News

This fall, the Northwest GIS User Group (NWGIS) has teamed up with URISA and the Northern Rockies Chapter of URISA to host GIS-Pro in Boise. This national GIS conference is making its way back to the Pacific Northwest.

Do you enjoy teaching or presenting?  NWGIS is soliciting pre-conference workshops for the 2022 GIS-Pro Conference. Topics can be related to any geospatial or related subject relevant to the modern GIS professional.

Conference

• Boise, Idaho – Boise Centre on the Grove 
• Pre-conference Workshops (Sun, Oct 2 – Mon, Oct 3)
• Conference – (Tue, Oct 4 – Thu, Oct 6)

Notes

• Workshops must be in-person and conducted at the Boise Centre conference center.
• NWGIS promoted workshops must not conflict with, but can complement, the URISA Certified Workshops. The URISA workshops have not been solidified but could include any of the following listed here: Call for URISA Workshop Proposals | URISA
• Coffee/tea service is provided for morning and afternoon breaks.  Lunch service is not provided.
• Instructors can leverage their own equipment (i.e. laptop, projector). Any equipment that the conference team supplies will be deducted from the payment to the instructor.
• All financial transactions are being handled by URISA conference leads.
• Wi-Fi is available, and table/chair setups will be provided.

If you are interested in conducting a workshop, send your information to: Linda Davis (linda.davis.nwgis@gmail.com).

The submission deadline is March 15, 2022.

Submission Information Required

• How long is your workshop?
• • ½ day (4 hours)
  • 1 day (8 hours)
  • 1 ½ or 2 day (12 – 16 hours)
• How many students can you accommodate (30 people max)?
• Do you have a minimum attendance?
• Workshop Title
• Brief Description
• Please list a few learning objectives for the workshop or training.
• Course pre-requisites – List any knowledge students are expected to have or any software/hardware students need to provide.
• Instructor Name(s)
• Format – Is this is a lecture-only workshop, hands-on, or both?
• Hardware – Is there equipment the conference needs to supply (i.e., projector, instructor laptop, student laptops)?
• Costs: What is the price per student you need?
• Other logistics or concerns.

The conference workshop committee will review submissions. You may be contacted by NWGIS to work out additional details.

Christopher Yake (Idaho) 

I am Chris Yake, Senior GIS Analyst with JUB Engineering/Gateway Mapping in Coeur d'Alene, ID. Prior to moving to Idaho, I spent 15 years leveraging GIS in land use and transportation planning in both the public and private sectors. I have worked at multiple scales including the regional level (Portland Metro MPO) down to the local level (Seattle Department of Transportation). In addition to planning, I specialize in water and sewer system analysis, desktop and interactive web mapping, and data driven visualization. My recent projects include projecting future residential growth and conducting land capacity analysis for the City of Pasco, WA, prioritizing sewer line improvements based on defect evaluation for the City of Brewster, WA, creating heat maps illustrating transit orientation for the Kootenai County Public Transportation Strategic Plan, and lead mapping and data visualization for the Nez Perce County (ID) Transportation Master Plan. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Masters in City & Regional Planning.

I would like to serve the GIS community at-large and expand awareness of the power of geospatial tools and analysis to the broader public.

I look forward to fulfilling this potential opportunity and appreciate your consideration to represent Northern Idaho within NWGIS.

Tyson Taylor (Idaho) - LinkedIn

GIS Professional with 30 years of experience in esri and Microsoft stacks. Held numerous GIS roles: Analyst, Instructor, Developer, Manager and Engineer. Education B.S. degree in GIS from the University of Idaho followed by a M.S. degree in Management of Information Systems from Boise State University. Extremely passionate about Geography, GIS and Cartography.

Over the years I have kind of got out of touch with the NW Users Group. I want to get more involved with what is going on with GIS in the NW. It would be a pleasure serving as a board member.

I'm very passionate about the field of GIS and very interesting in helping others look for innovative opportunities to leverage GIS into every day workflows. 100% of my experience is with the esri and Microsoft software stacks. Thank you & have a great Day.

Steven Cotterill (Oregon)- LinkedIn, Maverick Construction Leadership

Have been working in the field of GIS for approximately 13 years. I began working as an intern at the USGS while finishing my Geography degree at Sacramento State University in 2008 working primarily on historic imagery referencing. The majority of my career has been working with utilities and mobile GIS data collection for utilities working at Pacific Gas & Electric in California within their GIS Data & Analytics Department. My recent position as a Senior GIS Analyst brought me to Portland Oregon where I work for Maverick Construction which designs fiber telecommunications.

I would like to part of the NWGIS board to continue to be invested in the GIS community to both learn and assist in keeping myself and my peers up to date with industry trends and knowledge base.

I have been a certified GISP since 2015. I love utilizing python and GIS analysis and am excited to watch the development of GIS data science and exploring how the industry trends in that direction.

Every fall, we look forward to gathering together as a NWGIS community. Here are the annual gatherings we can look forward to in the next few years:

October 25-28 2021: Virtual Conference! Please join us virtually for workshops, demos, technical presentations from fellow NWGISers, and networking events.  $40 member/$55 non-member.

2022: Boise, ID

2023: Yakima, WA 

 We look forward to seeing you soon!

The Idaho Geospatial Office is seeking feedback from GIS practitioners across Idaho to assess the GIS Maturity in the state. See details here.

Most of the conference presentations from the fall 2020 conference are now freely available from our YouTube channel. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZtjGSwC0B4&list=PLiC1i3ejK5vsAraUOjp3wKadPeX0e2ivr

Ten videos exist in the playlist on the following topics, all with an emphasis on why and how GIS helps with each:

1. GIS helps you get a job
2. GIS provides double benefits
3. GIS helps bring people together
4. GIS helps you solve problems
5. GIS helps with location analytics
6. GIS is more than mapping, it is understanding and analysis.
7. GIS helps us plan what the world could and should be like.
8. GIS helps us solve 21^st Century problems.
9. GIS helps us understand content, skills, and perspectives.
10. GIS helps us understand place and space, including through map quizzes.

As GIS practitioners it is important to take our work seriously…just not ourselves. Enjoy. See video here

We are on the hunt for pictures of people and memorabilia from past conferences that you are willing to contribute. NWGIS has been going strong since the late 80’s. While we are pretty good about looking toward the future, we are losing a lot of the history about our user group. Do you have pictures of: t-shirts or other NWGIS SWAG, hard copy programs, conference events? Do you have a NWGIS story you would like to share? Please contact Eric Wing at ewing@cityofboise.org

If enough content can be captured we may be able to put together a story map to share the legacy of NWGIS.