Q u a r t e r l y N e w s l e t t e r o f t h e T e n n e ... · Light) on a limited basis to provide our organization services as an office manager. Jan's e-mail is [email protected]

W I NT ER 2012

Q u a r t e r l y N e w s l e t t e r o f t h e T e n n e s s e e G e o g r a p h i c I n f o r m a t i o n C o u n c i l , I n c .

TNGIC Today T o p r o m o t e e t h i c a l , p r o f e s s i o n a l a n d t e c h n i c a l e x c e l l e n c e w i t h i n t h e

T e n n e s s e e G e o g r a p h i c C o m m u n i t y

Letter from the President

It's conference time in Tennessee! That's right.... it is

time for our premier GIS event in the State and it is

just around the corner. Let's all make it a point to

gather at Montgomery Bell State Park near Dickson for

our annual conference to be held March 28 and 29,

2012. There are some nice training opportunities

prior to the Conference, as well as golf and a

geocaching activity. I have made it a point to attend

all of the TNGIC Conferences since our first in 1994,

and I am as excited about the 2012 Conference as I

have ever been about one in the past. We will have the Park to ourselves and the

focus will be on great speaker sessions, interesting keynotes and networking with

your peers. Let's do our best to break 400 attendees! Please invite at least one GIS

acquaintance to join you at our annual conference. Also, please do not be shy about

making a presentation this year. TNGIC needs your help in many ways. All of you are

eligible to serve in any role in the organization. Join a committee or volunteer to help

with one of the Regional events. Run for the Board of Directors or volunteer to help

teach the Experience GIS in Tennessee class. Let's show everyone why we are

known as the "Volunteer State".

I am proud to say that we have contracted with Jan Light (she is married to David

Light) on a limited basis to provide our organization services as an office manager.

Jan's e-mail is [email protected]. She is working on mailing and membership

lists at the moment, and our group is setting up the Constant Contact e-mail system

to better communicate with our members. Board Member Bill Avant has taken the

reins on our website and assumes that role from Randal Hale, who designed our

current site and set everything up that we currently use. Bill can be contacted in

regard to the site and we welcome your input as how to make it better.

1

Special points of interest:

2012 Annual Conference

Middle, West & East Regional GIS Forums

MAGIC Annual Event

Experience GIS in TN Classes

Continued on Page 2

PRESIDENT W I NT ER 2012

Continued from Page 1….

Improving communication, data sharing, growing membership and reaching out to

the academic community are my goals. As one of two GIS professors at Tennessee

Technological University (in addition to my job as Regional GIS Coordinator for the

Southeast for the US Fish & Wildlife Service), I know how important it is for GIS to

be taught in our Universities. It gives me great pride to see students from my past

15 years of teaching as TNGIC members and vendors.

How about challenging yourself in 2012? Look at obtaining your GISP certification

and also consider one of the new ESRI certifications. Load one of the new open

source GIS products such as QGIS or GRASS, or commit to learning how to integrate

Google Earth with ArcGIS. ArcGIS Online now offers many of the base layers that we

used to spend weeks searching for and ArcGIS servers such as the State Basemap

Server provide those high resolution photos we so desperately need. On a related

note, visit the TN OIR GIS website and learn about the Tennessee Statewide Eleva-

tion Plan and learn how you can help us obtain LiDAR for the State. LiDAR will help

all of us in more ways that can be imagined. And as always..... contact me if I can

be of service in regard to GIS in Tennessee in anyway.

Jason Duke

TNGIC President

2011 TNGIC Platinum Sponsors

2

2011 TNGIC Gold Sponsors

THANK YOU!!

