FLURISA Fall 2009 Newsletter published

The FLURISA Fall 2009 newsletter has arrived. click here to read it.

Cocoa Beach High School is proud to announce the beginning of their new Geospatial/Geographic Information Systems program

With the start of the 2009/2010 school year Mary Ament, veteran business teacher began teaching the Digital Quest curriculum, based on ARC GIS software. In preparation for this new endeavor, Mary spent several weeks this summer in a Teachers in Industry for Educational Support (TIES) experience working with Spatial Technologies, and attending other training opportunities. The three-year sequential GIS program will prepare students for work in the industry in entry-level positions, or to attend post-secondary programs for advanced education in the field. They will be prepared to take the GIS Technician industry certification exam and hands-on assessment at the completion of their second year in the program, and may be available for paid internships and/or summer work in the field in their junior year. This program has been so successful in some high schools that students are sought for employment before they are even ready to graduate. The program needs interested parties from the industry to serve as Advisory Committee members, to help guide and support the program. If you are interested in sharing your expertise to help them develop a strong program, please contact Dee Avvampato, Resource Teacher, Office of Career and Tech Ed, Brevard Public Schools, at (321) 633-1000, X383.

Central Florida GIS professionals and businesses making headlines one more time

The 47th URISA annual conference was held last week in Anaheim, CA. The theme of the conference this year was “Providing Solutions to Challenges” as today’s GIS professionals have to accomplish more with fewer resources and less support. Michael Lovett, GISP was the conference chair and did a great job with the other URISA volunteers offering a program with high level presentations, excellent training and network opportunities. This year, conference sponsors including local businesses and many GIS professionals actively volunteered with URISA. Claudia Paskauskas, MCSD, GISP was awarded with the Barbara Hirsh Special Service Award. Congratulations Central Florida for being actively contributing to the GIS profession!

FLURISA Board of Directors slate

FLURISA just announced its new slate of officers: The CFGIS team wishes the best of luck to the new FLURISA slate of officers. Past-President - Lee Hartsfield President - Will Walter Vice President - Claudia Paskauskas Secretary - Sam Palmer Treasurer - Brad Stroppel North Section Executive - Patrick Pence Central Section Executive - Joe Borries South Section Executive - Kelly Ratchinsky Northeast regional director – Tammy Bruner East Central Regional Director – Keith Smith Southwest regional director – Darryl Clare Gold Coast Regional Director – Jennifer Marangos Education Chair - Rocky S. Agbunag. For more information about FLURISA or to become a member, please go to www.flurisa.org.

FLURISA Annual Meeting held during the 2009 CFGIS Workshop

The 2009 Annual General Membership Meeting of FLURISA was held on Monday, September 21 in conjunction with the Central Florida GIS Workshop. The meeting was attended by current and prospective FLURISA members. Discussion topics included new organizational officers, upcoming events, the organization longevity, how FLURISA can support GISPs at re-certification and current volunteer opportunities. For more information about FLURISA or to become a member, please go to www.flurisa.org

Have you seen your picture from the last CFGIS Users Group yet?

The PowerPoint presentations and pictures taken during the last CFGIS users group meeting held July 23rd are now posted to the CFGIS website. To access the PowerPoint from the meeting go to http://cfgis.org/Document-Library/General-CFGIS-Documents/Users-Groups-PPTs-2008.aspx and to see pictures taken during the CFGIS events go to http://cfgis.org/Usergroups/PhotoArchives.aspx. The CFGIS meeting materials are always made available within a week after the users group meeting. Check it out!

UWF is now offering the Geographic Information Science certificate program

The University of West Florida is offering a 24 credit hour/ONE Year program designed for students to learn cutting-edge technology and gain practical experience working with GIS related software, 100% online. This is a completely online program! Enrollment is open until November 20th, 2009. Classes start in January. To obtain more information about the on-line certificate program go to http://uwf.edu/gis/gisonline/. Thanks Melvin Barnes from Seminole County for sharing the information with us!

