Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference 31
Knowledge Immersion Seminars

Kick-start your conference experience by taking part in one of GITA's 13 half-day, preconference seminars. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and get hands-on experience in the subjects of your choice! The fees for these seminars are separate from the conference registration; see the registration form for details.

Sunday, March 9 • 8:00 a.m. - Noon

Storm Response and Preparedness
Seminar Leader: Damon Dougherty, Intergraph Corporation
Speaker: Murray Armstrong, CustomWeather, Inc.; Kent Hedrick, Progress Energy Florida

In the last several years, utilities have encountered a variety of natural disasters that resulted in catastrophic damage to infrastructure. The identification of potentially devastated areas prior to storms can greatly improve outage restoration efforts. Additionally, improving the utilization of field collected reports and faster acquisition of this information can result in shortened restoration activities. This workshop will introduce modern techniques available to reduce costs by more accurately predicting, identifying, and responding to major events. Attendees will learn about emerging trends focused on improving damage assessment, understand how weather prediction information can improve storm preparedness, and understand some common challenges associated with major storms.

Business Process Solutions for a Changing Industry
Seminar Leader: Tracey Johnston, SECO Energy
Speakers: Raul Castillo, iGrafx; Paul Stevenson, GE

As organizations introduce new technology and integrated business systems, business processes must evolve accordingly in order to meet the changing needs. A thorough investigation of existing processes is paramount for organizations to understand, prepare for and adapt to changing business conditions. This session will cover fundamental concepts in process improvement and process reengineering. Attendees will come away with tools and techniques to assist with process definition and scoping, and will explore new possibilities of process simulation software.

Strategies for Enterprisewide Web Services
Seminar Leader: Greg Buehler,Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Speakers: Christopher Andrews, Autodesk; Kurt Cagle, Metaphorical Web/XForms.org; Dr. Ignacio Guerrero, Rolta International, Inc.; Chris Tucker, IONIC Enterprises;

This seminar will provide the current state of geospatial Web Services. Attendees will discover the why's and the how's of implementing geospatial Web services. Current standards are available from the Open Geospatial Consortium, W3C, OASIS, and ISO to help your implementations. We will discuss what they are and how to use them. Differences in approaches and architectures will also be debated. Presenters will show you some real-world implementations and some hands-on tools for implementing your own applications.

GIS 101 for Engineers
Seminar Leader: David Ridderikhoff, Avineon
Speakers: Martin Andzulis, Pepco Holdings; Allen Beaudette, Advantica, Inc.; Sonja Sebree, Kirkham Michael; Dan Shannon, TELUS Network Operations


GIS or geospatial infrastructure solutions provide significant benefits to the companies that they support. However, the most common misperception is that it’s fundamentally just a mapping application utilized by the mapping or GIS department. In fact, the wealth and breadth of solutions enabled by GIS is tremendous. It can be used for design projects, it can supply third-party network modeling packages with the proposed and/or as-built network for load forecasting, it can provide the network to the outage management system for routine and emergency operations, and more. This seminar will focus on the many applications enabled or supported by GIS for planning, engineering, customer installation, etc. Specific examples and customer case studies will be presented.

Spatial Databases: Finding the Right Fit
Seminar Leader: Kevin Larson, Idea Integration
Speakers: Benton Belcher, I.S. Consulting; Nicole Jung, Global CADD System Corp.

Whether you’re a customer or a consultant, picking a spatial database becomes very challenging. With so many choices, the mind can get bogged down with the comparisons. This seminar will provide an overview of the spatial database support for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, and Informix, including the different storage options for each database. Presenters will explore the advantages of spatial data storage and also explain when it may not be appropriate. The seminar will also explore open source solutions and how they are impacting the GIS community. Other items that will be discussed will include: tests that can be done to determine which configuration will be best, taking into consideration what data will be processed at different scales; data densities; types of vector data; and comparison between hot and cold database buffer caches, which can provide additional valuable information.

Sunday, March 9 • 1:30-5:30 p.m.

FEMA—Planning & Recovery, Are You Ready?
Seminar Leader: David Shapiro, Disaster Consultants
Speakers: Scott Behunin, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Jean Chaney, FEMA Region X; Steve Randolph, FEMA Region X, Joseph Toland, FEMA Region X


This session will cover the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) perspective on pre-disaster preparedness, post-disaster response and recovery, and Federal funding through grants. Regional FEMA and other DHS representatives will provide attendees with an overview of disaster preparedness and pre-disaster hazard mitigation project grant opportunities. Examples of successful utility retrofit projects that have been funded by FEMA mitigation grants will be provided. FEMA will also present an overview of the declaration process and the Public Assistance Program, including site specific hazard mitigation.  An overview of how FEMA utilizes GIS data in post disaster environment and the role that DHS FEMA plays in response and recovery providing situation awareness for critical infrastructure will be shared. Participants will also hear from a disaster consultant how your company can maximize their FEMA and insurance reimbursement claims.

Asset Management: Sharpening the Saw
Seminar Leader: Charles Drinnan, eWAM Associates
Speakers: Jack Dugan, LogicaCMG; Mitchell Garnett, ESRI; Michael Marullo, InfoNetrix; J.R. Smith, City of Tacoma, Public Works Department

Franklin Covey’s "Seventh Habit of Highly Successful People" recommends “sharpening the saw” through self renewal. As utility network infrastructure reaches middle age, a utility must commit to renewing its infrastructure to protect its financial investments and assure regulatory compliance and customer satisfaction. Different requirements result from different utility perspectives. These varying perspectives converge as work is scheduled, dispatched to the field units, performed, and recorded. The records determine the next optimal steps in a continuing process of renewal.