ANNUAL CONFERENCE W I NT ER 2012

2012 ANNUAL CONFERENCE Montgomery Bell State Park March 28-29, 2012

3



4

http://www.regonline.com/TNGIC2012

[email protected] (615) 532-0148





mailto:[email protected]






5


[email protected]

http://tn.gov/environment/parks/MontgomeryBell/activities



http://tn.gov/environment/parks/MontgomeryBell/activities



6

http://tn.gov/environment/parks/MontgomeryBell/

http://www.daysinn.com/Dickson

http://www.hamptoninn.hilton.com/Dickson


36.10307, -87.283301

http://tn.gov/environment/parks/MontgomeryBell/

http://www.daysinn.com/Dickson

http://www.hamptoninn.hilton.com/Dickson


http://maps.google.com/maps?q=36.10307,-87.283301&num=1&t=h&vpsrc=0&z=14

MIDDLE REGIONAL W I NT ER 2012

2011 Middle Tennessee Regional TNGIC Forum Suzanne White

The Tenth Annual Middle Tennessee Forum on Geographic Information Systems was

held on Nov. 2-3, 2011 at the Rutherford County Lane Agriculture Park in Murfrees-

boro, TN with 214 registered! Registration, lunch, and the workshops were free

again this year with the support of TNGIC and our

sponsors. As in previous years, with the free reg-

istration and close proximity, this event draws a

slightly different crowd than that of the Annual

TNGIC Conference. Often, non-TNGIC members

and entire GIS shops are able to participate.

Congratulations to Melanie Brown for winning the

drawing for a FREE 2012 Annual TNGIC Confer-

ence Registration!! We held a drawing for all new

or renewing TNGIC memberships from those at-

tending the MTNGIS Forum. We had 10 TNGIC reg-

istrations during the forum!

Many thanks goes out to our sponsors that in-

cluded: TNGIC, Inc., GISbiz Inc., True North Geo-

graphic Technologies, GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting,

The Atlantic Group, G-Squared, Amec, ESRI,

Wiser Co., and GTI.

The Forum Planning Committee consisted of Peg-

gy Anderson, Lynn Barrett, John Broome, Van

Colebank, Mike Curtis, Jeffrey Dedman, Tracy

Jackson, Jeanette Jones, David Ladd, April Letell-

ier, Stacy McDaniel, David McMillen, Gayle

Moore, Julie Phillips, Erika Potts, Barbara Sellars, Carole Swann, Anne Talbott, Su-

zanne White, and Pam Wrye. Several others also helped out during the meeting.

These folks did an awesome job!

7

MIDDLE REGIONAL W I NT ER 2012

2011 Middle Tennessee Regional TNGIC Forum Suzanne White

Again, we had a wide variety of topics for presentations. They included: “The TE-

MA Story - Cutting Through the Fog” by Donnie K. Smith; “Enhanced Elevation

Business Plan Update” by Dennis Pedersen; “Deploying ArcGIS Explorer for Non-

GIS Users” by David Russell; “Rutherford County Flex Viewer and LiDAR” by Bar-

bara Seivers; “Civil War GIS Web Ap-

plication” by Wayne Moore, Ph.D., and

Suzanne White; “A Collaborative Effort

to Utilize Geographic Information Sys-

tem Tools for Flood Preparedness in

Tennessee” by Jennifer Higgs; “You’ve

Built It and They Came – Now Let’s

Find Them” by Michael Meek;

“Developing a GIS Master’s Program

at Middle Tennessee State University”

by Mark Abolins, Ph.D., and

“Tennessee Street GIS Maintenance

in TIPS (Tennessee Information for

Public Safety), by Patrick Melancon.

Day two included some well attended workshops on: “The Role of Geographic In-

formation Systems (GIS) in Public Health and Medical Disaster Response” by Jo-

seph Roth, Jr.; “The USGS National Map and USTopo” by Keith McFadden; “Esri

Technical Workshop: ArcGIS for Local Government” by Zach Layne and Mike

Sweeney; “Georeferencing Tools in ArcMap with Optional Clean=Up and Vectoriza-

tion Using ArcScan” by Stacey McDaniel; “Introduction to Visual Studio for Build-

ing ArcGIS Toosl” by Kerry Livengood; and “Implementing an ArcGIS Explorer Pro-

gram for Your Agency” by Lynn Barrett.

The reviews of the meeting were again ex-

tremely positive! Thanks to Rutherford Coun-

ty IT Department for providing the facility!

