Award Ceremony - Deserved Recognition!
Thursday morning's URISA Awards Breakfast brought well-deserved attention to both systems and individuals.
Corrie Stokes, 2009 Chair of URISA's Exemplary Systems in Government Review Committee, had the pleasure of recognizing this year's ESIG Winners and Distinguished Systems.
Enterprise Category:
In the Enterprise Category, Nianwei Liau, GISP, was recognized for Virtual Charlotte.
Eric Brandt, GISP, of the Lane Council of Governments (Oregon) received a Distinguished System award for the Regional Land Information Database.
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District was recognized as a Distinguished System for SewerView. Don Nehmer was unable to attend, but the project manager, Jeff Siegel, GISP, from HNTB was able to accept the award on Don's behalf.
Single Process Systems Category:
This year, the review process resulted in an exact tie and two systems were recognized as winners in this category.
Corey Halford is recognized for the City of Airdrie's Online Census.
Jason Clemis, GISP gladly accepts Forsyth County's ESIG Award for their GIS Mobile Emergency Response System.
All of the ESIG winners and distinguished systems presented in the ESIG Showcase Sessions on Thursday afternoon. Details about each system and their submissions are posted online.
Student Paper Prize Winners were then recognized by URISA President, Hilary Perkins, GISP.
KoKo Lwin, University of Tsukuba, received first place for his paper "Interactive Online Micro-spatial Population Analysis based on GIS Estimated Building Population."
Diana María Contreras Mojica, Salzburg University, received second place for "Designing a spatial planning support system for rapid building damage survey after an earthquake: The case of Bogota D.C., Colombia"
Calvin Tribby, University of New Mexico, received third place for his paper, "Construction of a Household-level Public Transportation Accessibility Model'.
All three student winners presented their papers during the conference. Their submissions are all posted online.
URISA GISCorps Recognition
Dianne Haley, GISP, 2009-10 Chair of the GISCorps Core Committee, spoke of GISCorps accomplishements in the past twelve months. In addition to numerous completed projects, GC launched a new website.
Dianne then recognized Joe Forrest, who supported a mission in partnership with Partners Relief Development and Free Burma Rangers.
Dianne Haley and Joe Forrest
URISA's GIS Hall of Fame Award
It was URISA's great pleasure to announce the 2009 inductees into our GIS Hall of Fame.
2006 inductee, Gary Hunter, spoke of the considerable accomplishments of William J. Craig, GISP, a member of the 2009 Hall of Fame Class.
Gary Hunter and Will Craig
Dr. Craig addresses the crowd, accepting the deserved honor, followed by a rousing standing ovation.
Carl Reed, PhD was also inducted into the Hall of Fame this year. Unable to attend the conference, Dr. Reed delivered a video acceptance speech from Germany.
Take some time to read through the biographies of all URISA GIS HALL OF FAME inductees!
URISA Member Awards
Ingrid Bruce was the recipient of the URISA Leadership Award, presenteed to members who have demonstrated exemplary leadership to URISA, creativity, innovation, and dedicated support of URISA programs.
Hilary Perkins and Ingrid Bruce
Carl Anderson, GISP was recognized with the URISA Service Award, for his faithful service to URISA and participation in its programs over a period of several years.
Hilary and Carl
Carl was also recognized by Mike Lovett...for winning the competition for the most badge ribbons. Obviously, neither one of them can say "No"!
Claudia Paskauskas, GISP was recognized for her special contributions to URISA with the Barbara Hirsch Special Service Award.
Claudia receives her award from URISA President, Hilary Perkins.
The Northern Rockies Chapter of URISA received the 2009 Outstanding Chapter Award!
Hilary presents chapter president, Donna Phillips, with the Outstanding Chapter Award.
Congratulations to all of those who were recognized during the Awards Ceremony!
Thank you also to all of the review committees who manage the awards!
URISA Past Presidents
We were truly blessed to have so many of our Past Presidents at the conference this year. We were able to get a great picture (note that Barry Wellar was out in the hallway deep in conversation and Bill DeGroff was in the exhibit hall so we missed them in this photo).
Front row: Ed Wells, Peirce Eichelberger, Glenn O'Grady, Ed Crane, Bill Huxhold
Back row: Pete Croswell, Susan Johnson, Martha Wells, Will Craig, Dianne Haley, David Moyer
Speaking of Past Presidents, we were able to quickly recognize Susan Johnson for her just-concluded term on the Board before she had to catch a plane.
Thank you to Danielle Ayan for these great photos!
