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Professor emeritus, Blugold alumni team up to form data company

Brady Foust

Dr. Brady Foust

Dr. Brady Foust, professor emeritus of geography, and two of his former students, Mike Jolitz '05 and Joe Litchfield '04, have reunited more than a decade after their UW-Eau Claire classroom endeavors to form a new company, HazardHub, a provider of risk data to the insurance, utility and real estate industries.

Mike Jolitz

Mike Jolitz

Jolitz and Litchfield, both geography graduates, received a strong foundation in geographic information systems under Foust’s leadership. GIS provides the underlying science to build nationwide geospatial hazard data and deliver answers for any address in the U.S. through an application programming interface, website widgets and custom pdf reports. HazardHub provides risk data solutions that help companies make smarter business decisions about where to build, how to underwrite and where to expect the unexpected, such as natural and human-made disasters.

Joe Litchfield

Joe Litchfield

Both Jolitz and Litchfield started their GIS careers building risk data for Proxix Solutions in Madison. Foust was one of the three founders of that company. When Proxix was acquired by CoreLogic, they continued to build the next generation of geospatial risk solutions. When Foust helped start HazardHub, he immediately began to recruit former Blugold students. 

“I cannot think of two more qualified people to be a part of HazardHub than Mike and Joe,” Foust said. “They are essential to its success.”