Welcome to the new home of NYS GIS Association!

Thanks to the hard work of many members of the website design team and the work of Interactive Design & Solutions, we are happy to welcome the NYS geospatial community to this new web site.  This site has been designed to meet the needs of our growing association and to reflect the forward thinking of our membership.  Please feel free to ask questions or offer suggestions for its improvement by emailing us at: info@nysgis.org

The 2010 Summit was a Success!

On May 18-19th the fifth annual NYS GeoSpatial Summit was held at the historic Otesaga Hotel overlooking beautiful Otsego Lake in Cooperstown. Sponsored by the NYS GIS Association and the NYS Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination, the event kicked off with a reception on the evening of the May 18th at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Reception attendees had the opportunity to enjoy talking one-on-one with geospatial leaders from New York State and beyond and taking a free tour of the Hall of Fame.     

The Summit featured speakers from the avant-garde of the geospatial industry. They included James Fee, GIS developer, analyst, consultant and founder of the provocative James Fee Blog; Nicholas Roy, a member of MITs Robust Robotics Group; Ted Morgan, co-founder of Skyhook Wireless, a company founded to take advantage of the demand for location based services using Wi-Fi technologies; Jason Hyon, Chief Technologist for NASA/JPL Earth Science and Technology Directorate; Stuart Rich, Principal of Penobscot Bay Media; and Bruce Markusen, Cooperstown historian. Over 140 attendees shared an opportunity to learn about the latest in geospatial concepts from these speakers and more while being able to take part in the Summit’s interactive panel discussions.  

For more perspectives on the Summit, check out Steve Romalewski’s Blog at: http://spatialityblog.com/2010/05/24/notes-from-nysgissummit2010/.      


The Association Wishes to Thank the 2010 Summit Sponsors

The NYS GIS Association wishes to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the sponsors of the 2010 NYS GeoSpatial Summit.  This unique event is funded entirely through registration fees and the support of the sponsors.  In this economic climate, we all recognize how difficult it is to make this kind of commitment and we thank all those that provided the opportunity to hold this event.  These include: Gold Sponsors: GIS Solutions, Inc as the Reception Sponsor, and Bergmann Associates,  Lunch Sponsor; Silver Sponsors: Wendel as Breakfast Sponsor, ESRI as Morning Break Sponsor, and Pictometry as Afternoon Break Sponsor; and Underwriting Sponsors: Applied Geographics Inc., Bowne Management Systems, Inc., C. T. Male Associates, PC, fountains spatial, GIS/SIG, Orienteering Unlimited, Oswald Associates, Stone Environmental, Inc., Tele Atlas, The Cedra Corporation, US Geological Survey, and Waypoint Technology Group, LLC.    


Next Up ---- The NYS GIS Conference!
Register now for the NYS GIS Conference at:  http://www.esf.edu/nysgisconf/.  

You’re in for a real treat this year as it will be held October 24th-October 26th in historic Saratoga Springs. There will be great workshops on Sunday as well as a reception at the Racing Museum. Monday will feature the formal opening of the conference with a keynote address by Kass Green, president of Kass Green & Associates and the “State of the State in GIS” by Bill Johnson, Assistant Deputy Director for the New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure.  Monday evening will be rounded out by a banquet and a talk by Jack Knowlton, owner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide. Don’t miss this opportunity to network with GIS professionals and learn about the latest in software and applications being developed across New York State.        


Joe Jones First Association Lifetime Achievement Award Winner! 

In 2009, the Association announced the introduction of its Awards Program to recognize individuals in New York’s geospatial industry that made outstanding contributions.  The first recipient of the Life Time Achievement award was made to Joe Jones, formerly the GIS Coordinator for Nassau County.  Bruce Oswald presented Joe with this award at the Annual Meeting in Lake Placid.  In nominating Joe for this award, Bill Johnson of NYS CSCIC, stated that Joe had worked an astonishing 47 years for Nassau County and had created one of the most robust and comprehensive county-level GIS programs in the nation.  He noted that Joe had also given unselfishly of himself by being deeply involved in statewide GIS coordination efforts for many years as a member of the NYS GIS Coordinating Body from its inception in 1996 until his retirement this summer, chairing the Local Government Advisory Committee, and serving for many years as a grant reviewer for the State Archives and Records Administration local government records improvement grants.