Howard Veregin Named Wisconsin State Cartographer

The Wisconsin Mapping Bulletin reports that Howard Veregin has been named as that state's new State Cartographer. Mr. Veregin, who is now the Director for GIS for Rand McNally, replaces Ted Koch, who retired earlier this year after a distinguished career, as head of the Wisconsin State Cartographer's Office.

Prior to joining Rand McNally, Mr. Veregin taught at the University of Minnesota where NSGIC President-Elect Will Craig is associate director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs.

"I knew Howard when he taught here at the University of Minnesota," said Mr. Craig. "It has been a while, but I remember him as a thoughtful guy, a solid head, and smart as a whip."

Mr. Veregin received his PhD in Geography from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He did his undergraduate work, and earned a masters degree, at the University of Manitoba. He has also worked at Kent State University.

Help Wanted: Wisconsin State Cartographer

The Badger State is looking for a new State Cartographer (PDF). The University of Wisconsin-Madison has advertised for a person to head the Wisconsin State Cartographer’s Office, a permanent unit of the Geography Department at the UW-Madison.

This position offers a challenging and unique opportunity to serve as one of the state’s leading experts in mapping and geospatial information technologies. It provides leadership, outreach, coordination, and the gathering and dissemination of information on a variety of issues serving the geospatial community and the general public.

The incumbent, Ted Koch, is retiring after a long and distinguished career. The job posting closes on June 15. Further information and application instructions are available on-line from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Let Us Not Forget the Art Inherent in Geospatial Data

The image above is taken from Robert Kosara's EagerEyes site. He is experimenting with what I think of as functional visualizations of data sets.

In this case, he's connected all US ZIP Code centroids in ascending order to create a "ZIPScribble" map. He's also calculated a version of shortest path among all those points to create what he calls a "Traveling Presidential Candidate Map."

I'm not sure we'd call this GIS, but it is an interesting new way to see a data set we've all worked with in more prosaic applications. (VIA URBAN CARTOGRAPHY)