July 2018

234 235 GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION ship, GITA has now refocused association efforts to enrich and educate the broader geospatial community, as well as to help connect and advocate for geospatial prac- titioners. Educational Services: GITA regularly hosts, sponsors, or participates in several annual or semi-annual events. Notable events include: our annual Pacific North- west Conference held in Mukilteo,Wash- ington, (suburban Seattle); our energy fo- cused GIS conference known as “EnerGIS,” held annually in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; UMGEOCON, which focuses on geospatial activities within the upper mid-west; and our annual “Pipeline Week” conference in Houston, Texas, which spot- lights the geospatial needs of the oil and natural gas pipeline transmission industry. GITA is also a proud sponsor of GoGeo- matics’ “Back to School Socials,” a Canadi- an outreach to geospatial students. Over the past several years, GITA has found that webinars are a highly cost-ef- fective outreach. Current GITA Presi- dent-elect, Drew Fioranelli, has recruited a number of notable geospatial profession- als to share their experiences and insights with the broader community. Drew pres- ents these webinars in a lively format.The best part is GITA provides these free to the community; additionally they are recorded so that can be listened to at a later point via GITA’s on-line learning center. The GITA Learning Center itself is a marvel! PowerPoint pre- sentations, previous webinars, and YouTube videos of conference proceedings are stored, indexed, and easily found via our on-line search tool. Readers should visit http://www.gita.org/search/all. asp, merely enter a search term such as “coal” or “pipelines” or “na- tional grid” and links to various educational resources are made available to anyone in the geospatial community. GITA maintains strong ties to the academic community; this is especially seen in the funding provided to geospatial students. In 2017, GITANorth America and its regional chapters provided over $10,000 dollars in scholarships.Notably, since 2014 GITA’s The Mid-Atlantic Chapter through its EnerGIS conference has distributed over $23,000 in scholarships and $3000 for local food banks. Advocacy: Serving as an advocate for our members is an im- portant mission for GITA. GITA has the opportunity to nominate and recommend candidates for the National Geospatial Advisory Council (NGAC), and has representatives that sit on the board of the GIS Certification Institute which evaluates and tests the GITA maintains strong ties to the academic community; this is especially seen in the funding provided to geospatial students. In 2017, GITA North America and its re- gional chapters pro- vided over $10,000 dollars in scholarships.