A big thank you is extended to the sponsors,

speakers, panelists, workshop instructors,

and volunteers for all of their hard work in

making this meeting a great success!

8

WEST REGIONAL W I NT ER 2012

2011 West Tennessee Regional TNGIC Forum Shawn Anderson and Jason Duke

On October 17, 2011 TNGIC had the wonderful opportunity to host a FREE GIS fo-

rum at the UT West TN Research & Education Center in Jackson.

We had over 80 folks attend the event

from all areas of West Tennessee. There

were 12 presentations during the day

from a variety of topics including Federal,

State and Local GIS projects.

The best presentation was probably by

Mike Brewer of Poplar Grove Utility from

Tipton County, TN. He kept the audience

laughing the whole time and really showed

us how to use GIS red neck style.

Lunch was awesome, chicken breasts

wrapped in bacon catered by Gourmet Your

Way. Who can beat that?

We had three vendors attend the event from

GeoJobe GIS Consulting in Nashville, The At-

lantic Group, LLC from Huntsville, AL and

Tipton County GIS, TN. It was nice to see

them and to gather

knowledge about

new GIS and photo-

grammetric technol-

ogies.

9

WEST REGIONAL W I NT ER 2012

2011 West Tennessee Regional TNGIC Forum Shawn Anderson and Jason Duke

The following day, TNGIC held a

FREE GIS Training class called

“Experience GIS in Tennessee”

providing a background on using

Tennessee spatial data and pro-

cessing techniques such as spatial

analysis and layout creation. We

had over 60 folks register for the

class and thankfully the teachers

were able to have everyone partici-

pate. I can safely say a good time

was had by all and we look forward

to hosting another event in Jackson

around September or October 2012.

10

EAST REGIONAL W I NT ER 2012

The East Tennessee Regional GIS Conference entitled ‘Viewing

the World – From Our Regions Perspective’ was held on October

28, 2011 at the Eastman Lodge & Planning Center in Kingsport,

Tennessee. The conference was free to attendees and included

great presentations, a catered lunch by Braeden’s Barbeque, and

an opportunity to exchange ideas and thoughts about GIS. There

were approximately 120 attendees present for the day-long event.

The event was preceded with

ArcGIS Desktop III taught by ESRI

certified instructor Randal Hale with North River Geo-

graphic Systems, Inc. on October 26 and 27, 2011. A

geocaching event was also offered on October 27,

2011 at Warrior’s Path State Park. Aside from the

classroom portion, the geo-

caching event and the confer-

ence were free to attendees.

Joyce Pierson and David Light were the

Conference Co-Chairs and led the confer-

ence planning committee. The planning

committee consisted of Chris Pape (Map

Gallery Coordinator), Russ Davis (Vendor

Coordinator), Scott Kilgore (Attendee Co-

ordinator), Jessica Swinney (Presentation

Coordinator), David Light (Conference

Site Coordinator), Wendy

Hill and Harold Hayes

(Educational Institution

Coordinators), Angie

Robinson (Attendee Brochure Coordinator),

Randal Hale (Web Site Coordinator), Brenda

Warner (Job Board Coordinator), Ty Petty and

David Light (GeoCaching Event Coordinators),

Katharine Bennett, and Amesha White. Sever-

al other people helped during the event. Thank

you to all who did participate to make this a

great conference!

2011 East Tennessee Regional TNGIC Forum Wendy Nelson

11


The conference began with key note speak-

er, Suzanne White’s presentation

“Tennessee’s Professional GIS Organization

– Why Me?”, followed by a variety of topics,

such as:

“Using

Field GIS

To Meet

FHWA

Sign

Retrore-

flectivity

Inspection Requirements” by Brooks Lastinger;

“Regional Air Quality Analysis by Remote Sensing

and GIS” by Kaitlyn Collins and Jiaxun Chai; “Appalachian Trail GIS

Service Learning Project Through 4-H” by Ty Petty, Dara Carney-

Nedelman, and Stephen

Moughon; “Using GIS to Visu-

alize the Relationship Be-

tween Risk Factors and dis-

ease Incidence in Northeast

Tennessee” by Ingrid Luff-

man.

