a Leader, is moving from the library to a new venue this month – The United Church at 2525 Canyon Road (between Canyon and Rose across from the Aquatic Center).
This month’s Lunch with a Leader is 11:45 a.m., Aug 21 in Graves Hall at the church. There is parking all around the church and Atomic City Transit Bus #3 stops right outside the church on Rose Street.
The speaker is Robert Rhatigan from the Geospatial and Population Studies group at UNM. Originally from New York City, he moved here with his wife Allyson from Austin, Texas so she could study Ayurvedic Medicine. They have a 3-year-old daughter.
Rhatigan previously served as an environmental specialist for the largest rural development grant administration firm in Texas. He has served as a private consultant conducting baseline environmental studies for small municipalities in the state of Colorado and worked as a GIS analyst for US Trail Maps Inc. where he developed digital recreational trail maps for handheld GPS devices. After completing his BA in Environmental Science at State University of NY, he was lead author on a study funded by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which interviewed emergency managers in Southern Appalachia to assess the societal effects and procedural changes that resulted from the 1993 Storm of the Century when he was in graduate school at the University of Colorado. Rhatigan also has a vast IT background, having served as a systems administrator for a successful tech start-up and an international Fortune 100 company.
His talk will focus on the 2020 Census. More specifically: why demographers are concerned about an undercount, New Mexico’s history of undercount; why we are disproportionately vulnerable to undercount, the financial and other impacts of an undercount, and what can be done to mitigate an undercount.
A $10 lunch is available from the Co+op for anyone wishing to order. Email Karyl Ann Armbruster at kaskacayman@gmail.com or call/text her at 505.231.8286 to hear lunch options.
