As a University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) student, Daniel Huesken was a hard-studying tree planter.
Nowadays, the 27-year-old UFV Geography alumnus is better known as Mr. Maclean’s.
Pictured punching GPS co-ordinates while perched above a topographical map of B.C.’s Interior forest district, Huesken is featured prominently in Maclean’s magazine’s 2015 Guide to Jobs in Canada — an annual publication aimed at helping youth make ‘informed decisions about post-secondary education and career choices, from hot jobs to jobs of the future’.
Working as a geographic information systems (GIS) technician, Huesken was selected by Maclean’s partially because he opened more doors by extending his education to include UFV’s GIS certificate.
Halfway through his degree, Huesken realized he’d coincidentally accumulated several credits towards GIS completion. “I figured I might as well extend my education by a semester or so and get my GIS certificate, too.”
That extra accreditation helped him land the GIS job at West Fraser Timber in Williams Lake, where he makes maps with computer software while keeping tabs on timber inventory.
Huesken wasn’t sure if he was being pranked when Maclean’s first came calling.
“When they flew a photographer from Vancouver to Williams Lake I knew it was real,” he said.
The photographer’s visit caused quite a stir in his usually quiet office, leading a new nickname: Mr. Maclean’s.
As a member of the UFV Geography Undergraduate Society, he earned the Doug Nicol annual geography department scholarship while in his final year in the geography program in 2012, and was that year’s UFV Undergraduate Research Excellence Award (UREA) winner for geography for his work in the Luminescence Dating Laboratory.
In 2012, Huesken was also awarded a prestigious NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) to conduct further research in the Luminescence Dating Laboratory.