About — Brooks Groves

I grew up in the Sierra Nevada — parents were Forest Rangers, Tuolumne County, the Stanislaus National Forest as a backyard. Studied molecular biology at the University of Nevada, Reno, worked on iron-oxidizing acidophiles in Cape Town, and arrived in Seattle in 1997 chasing astrobiology and sea ice bacteria at the University of Washington.

Then the WTO Riots happened in November 1999. I deferred graduate work and went full time at the Westin Seattle. Stayed 21 years. Bell captain. Watched the city transform from the inside of a revolving door: the dot-com boom, 9/11, the tech explosion, Amazon moving in. Met several sitting presidents, dozens of world leaders, and Snoop Dogg — more than a few times. Wrote most of it down.

In 2017 I went back to UW for a GIS certificate — geographic information science, Python, remote sensing, cartography. Joined Zillow in 2019 as a GIS Analyst. The biology background turned out to be useful in ways nobody predicted: spatial thinking, pattern recognition, the patience to look at data until it tells you something it didn't mean to say.

I live in Lakewood, WA. I geocache (Hipparchus — 1,190+ finds across 25 countries since 2001). I follow the grand tours obsessively. I build open-source dashboards when a dataset pulls at me hard enough. I'm working on GISP certification and writing down the Westin years before they fade.

This site is the connective tissue between all of it.

Interests

Arc

1970

Born in Sonora, CA · Grew up in Groveland, CA

Tuolumne County. Parents were Forest Rangers — grew up around the Evergreen Lodge and Mather, CA. Learned to swim in the Tuolumne River at Rainbow Pools, a granite swim hole on the South Fork. Hiked Yosemite before knowing what hiking was. Tioga Pass opening every summer meant the east side — Mono Lake, the high desert, a different California entirely. The Sierra Nevada as a classroom that never closed.

~1980

Donald L. Rheem Elementary — Moraga, CA

4th grade. Moraga, Contra Costa County — manicured suburbia, a complete gear-shift from the Sierra Nevada. Oak-studded hills and cul-de-sacs instead of granite and river rock. It didn't stick, but it taught me early that California contains multitudes.

~1981–82

Janesville Elementary — Janesville, CA

5th and 6th grade. Lassen County — high desert plateau, a place most Californians have never heard of. Played 1st base for both the Janesville Pirates and the Janesville Dodgers. In an enrichment program focused on national parks, wrote a letter to President Ronald Reagan about establishing a new national park in the area — and he wrote back. Still need to find that letter. Won the Academic Decathlon geography and current events round for our team and region by correctly answering: Off the coast of what country did a Soviet submarine recently run aground? The answer was Sweden. Big day for a bunch of nerds in rural northeastern California.

~1984–88

Sonora Union High School — Sonora, CA

Go Wildcats. Back in Tuolumne County — Sonora, the county seat, elevation 1,825 feet, Sierra Nevada foothills. The mountains were right there the whole time. This was where the geography obsession calcified into something more permanent: the live music scene bleeding up from the Bay, the geology visible in every road cut, the Tuolumne River running through it all.

1988–90

Blinn College — Brenham, TX

A detour into Texas. Brenham sits in the rolling limestone country between Austin and Houston — live oaks, bluebonnets, and a very different pace. Played some baseball. Took enough science credits to get serious. The distance from the Sierra Nevada turned out to be useful: you appreciate a landscape more after you've been away from it. Pointed the compass back west.

1990–96

University of Nevada, Reno — B.S. + Graduate Studies

B.S. Molecular Biology, then graduate studies. Worked with Dr. Lee Weber on heat shock proteins in Lahontan cutthroat trout and the Tui chub around Pyramid Lake. Studied under Dr. Don Prusso in mycology, bryology, and lichenology — fungi, mosses, and lichens, the organisms that live at the edge of what life can tolerate. Still fascinated. Coursework with Dr. Vineyard in Desert and Montane Ecosystems — the kind of class that changes how you read a landscape. Developed a deep fascination with the C4 photosynthetic pathway found in many desert plants — the biochemical workaround that lets plants fix carbon efficiently in extreme heat. The Basin and Range as a living laboratory.

1996

University of Cape Town — Cape Town, South Africa

Spent time with Doug Rawlings in the early days of what would become UCT's Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research (CeBER) — now one of the top mineral bioprocessing programs in the world. Work focused on iron- and sulfur-oxidizing acidophiles for bioleaching and metal recovery. The intersection of microbiology and mining engineering, before either field fully knew what to do with the other.

1997–99

University of Washington — Graduate Studies, Astrobiology

Arrived in Seattle to study astrobiology — specifically sea ice bacteria and extremophile microbiology. The research had direct connections to the search for life in analogous environments beyond Earth. Studied through late 1999 until the WTO Riots upended the city in November. Had to defer graduate work and go full time at the Westin Seattle. Stayed 21 years.

1997

Joined the Westin Seattle

Started as a bellman on the graveyard shift. Eventually became bell captain. Watched Seattle transform from the inside of a revolving door: the dot-com boom, 9/11, the tech explosion, Amazon moving in. Met several sitting presidents, dozens of world leaders, and Snoop Dogg — more than a few times. Wrote most of it down.

2017–18

University of Washington — GIS Certificate

Geographic Information Science and Cartography. Python, spatial analysis, remote sensing. Career pivot, 20 years in the making.

2018–19

Oregon Natural Desert Association

Volunteer GIS Technician. NDVI analysis, riparian restoration sites, Google Earth Engine, remote sensing.

2019

Joined Zillow

GIS Technician, then GIS Analyst. Spatial pipelines, market analysis, geospatial data engineering.

Now

Lakewood, WA

GIS at Zillow. Building open-source data tools. Watching the Giro. Waiting for summer. Planning for Kīlauea.

About Me