2009 CFGIS Workshop Map Gallery Winners

The 2009 CFGIS Workshop was held at the Hilton Altamonte Springs on September 21 to 22. A group of 196 GIS professionals and GIS users shared two days of great GIS content and experiences. Mr. John Calkins, Corporate Technical Evangelist with ESRI was the workshop keynote speaker. The workshop also held a Map Gallery contest. This year’s map gallery winners were Crystal Phillips-Mustain, City of Palm Bay for the Keynote Choice and Tony Harrison, Seminole County for the Popular Choice. Congratulations!

Strategic Regional Policy Plan – NRORS Layers

The East Central Florida Regional Planning Council (ECFRPC) is required to revisit and update its Strategic Regional Policy Plan (SRPP) every ten to better address the region’s needs. This coming SRPP will focus in the Regional Vision implementation. One of the components of the new SRPP is a list of layers and policies that closely identify and analyze natural resources of regional significance (NRORS) for the 6-county area. The draft NRORS policies and GIS layers are now available for download at the www.cfgis.org website. To access the draft NRORS policies and GIS layers go to the http://cfgis.org/Document-Library.aspx and expand the “NRORS” green bar.

SR 50 Study Developed with FDOT

US 27 to Florida Turnpike East Ramps: SR 50 is a key east-west regional arterial linking communities in Lake County and Orange County, as such it serves a high level of commuter traffic. In the next year, SR 50 will be widened to include six travel lanes from western Orange County to Lake County to US 27. Despite this widening, traffic projections indicate that the roadway will be over capacity well before the 20-year design life of the corridor. Careful planning of future infrastructure and land use is needed to create a vision for the future of the corridor as well as the necessary policy and legislative steps to achieving that vision. The development of this plan will require a close collaboration between the state, Lake County, Orange County, the MPOs and affected cities. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council (ECFRPC) and a team of consultants will start working together at the upcoming month in a study that will deliver a plan that should provide the development community with information regarding desirable land use and transportation alternatives as well as cost sharing opportunities. By utilizing GIS analysis and processes, the ECFRPC team will kick-off the project development by collecting, analyzing, and then delivering information about the current land use inventory, parcel underutilization analysis, and also a current allowable Build-out analysis based on existent Floor Area Rations (FAR). The findings of this project’s first phase will be then handed to the FDOT and the other team mates that will then proceed with the other plan development aspects. For more information about the SR 50 Study contact the ECFRPC team at http://www.ecfrpc.org/Contact-Us.aspx.

17-92 Redevelopment Corridor Update

The East Central Florida Regional Planning Council (ECFRPC) with the Seminole County US 17-92 Community Redevelopment Agency, begun developing a study that will analyze the Community Redevelopment Areas (CRAs) along the US 17-92 corridor. This study is part of the County Master Plan composition effort that focuses in documenting current land use, identifying potentially underutilized parcels and exploring opportunities of land readjustment through the revitalization of the CRA, local economy, transportation alternatives, development patterns, and land use regulations. The Corridor underutilization analysis is a powerful GIS component of this plan. To learn more about the US 17-92 parcel data and land use analysis, contact the ECFRPC team at http://www.ecfrpc.org/Contact-Us.aspx.

More Smartbooks Published at the CFGIS website

The CFGIS team continues working on publishing the SmartBooks series at the www.cfgis.org website. This season the Wildfire, Historical Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, and Transportation Transit Corridors smartbooks are being made available to our community. SmartBooks are PDF files empowered with some GIS functionality such as enabling or disabling layers, retrieving attributes, and also giving the users the capability to write directly in the PDF document (with the mark-up toolbar). Visit our Map Gallery and find out how many pre-made maps at the County, Region and State level are now available.

Lake County GIS deployed the Metadata Explorer Tool

Data sharing is a best practice that more organizations are adopting as part of their everyday operation. The Lake County GIS Department deployed a brand new Metadata Explorer tool that enables users to easily access the County GIS data. To access the Lake County metadata explorer please visit: http://gis.co.lake.fl.us/metadataexplorer/catalog.