Several door prizes were given at the confer-

ence.

The grand

prize of a

Kindle,

donated

by NETGIS

was given

to Tana

Benson.


1 2


The sponsors and vendors deserve a very special

‘Thank you’ for

contributions

and assistance

given to make

the conference

a success.

Sponsors in-

clude: TNGIC,

NETGIS, GISBiz, Atlantic Group, BAE Systems, Imag-

ing Technology Consulting, Inc., MapSync, ESRI, Geo

-Jobe, Eastman Chemical, North River Geographic Systems, Inc., Dart Oil & Gas Corp.,

Landmark GIS, City of Johnson City GIS, Wise

County GIS, Fugro EarthData, Inc., Littlejohn Engi-

neering, and Ye Olde Rebel Candle.

There was

a lot of

knowledge

and exper-

tise in the

field of GIS

that met for

this event.

The sponsors, speakers, panelists, volunteers

and participants all deserve a round of ap-

plause for making this event a great success! A

special thank you is extended to Eastman for

allowing the event to be held in such a lovely facility!


1 3

MAGIC W I NT ER 2012

Memphis Area Geographic Information Council Update Shawn Anderson

In November, MAGIC held the annual GIS Day Con-

ference at the Great Hall of Germantown, German-

town, TN. We had a good showing of interest with

over 143 people registered. Our great sponsors

helped us stage an exciting day and a half program

filled with words of wisdom and lessons hard won.

Andrew McColgan (Vice President 2012), in collabo-

ration with Esra Ozdenerol (President 2010) present-

ed a class on Model Builder and Python scripting

that was very well received. Special thanks to our

keynote speaker, Clinton Libbey (Google, Inc.), for a compelling keynote that drew

many positive comments. Matt Hanks (President 2012) hosted a geocaching event

in the park adjacent to the conference hall. Thank

you to all the volunteers

that helped make this

year's conference a suc-

cess.

MAGIC holds monthly

meetings (usually the 3rd

Wednesday of the month)

and educational events.

We are always looking for enthusiastic, educational, GIS

presentations or workshop ideas. If you have a topic you

would like to share with the MAGIC

membership, contact Matt Hanks at

[email protected] to schedule a time slot. We

would love to have you

present at one of our

meetings or workshops.

Watch our website for

event notifications and

check back often to

keep up with our activi-

ties at

www.midsouthgis.org --

see you there!

14

EXPERIENCE GIS IN TN W I NT ER 2012

Experience GIS in Tennessee—Jackson Kurt Snider

The TNGIC band of roaming instruc-

tors took their instructional talents to

Jackson, Tennessee last October to

teach Experience GIS in Tennessee.

This condensed one day course at-

tracted over 35 students to the Univer-

sity of Tennessee’s West Tennessee

Research & Education Center who

were eager to learn the fundamentals

of our discipline and get a handle on

using ArcGIS 10.

Experience GIS in TN was developed to al-

low GIS users in Tennessee to train with

spatial data from their home state. Most of

the concepts taught in this class are simi-

lar to those found in any other introductory

GIS course, but so often canned training

courses employ spatial data and exercises

that do not apply to the work areas or

fields of the attendees.

The Jackson offering drew students

from a wide array of fields and levels

of expertise, such as expert Rick Wery

who had written his own GIS software

for the City of Memphis, to a few new-

bies from the Shelby County Health

Department who had never used GIS.

We also had students as young as 12

years old, as a small contingent from a

nearby 4H group came with young

minds ready to absorb everything

thrown their way. They all had one

common trait, an enthusiasm to learn

something new and improve their GIS skills.

15


Along with enthusiastic students came a

group of instructors ready to share their

knowledge and experience. Jason Duke

kicked off the class with an overview of the

ESRI suite of software and a lecture on the

fundamentals of geodatabases. His engag-

ing style loosened up the group and pre-

pared them for a day full of information.

