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Candidate for President - Kim McDonough, GISP

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Candidate for President
Kim H. Mc Donough, GISP

Professional Experience

  • 2004 – Present
    GIS Coordinator for the Tennessee Department of Transportation

  • 1990-2004
    GIS Coordinator – Metropolitan Planning Department of Nashville/Davidson County, Tennessee

  • 1986-1990
    Planner - Metropolitan Planning Department of Nashville/Davidson County, Tennessee

  • 1983-1986
    Manager – Computer Cartography Lab, N.C. State University School of Forest Resources

Education

1977 - B.S. in Landscape and Ornamental Horticulture from Auburn University

1983 – Masters of Landscape Architecture from North Carolina State University

Since 1988 - Attended every URISA Conference and numerous URISA workshops

Certified as GIS Professional by GISCI – January 29th, 2004

URISA Activities

  • 1988-Present
    Member of URISA (Have attended every conference since then and presented at several)

  • 1995
    Local Arrangements Chair for Nashville GIS/LIS Conference

  • 1995-1997
    Junior SIG Leader

  • 1997-1999
    SIG Leader

  • 2000 – 2002 and 2008
    URISA Annual Conference Program Committee Member

  • 2001 & 2002
    Membership Committee Chair

  • 2002 – 2005
    URISA Board of Directors

  • Received the URISA Service Award in 2001

 

Other Professional Activities

  • 1993 – Present
    Member of Tennessee Geographic Information Council (TNGIC)

  • 1995 – 1998
    TNGIC Board of Directors

  • 1997
    President of TNGIC and member of TNGIC Strategic Planning Committee

  • 2007
    Local Arrangement Committee for GIS-T Conference in Nashville, TN

Statement to the Membership

As I prepared to write this, I realized that I will be attending my 20th URISA conference this year. It’s not that I have kept a tally of all my conferences, but I happened to get married the same year I joined URISA and you better believe that I DO keep a tally of that anniversary!

Those 20 years have brought me a tremendous amount of change, both personally and professionally. I truly believe that the professional growth I have experienced would not have been possible without all I have learned through my involvement in URISA. I have had the opportunity to hear and learn from the known leaders in the field. However, some of the gems have come out of conversations with someone from a small rural county or town who has created their own success through intuition and creativity.

My horizons have been immeasurably expanded by this organization, this GIS family, of URISA.

Our growth continues, both mine and URISA’s. I’m no longer a technologist, but a professional, thanks in large part to the groundbreaking work to create the GISP certification. And now that we have brought this GISP “child” into the world, it is up to us to nurture it. We can’t just sit back and see if it succeeds, we have to be proactive in its promotion and to continue to craft new programs that will help elevate the meaning of what the GISP is all about. We have taken the first step in that direction with the creation of the URISA Leadership Academy. This should only be the beginning as we work to support this ever evolving profession and the technology behind it.

In the end though, it all comes back to relationships. The relationships I have developed at URISA are responsible in large part for me evolving into the professional I am today.

I have been lucky. I have always had employers who supported my participation in the annual conference. I know there are many GIS practitioners out there who have had a harder time getting that type of support. During this time of ever tightening budgets, it is imperative that URISA reach out to our members who will not be allowed to travel to any of our conferences. Information Systems is literally our middle name and we need to become the example of how technology can be used to link our vast family together, even if we can’t all enjoy a direct personal interaction. We have to develop the means that will allow our entire membership to experience the same family of professional relationships that can mean so much in a career. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience one of those little gems I described earlier.

If elected, I can only pledge my dedication to continuing the work of our past leadership to keep URISA as the premier organization of GIS Professionals and my passion for GIS as my chosen profession.

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