Brevard County Property Appraiser Facilitating Free Mobile GIS Training to the CFGIS Community

The Brevard County Property Appraiser extended to the CFGIS community an opportunity to attend the ‘Introduction to Mobile GIS Solutions’ workshop held by GIS Services for free! The workshop was held at the Brevard County Government Area located in Viera from 8:30 am to 3:30pm, normal cost is $75 per attendee. Thank you Kay Gargis for orchestrating the training whereabouts, for your team oriented spirit, and for letting the local GIS community take advantage of this opportunity.

The Next URISA Leadership Academy (ULA) is Confirmed

The next ULA training series has been confirmed for December 7 - 11, 2009 - Seattle, WA. Early Registration and Group registration rates are already available. Sponsorship opportunities are also available. To learn more about this training designed specifically for leaders, go to www.urisa.org/ula.

Florida Association of Cadastral Mappers (FACM) Annual Meeting

FACM's annual meeting and educational workshop will be held at the TradeWinds Island Resort on St. Pete Beach. The dates for the event are October 18-21, 2009. The call for presenters is open, for a list of topics and how to submit a paper go to www.facm.org and complete the FACM Session Proposal form.

Census Bureau's On the Map Version 3

The Census Bureau's program where you can interactively see where people live and work. Visit http://lehdmap3.did.census.gov/ to visit this site and use the map.

FLURISA New Workshop Opportunities

FLURISA offered to the membership the Open Source GIS URISA certified workshop. Carl Anderson - Fulton County (GA) IS Manager, taught the workshop along with Claudia Paskauskas and Michael Lovett. Brad Stroppel also helped during the workshop. This is the first of a series of educational opportunities that FLURISA will offer to its members. Make sure you are a FLURISA member to take advantage of future events and opportunities. The FLURISA board waived this year's membership fees. All you have to do to become a member is go to the www.flurisa.org website and "join" the group. If you are interested in offering any of the URISA workshops in your area, please contact FLURISA at flurisa@flurisa.org.

Lake County Launches New Interactive Map

Visit the new Lake County Interactive Map page that is running from an ArcServer Platform. The link to access the interactive map is here: gis.lakecountyfl.gov/gisweb/

New CFGIS Clearinghouse Features Coming Soon

As technology changes so does the way in which we share. Data now more than ever is a relative definition that encapsulates not only the traditional shapefile package, but also includes geodatabases, interactive applications that deliver analysis, smart maps, SmartBooks, links and now the brand new set of Layer Packages (.LPK) and templates. The layer packets and templates are new releases from ESRI found in the 9.3.1 version that not only enhance the way we share our work, but also encourages and purposely emphasizes best practices. The CFGIS tea will start working in the data clearinghouse data repository and incorporating these new features to accommodate these new types of data. Stay Tuned!

New Regional GIS Data Layers Available in the CFGIS Clearinghouse

CFGIS is releasing a new series of regional data that can downloaded from the clearinghouse. The new data published include: Regional Future Land Use 3rd and 4th quarters, 2008 Regional Conservation, 2008 Regional Mitigation Banks, 2008 Proposed Conservation, 2007 Regional DOR, 2008 Urban Areas, 2008 Regional Parks and Recreational Areas, Several layers related with the undertaken Hurricane and All Hazards regional Evacuation Study: Regional Airports, Regional Community Resources, Regional Correctional Facilities, Education, Emergency Services, Health Care Facilities, and Shelters.

CFGIS Smart Books Now Available

CFGIS now has SmartBooks - GIS enabled documents. Giving users the ability to turn layers off and on and using the object data tool see attributes of select GIS features. The first featured CFGIS SmartBook displays the Critical Facilities in East Central Florida and is available for download in the CFGIS Map Gallery.

New Data Published at the CFGIS Clearinghouse

New GIS data layers are available at the CFGIS clearinghouse.