The Aging Infrastructure and the Geospatial Solution
Seminar Leader: David Hale PH.D., University of Alabama, Aging Infrastructure Systems Center for Excellence
Speakers: Douglas Brown, McKim & Creed, P.A.; Tom Clemons, Bentley; Nicholas Guerrero, Spectra Energy; Pat Morin, WSDOT Sys. Planning & Prgm.

Our country’s aging infrastructure is quickly becoming a major problem.  Recent incidents involving a burst steam pipe in downtown New York City and the tragic bridge collapse in Minnesota have brought to light how heavily we rely on our infrastructure – the network of critical assets that is so vital to our way of life. In a 2005 study, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimated that US$1.6 trillion would be needed over a five-year period to bring the nation’s infrastructure to a “good” condition. These problems are not confined to the U.S.—similar conditions exist around the world.  This seminar will address how geospatial technology is proving to be a key solution for aging infrastructure problems, and how GIT practitioners are well positioned to make significant contributions.

Mobile Technology for the Enterprise
Seminar Leader: Linda Harman, Intergraph Corporation
Speakers: Larry Hurlbert, Bentley Systems; Charles Marlin, Graphic Technologies, Inc.; Marcus Reedy, David Evans & Associates; David Ward, Terrapoint

Business trends indicate that the greatest return on your investment might just be mobilizing your data and your workforce. This seminar will explore real life implementations and applications for mobile applications, such as, GPS/AVL, data collection, emergency services, field based design and workforce management. This seminar will highlight case studies illustrating the technology, the application and recognized benefits.

Monday, March 10 • 8:00 a.m. - Noon

Critical Infrastructure Protection: Geospatial Technology Community Of Practice
Seminar Lead: David DiSera, FICOH
Speakers: J. Peter Gomez, Xcel Energy; Brent Jones, ESRI

Critical infrastructure inherently involves geographically distributed networks. Organizations that manage critical infrastructure must have a coordinated approach for analyzing, displaying and effectively sharing spatial information with other private and public entities in the community to protect infrastructure assets and citizens. This is especially true when planning for and responding to emergencies involving terrorism, natural occurrences, or unintentional human error. Our presenters will discuss the premise, benefits, and obstacles associated with a coordinated approach to providing integrated, more effective geospatial resources for community stakeholders. Of particular importance is the creation of explicit practices and collaborative agreements that foster efficient geospatially based information sharing among many mutually dependent agencies and organizations. Results from several of GITA's Geospatially Enabling Community Collaboration (GECCo) pilot projects conducted across the country, including the most recent Seattle GECCo workshop, will be presented.

Critical Underground Infrastructure Protection (CUIP)
Seminar Leader: Andrew Lund, Witten Technologies, Inc.
Speakers: Dan Colby, Sentinel USA, Inc.; Doug Evans, UULC; Khrysanne Kerr, Common Ground Alliance; Todd Smith, Celeritas Technologies

Protecting critical infrastructure is a complicated proposition. Underground infrastructure is not only aging, but also faces and excavator damage. This seminar will examine excavator damage and ways to avoid it. As soon as someone asks, “where are we going to dig?” the geospatial nature of underground damage prevention comes into play. Presenters will explore various mechanisms for underground facility protection and will provide examples of how geospatial information is gathered, manipulated, managed, and distributed in the interest of preventing damage to critical infrastructure during excavation.

Green GIS: A Cleaner World with Smarter Technology
Seminar Lead: P.S. Reilly, Snohomish County PUD
Speakers: John DiStasio, Sacramento Muni Utility District; Ken Geisler, Siemens EMA

With demand for fossil fuels at an all time high and federal regulations concerning emission levels becoming more stringent, a multitude of activities have been initiated to address this critical issue. Many organizations are beginning to look at possible options, while others are busy implementing solutions. What does GIS have to do with this? There are many ways in which GIS can help with green initiatives, such as providing a consistent landbase, identifying where transmission assets are located, and mapping wind patterns in order to determine the optimum locations for wind farms. This seminar will provide an introduction to the mandates and possible solutions for going green, as well as offer insight on how GIS can help companies with these initiatives. Real-world case studies will also be presented.

Geospatial ROI: Justification Made Easy
Seminar Leader: Nancy Lerner, EMA, Inc.
Speaker: Mary Ann Stewart, Mary Ann Stewart Engineering, LLC

Elected or appointed officials, often armed with only a basic understanding of GIT, are tasked with making investment decisions regarding your projects. Put your best foot forward by learning to use tools for financial analysis of bottom-line cumulative costs and benefits. This will allow your organization to determine net present value, payback period, break-even point, and return on investment for your geospatial projects. This interactive workshop will enable participants to develop a simple return on investment analysis of a project while learning the basic principles of financial analysis for GIS. We will examine a variety of ways benefit estimates can be developed, the use of analysis in instilling management confidence, and the use of specialized templates to assist organizations in calculating return on investment. The seminar will draw from GITA's research effort, "Building a Business Case for GIT," and will provide results from case studies conducted over the past three years. Seminar attendees will be eligible to purchase the ROI project workbook at a significant discount!

Questions about Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference 31?  Contact us!
Phone: 303-337-0513    Fax: 303-337-1001     E-mail: info@gita.org