Jack Dangermond

Jack Dangermond
Dangermond in 2012
Born
Paul Jacob Dangermond

(1945-07-23) July 23, 1945
EducationCalifornia State Polytechnic University, Pomona (BS)
University of Minnesota (MUP)
Harvard University (MLA)
Known forCo-founder and president, Esri
Spouse
Laura C. Herman
(m. 1966)
Websiteesri.com

Paul Jacob Dangermond (born July 23, 1945) bka Jack Dangermond is an American billionaire businessman and environmental scientist. He is the co-founder and president of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), a privately held geographic information systems (GIS) software company that he started with his wife Laura in 1969. As of July 2023, his net worth was estimated at US$9.3 billion.

Dangermond, Esri's president, works at its headquarters in Redlands, California. He founded the company to perform land-use analysis; however, its focus evolved into GIS-software development, highlighted by the release of ARC/INFO in the early 1980s. The development and marketing of ARC/INFO positioned Esri with the dominant market share among GIS-software developers. Esri's flagship product, ArcGIS, traces its heritage to Dangermond's initial efforts in developing ARC/INFO.

Dangermond is the founder of GIS Day: an annual, worldwide event taking place since 1999 to celebrate accomplishments and to promote the use of GIS and its technology.