New Interactive Tool Available at the CFGIS Website

As part of FDOT District 5's 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) update the District had three Land Use Scenarios developed. The purpose of these land use scenarios was to develop projected population and employment data in 5 year intervals from 2015 to 2035.

821 New GISPs:

The GIS Certification Institute announced on February 25, 2009 that additional 821 professionals were awarded with the GISP certification. That brings the GISP database to a total of 4,386 worthy and certified professionals. Click here to see a full list of all GISPs.

Stay Tuned - URISA Certified Workshops Coming Soon

Florida URISA Chapter, FLURISA, will soon start a round of URISA Certified Workshops. FLURISA is working diligently to make the workshops available at no cost or at a very low fee. The training opportunities will be offerd to FLURISA membership only. To receive notifications about these training opportunities and other FLURISA activities go to www.flurisa.org and sign up to become a member of the organization; FLURISA has waived the membership fees for 2009.

New FLURISA Secretary on board

Join the FLURISA board in welcoming the new secretary - Sam Palmer. Sam works with the GeoPlan Center and has been collaborating with the Florida chapter of URISA as the GatorLand Regional Director.

New Tornado and Hurricane Data and Maps published on CFGIS

The CFGIS clearinghouse and Map Gallery were updated with tornado and hurricane data from the 2008 hurricane season. One of the maps loaded to the map gallery represents tropical storm Fay’s path and major areas of impact. Tropical storm Fay was the sixth named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season.

Next Round of the URISA Leadership Academy

The next URISA Leadership Academy (ULA) will be held in Seattle December 7th to 11th, 2009. Plan ahead to attend this specialized leadership training designed for GIS practitioners. Professionals from twenty five states and four countries already took advantage of this training opportunity. Go to www.urisa.org/ula to get more information about the URISA Leadership Academy.

New and Updated Generalized Future Land Use

The ECFRPC completed another round of updates for the Regional Future Land Use dataset. The data corresponds with updates approved by DCA for 2008’s 3rd and 4th quarters (July to December). The new Regional FLU files and updated maps are available for download at the CFGIS Clearinghouse and Map Gallery.

ETDM data now available at CFGIS Clearinghouse:

FDOT District made more than 400 layers available to the CFGIS clearinghouse through the Environmental Transportation Decision Making (ETDM) program. The data is shared via metadata XML files and is directly linked with the host that keeps and maintains all the information, Florida Geographic Data Library (FGDL).

Potential CFGIS Training Opportunities Survey

Survey outlining potential GIS training opportunities for Central Florida

3rd Annual FLorida Surveyors' Festival

3rd Annual FLorida Surveyors' Festival at Space Coast - March 21, 2009.

FACM is Offering Concurrent Educational Workshops during the Fall Conference in FL

The Florida Association of Cadastral Mappers (FACM) is offering advanced Cadastral Editing using ArcMap 9.3 during their Fall Workshop at the Cocoa Beach Hilton.

2008 Florida DOR County GIS/Mapping Data & Personnel Directory Now Available

The 2008 Florida Department of Revenue's "County GIS/Mapping Data & Personnel Directory" is now available for download.

State GIS Strategic Plan Effort Facilitating the GIS Data Discovery Workshop

The data discovery workshop was intended for GIS professionals and Emergency Managers to share the latest on data development and distribution for emergency preparedness, response, and recovery.

FLURISA releases corporate sponsorship program

To find out how to become a FLURISA Sponsor, contact Adam Carnow at AdamCarnow@WilsonMiller.com.

FLURISA Winter Newsletters is now available

FLURISA publishes the Winter 2008 Newsletter.

URISA Accepting Registrations for Anaheim Conference

URISA's 47th Annual Conference & Exposition - The Premier Conference for the GIS Professional. Providing Solutions to Challenges. September 29 - October 2, 2009 - Anaheim Marriott

Florida Statewide GIS Strategic Plan

Final draft of the Florida Statewide GIS Strategic Plan is now available. (http://www.floridadisaster.org/gis/capgrant/)