Event Details

FREE ADMISSION

Please join us for our annual GIS day. Activities and door prizes will be awarded. Come see what the future holds for Geological, Geographical, Civil, and other sciences.

Schedule of Speakers (Updated Nov 17, 2009)

• 8:00 Registration Begins
• 8:15 Welcome by City of McAllen Commissioner John Ingram
• 8:30 - 9:00 Felicia Retiz, TNRIS (Texas Natural Resources Information System) - This state agency is the state repository for GIS data. They provide free aerials, soil data, FEMA data, USGS topo maps, TxDOT roads, and much more.
• 9:00 - 9:30 Joanna D. Sánchez, City of McAllen IT will speak about the many projects currently underway at Public Works where GIS and GPS are being used.
• 9:30 - 10:00 Jason Straub, National Weather Service - All the weather data analysis done by NWS as well as their website are GIS driven.
• 10:00 - 10:30 Godfrey Garza, Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1 - Godfrey will speak about how GPS and GIS are being used to inventory and monitor all their assets.
• 10:30 - 11:00 Sven Hallerman, Holt Cat - Sven is the Technology Products Manager out of Austin. GIS and GPS technology is now integrated into their farming equipment, which include tractors and graders.
• 11:00 – 11:30 Drew Arnold, Accela and Jose Peña, City of McAllen IT – Drew is the Senior Sales Executive at Accela, Inc. and will speak about all the GIS functionalities Accela offers. The City of McAllen currently uses Accela’s Land Management module, which is used by various departments including Building Permits and Inspections, Code Enforcement, Engineering, Planning, Utilities and Fire.
• 11:30 - 12:00 Veronica Schindler & Brig Bowles, ESRI - ESRI is the leader in GIS software worldwide. They will speak about the diverse disciplines their software helps.
• 1:00 - 1:30 Leonel Lopez, UPS - Mr. Lopez is the Section Manager in the Industrial Engineering Department at UPS. His team is responsible for deploying Preload Assist System and Telematics, both of which utilize GIS technology in the Central Texas District.
• 1:30 - 2:00 Mariano Manzano, Hidalgo County IT - Mariano will speak about a project we call the Hidalgo County Integration Project. This is a project we've been working on since the beginning of the year in which we are creating a central repository at the County level (housed in Hidalgo's IT Dept.) where County departments share their data with each other and with other cities. Cities would do the same.
• 2:00 - 2:30 Johnny Brown, Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center - This center is housed at Stephen F. Austin University and was created in 2005 by Congress. They do GIS all the time with the purpose of helping communities get things done and provide support with economic development and natural resource management, but especially with emergency planning and response. In the event of a hurricane, they can be deployed to assist with GIS expertise, data, plotters, and computers. They assisted during Hurricane Ike.
• 2:30 - 3:00Sergio Castro, Hidalgo County 9-1-1 - 9-1-1 now uses GIS and GPS in everything they do, and they will speak about all their applications.
• 3:00 - 3:30 David Parrish & Bob Kirkland, EPA- Region 6 - The EPA is one of the leaders at the federal level in the use of GIS. They will do their presentation via a webinar.
• 3:30 - 4:00 Sai Mullapudi, US Census Bureau - Geographic information system (GIS) technology is enabling the Census Bureau to efficiently collect quality data about the nation’s people and economy. With the 2010 Census just around the corner, the use of GIS is more important than ever.