Greg Rhinehart took the podium for a brief

but essential lecture on spatial transfor-

mations, discussing the fundamentals of

projections and datums. Next, Dave McMillen and Tim Prather led the class through

the importance of gathering base layers and data mining. Their hands on exercise

allowed the students to pull in essential data layers and also explore many new

online sources for spatial data.

Suzanne White and Emily Watson

picked it up after lunch with a meaty

section on spatial data processing.

This in-depth module carried the stu-

dents through many of the fundamen-

tal processes used in spatial analysis.

Kurt Snider finished the day with a lec-

ture and exercise on the essentials of

cartographic design, hitting the high-

lights of a first semester cartography course.

Overall, it was a full day of information

and the students went home saturated.

Many thanks to those who helped put the

course together, including the UT Exten-

sion office and TWRA for the loan of 25

laptops for the class. The TNGIC team

followed up the Jackson offering with an-

other one day class on the other side of

the state in Kingsport. If you would like

to experience GIS in Tennessee, our next

offering will be held at the TNGIC Confer-

ence at Montgomery Bell State Park in

March.

Experience GIS in Tennessee—Jackson Kurt Snider

16


On January 11th 2012, TNGIC Spon-

sored another Experience GIS in Ten-

nessee Class in Kingsport. With sched-

uling help from Jake White – City of

Kingsport GIS, the class was held in the

beautiful Kingsport Center for Higher

Education.

The facility was an amazing location to host

the Experience GIS in Tennessee class. The

brand new facility featured terraced and pad-

ded seating, built in AV equipment, wireless

internet, and power at each work station.

The City of Kingsport demonstrated its

commitment to Education in Tennessee by

coordinating TNGIC’s use of the facility at

no cost.

Laptops and software were provided by the

University of Tennessee Extension office

with the help of Tim Prather, and by North

River Geographic Systems, Inc. with the as-

sistance of Randal Hale. We could not have

held

the class without the use of the laptops and

ArcGIS licenses provided by your respective

groups.

Volunteers from TNGIC and NETGIS organized

and hosted the event.

17

Experience GIS in Tennessee—Kingsport David Light


Volunteer instructors included Jason

Duke and Kurt Snider - US Fish and Wild-

life Service, Russ Davis – Landmark GIS,

Randal Hale - North River Geographic,

Katharine Bennett – Erwin Utilities, Tim

Prather - University of Tennessee Exten-

sion office, Jessica Swinney Wise County

VA - GIS, and David Light – Eastman.

The instructors did an outstanding job teach-

ing and offering hands-on assistance

throughout the class. They covered a LOT of

material and shared their experience with

GIS. Additional helpers included Joyce

Pierson – Dart Oil and Gas, TY Petty and

James McMillion from the University of Ten-

nessee Extension office who were also very

helpful in providing refreshments as well as set-up and tear-down of the equipment.

Suzanne White – Tennessee Office of Information Resources and Sam Moffat –

Fugro provided TNGIC administrative

support.

On behalf of TNGIC, I would like to ex-

press our sincere thanks to everyone

who helped with the January 11th Experi-

ence GIS in Tennessee Class in King-

sport. Everyone chipped in to help by

teaching, offering assistance to stu-

dents, working behind the scenes, etc.

The class was a huge success with over-

whelming student interest in attending.

We hope to hold another nearby class very soon.

Thanks EVERYONE for your help and support of GIS education in Tennessee!

Experience GIS in Tennessee—Kingsport David Light

1 8

Suzanne White, Board Liaison

Bill Avant, Board Liaison

The opportunities listed here by no means limit the scope of the

committees, each is as unique as its members.

The committees are designed to be flexible so that what you have to

offer will fit in—somewhere.

Contact a Committee Chair or Board Liaison Today !!!

JOIN TODAY W I NT ER 2012

TNGIC Committees Sign Up Today!!

