Awards for Geospatial Excellence & Outstanding Service

Forest Hill, MD – In one of his last acts as National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) president, Chris Diller presented a record number of awards during NSGIC’s recent Annual Conference in Indianapolis, IN.

“Today, on GIS Day, it seems especially appropriate to recognize the many GIS professionals and partners in the geospatial community who serve, catalyze, champion and innovate,” said current NSGIC President Bert Granberg.

During last month’s Annual Conference, NSGIC unveiled a new awards program designed to recognize leadership and innovation at the state level. The Geospatial Excellence Awards join NSGIC’s long-running program of Outstanding Service Awards that recognize individuals and organizations that advance the national spatial data infrastructure and promote NSGIC’s goals of efficient and effective government.

2016 Geospatial Excellence Award Recipients

Catalyst Awards

Jim Dove, Allen Burns, Brent Lanford and Hunter Key, Georgia Association of Regional Commissions

For leading the efforts to create and fund the Georgia GIO Office and its charge to leverage the use and application of geospatial data in public policy and decision-making to improve the overall safety and economic prosperity of the State of Georgia and its citizens.

Kenny Brevard, VITA Integrated Services Program

For innovative aggregation of local government data into statewide enterprise resources and development of statewide analysis tools to evaluate and communicate GIS data quality back to local government in preparation for NG 9-1-1 implementation.

Joan Delos Santos, Hawaii Office of Planning

For leading the Hawaii ‘GIS Modernization’ project that resulted in a cloud-hosted set of public-facing, authoritative GIS datasets and services.

Sean McSpaden, Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office

Sean has been the catalyst for introducing legislation in the upcoming 2017 Oregon Legislative Session that authorizes the Oregon Geographic Information Council, the Geospatial Enterprise Office and the GIO, creates a Council Fund, and requires data sharing of geospatial framework data between all public bodies.

Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium

The education, grant funding, networking and collaboration opportunities the consortium has pursued have been critical to building and extending a strong statewide professional community. The consortium is expecting 700 attendees at its annual conference and 70 teachers at a special geospatial STEM training event.

Champion Award

Utah Mapping & Information Partnership, Executive Steering Committee; Amanda Smith, Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Robyn Pearson, Utah Department of Natural Resources

The Utah Mapping and Information Partnership (UMIP) is an informal committee of department heads formed to advance agency goals through heightened use of GIS and more complete sharing of data. UMIP won funding commitments from 14 agencies to license statewide high resolution aerial photography and successfully sought an appropriation to work on key enterprise geospatial projects.

Catalyst Award and Champion Award

Alaska Geospatial Council

The Alaska Geospatial Council, led by its chair Ed Fogels, is a multi-agency organization chartered in 2015 with representatives from all tiers of government, tribal entities and academic institutions working together to promote shared geospatial technology, enterprise data and infrastructure resources, and technical exchange.

Innovator Awards

Jeff Ylvisaker and Tony Van Der Wielen, Wisconsin Legislative Technology Services Bureau

For supporting statutory changes and the development of the WISE-Decade platform, that taken together, resulted in an upgrade to how Wisconsin government publicly reports municipal boundary changes. This also resulted in more accurate management of voting districts, improved distribution of government funds by refining population estimates, and a streamlined data delivery to the Census BAS program.

2016 Outstanding Service Award Recipients

Tony LaVoi, NOAA, Department of Commerce

Tony LaVoi is the Chief of the Integrated Information Services Division for NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management. He is also NOAA’s geospatial information officer (GIO). In these positions, he serves as the focal point for agency-wide strategies, policy development, standards and coordination activities related to geospatial technologies out of NOAA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer. He coordinates a number of enterprise geospatial services for the NOAA GIS community of users, including many that are beneficial to state and local government stakeholders. Tony has kept NSGIC members informed and engaged in NOAA’s activities through his participation in the Coastal Caucus and Geospatial Preparedness Committee meetings. On several occasions, he has carried NSGIC issues back to other NOAA staff for resolution. The states are better able to focus on their unique issues and to incorporate NOAA’s services to support planning, response and recovery activities related to emergencies, coastal management and climate-related initiatives. More recently, Tony’s influence helped to ensure the success of NOAA’s nowCOAST web mapping portal for access to real-time weather observations, forecasts, warnings and other data, while expanding available services and incorporating input from stakeholders. He did this by using a transparent process and integrating it with services across NOAA.

Andy Rowan, State of New Jersey

Andy is Deputy Chief Technology Officer, formerly the Director of the NJ Office of GIS. Andy has been involved with NSGIC since the 2005 Annual Conference in Rochester, NY. Andy was first elected to the NSGIC board in 2010. He has co-chaired both the Address and Transportation committees, represented NSGIC on addressing issues at the National Address Summit and earlier this year represented NSGIC at the Mapping Science Committee meeting on addresses in Washington, DC. Andy has provided a valuable voice into issue and provided advice on board calls.

Nathalie Smith, Esri

Nathalie is a State Government Account Manager based out of Esri’s Olympia, WA office. Nathalie has worked at Esri for 28 years, first starting in Redlands, and now in the Pacific Northwest. Nathalie recently served on the Executive Director Search Committee helping NSGIC hire our first ever Executive Director. Nathalie represented our Corporate Leadership Council on this committee and provided a much-needed sponsor perspective on our hiring.

Kathy DeMarco, NSGIC Association Manager

Kathy has been NSGIC’s Association Manager since 2009. It should be noted that Kathy is a Certified Association Executive and has served NSGIC well in that capacity. Her attention to details is one of her many strengths. Kathy always keeps the board informed of upcoming meetings, provides meeting notes and help ensure officers of the board follow the rules. She also helps the Finance Committee with the all-important annual budget and monthly financials. It is safe to say that without Kathy, NSGIC would not be operating as efficiently.

Craig Johnson, Louisiana Geographic Info Center

Craig is the Director of the Louisiana Geographic Information Center. Craig has been working in state government for 19 years and in a GIS leadership role for 16 years. Craig has been involved with NSGIC since the 2000 NSGIC Annual Conference in Lake Tahoe, NV, and has served as chair of the NSGIC Elections Committee since 2009. Knowing that NSGIC can count on Craig year in and year out to serve in that capacity is always a relief. It is one less thing that the president and board had to worry about. It is also why NSGIC elections happen smoothly.

Phil Worrall, Indiana Geographic Info Center

Phil first joined NSGIC in 2009 and has been a vocal proponent of everything GIS in Indiana. Phil has been involved in the mapping sciences since 1972. Phil heads up the Resiliency and 3DEP work groups and has served in this capacity since the 2014 Annual Conference in Charleston, SC. Phil regularly engages with USGS on behalf of NSGIC and advocates for state needs surrounding the 3DEP program.

Randy Mayden, North West Geomatics Ltd.

Randy has been a member of NSGIC since 2006. Randy has served on the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) since 2009 and served as chair of the CLC from 2014 to 2015. While serving as CLC chair, Randy helped provide sponsor perspectives on NSGIC engagement. This type of engagement is valued by the board and fundamental to our partnerships between states and sponsors. Last year, Randy served on the Executive Director Task Force, helping NSGIC define the duties and responsibilities of the Executive Director position description. Many hours were spent collaborating on this effort.