2006 NSGIC Conference: Day Two, Monday, October 2

Monday, October 2, was the first full-on day of the 2006 NSGIC Conference.

Never mind that our Sunday activities took all daylight hours, and more; the conference officially started with the Monday morning Keynote address. The speaker was Danny Sullivan, a local Little Rock minister and high school teacher and coach. He spoke, and spoke effectively, on leadership and teamwork.

Following that was the traditional roll call of the states, in which the lead delegates of each of the states presents the state's delegation and gives an overview, very briefly, of the major issues they face.

Don Cook, the founder of GDT (now part of TeleAtlas North America), has been a fixture at NSGIC Conferences for many years. He is a valuable corporate partner, and an active member. He has a habit of sitting right up front and taking a picture of every speaker. Toward the end of the parade of states, it became clear that one of us had to strike back. So I brought my camera up to the microphone with me.

After lunch, we heard a presentation on work at the federal level to create a Geospatial Support Task Force. This is an idea that has grown up in the wake of efforts to bring geospatial data to bear in emergency response efforts such as 9/11, the Challenger disaster, and the hurricanes of 2005.

The idea is to model the GIS task force on the other emergency response task forces that already exist. That is, to have the people needed to get the job done identified and trained, the equipment they need ready, and an approach in hand to handle any logistical problems. So that when a task force is needed, it can quickly get on scene and get to work.

One Task Force is now being built. Eventually there will be at least three, organized regionally.

Monday afternoon was also devoted to speeches by candidates for the NSGIC board of directors. And the whole group gathered on a stairway in the convention center to take a group portrait. There were also small group photos of the present board of directors, past presidents, and others who have been involved in NSGIC since its inception.

After a break, there was an in-depth discussion of work to create a national, and regular, program to collect aerial photography: known as Imagery for the Nation. This was followed by a panel discussion on how to provide quality assurance for large orthophoto and other data projects.

Following dinner, NSGIC leadership gathered with the leaders of some of the group's major sponsors to start a Corporate Leadership Council to help guide joint efforts to improve the use and sharing of geospatial data.