Dear WAGIC Colleague,
Well it’s 2002 and the topic that seems to be on
everyone’s lips is “security” (homeland, airport, critical infrastructure, web,
software, etc. etc.). President Bush during his State of the Union
address plans to outline new homeland security priorities, each with its own
funding opportunities. Even our
native son, Mr. Gates, recently stated, "When we face a choice between
adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose
security." In our own GIS-related world, USGS’s National Map project http://nationalmap.usgs.gov/
now has a homeland security component to it; the National State Geographic
Information Council http://www.nsgic.org has a Homeland Security Sub-committee;
and FGDC/OMB’s is now touting the relevance of its GeoSpatial One Stop
Initiative to Homeland Security http://www.fgdc.gov/whatsnew/whatsnew.html#onestop. Within our own state the Washington State
Military Department, along with numerous state and local agencies, will be
sponsoring a Washington State E-Safety Summit
Meeting. Recently, through an allocation from the legislature, the Washington Association of Sheriffs
& Police Chiefs (WASPC) and the Washington State Association of Fire Chiefs
(WSAFC) have
licensed an emergency preparedness and disaster response software application,
Rapid Responder, that will eventually allow all emergency personnel in the
state to access critical location information when responding to a crisis. So welcome to 2002: our state and local
government budgets are tight, our economy is weak, and what monies are available
will probably be very “security related”.
With that in mind, our next WAGIC theme-based
meeting will focus on GIS and Homeland Security, and we’ve put together a great
program. John Mead of Prepared Response
will present Rapid Responder http://www.preparedresponse.com/rapidresponder.asp. This program,
which has been presented at WAGIC meetings previously, was originally developed
by Linda Gerull’s GIS Group at Pierce County, but has since been spun off to a
private sector firm, Prepared Response.
The good news about this program is that the license fees for this
program have now been paid for statewide.
So now all of us can have access to this program and implement it if we
choose, our only costs will be some small web hosting fees, which John Mead
will explain more about in his presentation. The next presenter will be Chris
Wayne out of ESRI’s new Seattle office whose presentation on “GIS for Homeland
Security” will include some demonstrations.
For those you who are interested, a related white paper can be accessed
at the following URL http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/homeland_security_wp.pdf. And
finally, one of our favorite speakers and former WAGIC Chair, Tom Nolan, will
return with a presentation on how the City of Seattle is improving its web
security. These presentations should be
lively and informative, so please remember to invite interested individuals
from within your organizations. Thanks in advance to all of those presenting
during this special Homeland Security-related session.
Thanks to all of you who attended and participated
in December's theme-based WAGIC meeting on GIS and Remote Sensing. I would especially like to thank the
presenters of the Washington State Department of Information
Services; Veena Tabbutt of the Thurston Regional Planning Council; Randi Rich
and Curtis Kirkeby of Avista Utilities.
All of you did a great job!
During our business portion of the meeting, I will
update you on a variety of topics including our upcoming WAGIC Chair elections,
a recent GeoData Alliance’s trustees meeting, and an upcoming Washington State
E-Safety Summit. Carrie Wolfe will
brief us on WAGIC’s I-Team planning efforts.
And most importantly Jeff Holm and the WAGIC Planning Committee will
bring you up-to-date on their efforts to form the Information Services Board
(ISB) GIS Subcommittee in lieu of pursuing GIS Model Law Legislation.
Thanks again to each of you for your support of
WAGIC. Your attendance and support is
appreciated. If you have any questions
or would like additional information about this meeting or WAGIC in general,
please call either Jeff Holm at (360) 902-3447 or me at (509) 477-6344.
We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.
Sincerely,
Ian Von Essen
WAGIC Chair