Company: Houston-Galveston Area Council
Company background:
The Houston-Galveston Area Council is the regional organization through which local governments consider issues and cooperate in solving area wide problems. Through H-GAC, local governments also initiate efforts in anticipating and preventing problems, saving public funds. The 13-county H-GAC service region is growing, becoming more diverse, and constantly changing. In order to address the needs of citizens and businesses, local governments are providing leadership to guide regional development wisely and manage change constructively.
Contact: Brenda Samman
Title: Data Analyst: Socio-economic modeling
Country: United States
Award Category: Curious Thinker
Tell us how you are inspired by the work you do?
The building blocks for any research effort is data. Through my work as a data analyst, I am continuously tasked with working on large amounts of data. On the surface level this data may just look like a bunch of numbers with no meaning. However, with some cleaning up, organizing and analyzing a beautiful, and meaningful picture is painted. This viewpoint has translated into my daily life. I try to not take anything for granted; and view everything I do as having the potential to be something impactful as long as I put effort, time and an analytical mind towards it. The data I work on is often used to give insight and paint a picture of the socio-economic outlook of the Houston-Galveston area, which assists in development and planning efforts for the region. The work I do continuously inspires me to do my best as I am not only making an impact on my community but on the region as a whole.
How has SAS played a part in your journey?
I have never viewed myself as a creative, but working with SAS has highlighted that I am indeed a creative in my own right. I say this because working with data in SAS entails developing and creating codes to answer questions or solve problems. I view each of my coding scripts as a story or art and SAS being my creative tool just like a paintbrush is to an artist.
What products do you use and how do you use them?
I would say that 90% of my daily work involves using SAS, needless to say SAS is an important aspect of my job. I often use SAS 9.4 and this allows me to create and develop codes to process and analyze large socio-economic datasets, including forecasting to name a few. The ability to do these key processes through SAS assist in helping the agency and its members in their mission to foster sustainable growth and prosperity for the Hoston-Galveston region.
My favorite function in SAS is the ability to use macros as it saves on writing numerous lines code. This function has been a lifesaver for me while analyzing survey data. Likewise, even though often overlooked, I also enjoy the ability SAS has to put comments in my code, this helps others follow through as well as add on to my "story/art". Furthermore, in conjunction with SAS 9.4 I also use SAS Enterprise Guide which is a great compliment to SAS 9.4. Using them together helps me look at tables I've created in SAS, while also still working on my codes in SAS 9.4.
What is your greatest lesson learned that you'd like to share with others?
Never stop learning and be open to not only learning but sometimes not getting it right on the first try. My SAS journey has come with a lot of learning as well as trial and error, but at the end of the day eventually figuring out a problem gives me a sense of fulfillment. SAS offers a plethora of products. My advice would be to take advantage of this by learning and absorbing all you can. If once you don't succeed, keep on trying. The sky is the limit with SAS!
