Will Craig
Will Craig is the associate director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota. CURA's mission is to better connect the university with the state of Minnesota and GIS has been one of the conduits. In the early 1970's CURA got state funds to create the Minnesota Land Management Information System — one of the nation's first GIS. The project involved researchers from across campus and Will was involved as systems administrator and, for a while, project director. CURA continues innovative GIS work and is leader in developing and supporting community-based GIS.
Will is involved in many local and national GIS activities. He serves as vice-chair of the Minnesota Governor's Council on Geographic Information. He is past chair of the MetroGIS Coordinating Committee and a current member of the Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium. At the national level, he is chair of the Association of American Geographers Census Advisory Committee and recently served on the Mapping Science Committee at the National Research Council. He is past president of both URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) and UCGIS (University Consortium for Geographic Information Science). He chaired the committee that drafted the Code of Ethics for the GIS Certification Institute.
He has a major interest in educating federal officials about the activities and interests of state and local government. He is particularly interested in documenting the value of local parcel data to federal agencies. He chaired three Congressional Breakfasts for UCGIS and hopes to provide similar leadership for NSGIC.
Copyright © 2010 National States Geographic Information Council |
