Press Releases

October 24, 2008 (PARK RIDGE, IL) – Peirce Eichelberger, with a long and distinguished record of leadership and contributions to URISA and the GIS community, was the recent recipient of URISA’s prestigious Horwood Distinguished Service Award during the association’s 46th Annual Conference in New Orleans. This award is URISA’s ultimate award for service and leadership to URISA and the geospatial industry.

Susan Johnson presents Peirce Eichelberger with the Horwood Distinguished Service Award.

September 16, 2008 (Park Ridge, IL) – Next month, GIS Professionals will convene at URISA’s 46th Annual Conference & Exposition in New Orleans, to address the important topics of the day including inter-governmental collaboration for cost savings and efficiencies; infrastructure sustainability and asset management; enterprise solutions; disaster response and readiness; and results-oriented public participation GIS.

URISA President, Susan Johnson, notes, “With the troubled economy and natural disasters impacting the global community, it’s more important than ever for GIS professionals to discuss ways to make our limited technology dollars stretch further and more effectively. I’m looking forward to a number of sessions during the URISA conference that will demonstrate ways of doing more with less.”

September 4, 2008 (Park Ridge, IL) - Hurricane Gustav, thankfully, passed over the Gulf Coast region without as much damage as had been forecasted. There were a few power outages and very little damage to downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter (where the URISA Annual Conference will be held, October 7-10, 2008). The Sheraton New Orleans confirmed that the hotel is just fine and ready to take reservations for the URISA Conference.

Take advantage of the expertise of more than 150 GIS professionals from across the globe who are presenting in sessions like these:

July 21, 2008 (PARK RIDGE, IL) - URISA is pleased to announce the results of its 2008 Board of Directors Election. Kathrine Cargo, GISP (New Orleans Parish Communications District) will become President-Elect of the association and Clare Brown, GISP, Michael Lovett, GISP and Karen Stewart, GISP will begin their three-year terms as members of the Board of Directors, at the close of URISA's 46th Annual Conference in New Orleans this October.

“URISA means professional growth, as I feel that my participation in conferences, committees and chapter functions better prepared me to recognize challenges as opportunities for improvement. URISA has been and continues to be a great source of inspiration to me in my work as a GIS/Mapping Coordinator, mainly due to the GIS educational offerings and the industry information that streams from the association on a regular basis,” said Cargo.

Three new directors were elected by the URISA membership to serve a three-year term on the URISA Board, also beginning in October. The three new Board members are:

July 10, 2008 (Park Ridge, IL) - URISA’s 4th Caribbean GIS Conference (August 25-29 on Grand Cayman) boasts speakers from across the region and the world. Caribbean projects, research and success stories will be well-represented with speakers from Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts, Trinidad, and the US Virgin Islands. Speakers will also be participating from Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This year’s exceptionally strong participation from the Caribbean community indicates how established and important GIS has become in the region. In addition to sessions on disaster management, web-based GIS, and privacy issues, presentation topics will include:

June 25, 2008 (Park Ridge, IL) – URISA is now accepting abstract submissions for its Second GIS in Public Health Conference. The conference, themed “Putting Health in Place with GIS,” will take place June 5-8, 2009 in Providence, Rhode Island.  The vision for the conference is to provide an open and participatory forum for advancing the effective use of spatial information and geographic information system technologies across the domains of public health, healthcare and community health preparedness.

The Program Committee will organize an educational program based upon the abstracts submitted through the Call for Participation. All abstract submissions, received by October 31, 2008, will be reviewed and considered for this conference.  The Program Committee encourages abstract submissions in one or more of the following general categories (examples of topics within each category are included). The committee invites examples of GIS and spatial analysis in these various areas, including case studies, empirical analysis, etc.