• University outreach, student curriculums

Post conference scholarship announcements

Continuing education / graduate courses

Get school links / logos for TNGIC.org

Invite participation at conference

Internet mapping sites

Katharine Bennett, Board Liaison

Kurt Snider, Chair Membership Outreach and Brochure

Website Content

Communication Committee Our purpose is to sustain effective communication between the TNGIC membership, the

Board of Directors and the geospatial community. We produce “TNGIC Today” the quarterly news-

letter and strive to improve the communication throughout TNGIC through:

Quarterly Newsletter

Email Updates/News

Education & Outreach Committee The goal of the Education & Outreach Committee is to foster educational opportunities and

promote awareness of TNGIC throughout the geospatial community. These opportunities may in-

clude:

Training

Metadata training

GISP

Academic contacts lists

Web & Data Committee The goal of the Web & Data Committee is to maintain a web presence for TNGIC and facili-

tate data sharing and distribution for the geospatial community.

Web master

Website link check

Data sharing TNGIS.org

Metadata server

Update TNGIS data

County GIS contact list

Promote GIS day

Membership map / stats

Promote / support regional meetings

Local government / planning outreach

Jason Duke, Chair

Tim Prather, Chair

19







The Tennessee Geographic Council was established in 1994

to improve the linkages between the various agencies work-

ing with GIS in Tennessee. At present, there are over 400

members representing many varied agencies.

Tennessee Geographic Information Council (TNGIC) is a non-

profit group of Geographic Information System users, design-

ers and those who influence the use of GIS in federal state

and local governments as well as private sector representa-

tives within the State of Tennessee.

TNGIC holds quarterly board meetings and an annual general

membership meeting in March. The annual meeting

includes panel discussions, work-shops, vendor displays and

poster displays. Other channels for communication among

GIS professionals across the state are the quarterly newslet-

ter.

TNGIC

P.O. Box 330906

Nashville, TN 37203

TNGIC Today Winter 2012

ET Map Info Users Group

Contact Reid Gryder at 865-482-7919 for quar-

terly meetings in the Knoxville/Oak Ridge area.

Also at [email protected]

Geo-spatial Information Network of East Tennes-

see (geoNET)

Regional GIS users group serving the 16-county

region of the East Tennessee Development Dis-

trict (ETDD) centered around Knoxville. Non-

software specific group that meets bi-monthly.

Contact Blake Sartin at [email protected] or

contact him at 865-342-3027.

North East Tennessee GIS Users Group

(NETGIS)

Regional GIS users group with membership

open to any person living, working, or having

interest in North East Tennessee and Surround-

ing Areas. Contact David Light at

[email protected] or call him at 423-229-

2189.

Oak Ridge/Knoxville Area ESRI Users Group

Contact Pat Wurth at 481-2000 ext 2275 or

[email protected]. Email Pat to

receive meeting notices.

Middle Tennessee GIS Users Group

Contact Suzanne White, email [email protected] or

telephone 615-253-4799 for meeting dates.

Clarksville—Montgomery County (CMC) GIS Users Group

Contact CMC GIS Secretary at 931-221-7500 or CMC-

[email protected] for information. CMC GIS Website—

http://gisweb.apsu.edu.

Intergraph Users Groups

There are several in the Huntsville, AL, area covering

FRAMME, Geomedia, and MGE. For additional infor-

mation contact Ron McLeroy, at 256-882-8112.

TN Federal GIS User Group

Meets twice a year at the US Fish and Wildlife service

offices, 446 Neal Street, Cookeville, TN. Contact Jason

Duke at US Fish and Wildlife Service at 931-528-6481

ext. 216 or email [email protected].

Memphis Area Geographic Information Council (MAGIC)

MAGIC was established in 2003 with the purpose to

stimulate and encourage the advancement of GIS in the

Mid-South Region. Contact Shawn Anderson at

901.476.0234 or email [email protected]

for more information.

Write for TNGIC Today!!

Katharine Bennett, to submit

articles or for more information.

www.tngic.org

TNGIC W I NT ER 2012

GIS User Groups in Tennessee

2 0






gisweb.apsu.edu


http://www.midsouthgis.org/



http://www.tngic.org/

Documents

Q u a r t e r l y N e w s l e t t e r o f t h e T e n n e ... · Light) on a limited basis to provide our organization services as an office manager. Jan's e-mail is [email protected]