By Debora Flora
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – John Bralich has been in one line of work for 25 years, and yet his family members do not know what he does for a living.
At home, “I don’t talk about it much,” says Bralich, of Hermitage, Pa. “I come from a working-class background.”
Most residents are not enlightened about his role as director of the Center for Applied Geographic Information Systems at Youngstown State University. He could be mistaken for Everyman, a humble and ordinary character in fiction. Bralich is humble, but not ordinary. In fact, he is a strong ally of communities.
Bralich developed and maintains the Real Property Information System, a collection of Youngstown’s real property data in the form of an online, interactive map. In addition, he manages research projects and provides technical assistance to YSU, local governments and social service agencies.
“I am the keeper of data, but many people contribute,” Bralich said from his office in DeBartolo Hall. “I put it in a format that people can use, a format that makes sense. It is like I drag a big net behind me.”
Asked why data matters, “We have to have a handle on what’s going on,” he explained. “We can’t plan effectively or strategize without it.” Data enables entities to fulfill their missions and collaborate, he added.
Bralich and a team of YSU students have scoured building design documents to map water, sewer, and underground electric lines in Warren, Niles and Girard. He has mapped the locations of lead pipes for the Youngstown Water Department, which also serves portions of Boardman, Austintown, Liberty and Girard. “It’s a lot of leg work, but we are ahead of the game,” he said.
Bralich developed transition plans to meet federal Americans with Disabilities Act standards for rights of way, curbs, ramps, crosswalks and sidewalks in Mahoning and Trumbull counties; Portage County is next, he said. He contributed to housing quality surveys in Youngstown, Campbell, Struthers, Lowellville, Boardman and Coitsville townships. Niles and Campbell engaged him in redrawing city ward boundaries. A transportation planner in Muncie, Ind., also is his client.
Data can translate into dollars that bring projects to fruition. “I don’t like to take much credit there,” Bralich said of grant writing. “Maybe I helped a little bit.”
In fact, because of his data analysis, communities have received millions of dollars in grant awards to replace lead water lines, demolish abandoned and dilapidated structures, build new housing and much more.
Quality of life projects matter to Bralich. In performing extensive research on Youngstown parks, one basketball court emerged as a hot spot for fights. Bralich recalled speaking with younger players, who disliked being pushed aside when older kids showed up. A federal criminal justice grant paid for installation of a second, problem-solving court, he said.
The reality of Bralich’s work has exceeded his imagination. While studying geography at YSU in the late 1990s, he was intrigued by ways in which humans moved and interacted over time. He wanted to be a mapmaker; “My parents wanted to know if I could get a job,” he said.
Bralich learned about GIS from Hal Withrow, his immediate supervisor while he was a student assistant in map work at YSU’s Center for Urban Studies. After earning a bachelor’s degree in December 2000, he was hired full-time at YSU as a GIS analyst. “I thought I’d do it for a few years, then get a job at home” in Mercer County, he said.
Bralich began by developing wetland mitigation plans. The comprehensive Youngstown 2010 Plan emerged as a partnership between Youngstown and YSU to envision the city as a smaller, greener, cleaner city that prioritized sustainable long-term investments.
In 2008, when the Raymond John Wean Foundation and Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative set their sights on neighborhood conditions and championing change, “that was when my focus shifted from environmental to blight and vacant properties,” he said. He also completed a Master of Arts degree in American Studies at YSU.
Data collection involves field work, and it suits Bralich, who also likes to hike in state parks and walk along beaches with his wife, Ashley, and their son, Xavier.
Bralich began traveling Phelps Street from the YSU campus to City Hall in the early 2000s. Back then, he passed by a rundown car dealership and apartment building, an unmaintained flight of stairs, and a desolate downtown that appeared to be unkempt and unsafe, he said.
Today, those landmarks have been replaced by the YSU Williamson College of Business Administration, the renovated Erie Terminal apartment building and the Phelps Gateway that ends at the Youngstown Foundation Community Amphitheater.
Bralich has enjoyed seeing the rebirth of downtown, a positive shift in the community’s mindset, and “just being a part of the team,” he said.