During the opening plenary session of the 2023 Washington GIS Conference, WAGISA was pleased to present the 2023 Summit Award for GIS Person of the Year to Maria Sevier. 

Maria has been absolutely dedicated to the GIS profession and WAURISA/ WAGISA for well over 20 years.  All those who know her are impressed with the energy and enthusiasm that she brings to every GIS effort she is involved in; whether she is developing curriculum to teach a certificate program at local community colleges, bringing GIS technology to a local food bank, working tirelessly during COVID at the Health Department, or volunteering with WAGISA in a variety of ways.  Maria has served on the Professional Development Committee, the Board of Directors, as the Conference Liaison, as Conference Coordinator, and most recently as organizer of WAGISA Conference Speakers for the 2023 Conference.  In all of these roles, Maria has worked tirelessly to make the WAGISA programs and Conferences successful. 

For a significant portion of Maria Sevier’s professional career she has worked as a GIS consultant, including with the City of Lakewood, WA and with the Tacoma/Pierce County Public Health department.  During that time Maria has completed many successful projects.  When COVID first arose, she developed a method to upload data from Tacoma / Pierce County to the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.  Maria pours her whole heart and soul into everything she does.  And for all of us on the WAGISA Board we are pleased that she is receiving this award and recognition of all of her hard work and dedication. 

Thank you, Maria, for your many years of mentorship and volunteer service to the GIS community in Washington State.

On Tuesday May 24th, WAGISA was pleased to announce Katie Heim was the 2022 GIS person of the Year earning the prestigious WAGISA Summit Award.

 

WAURISA is pleased to announce that Mike McGuire (left in photo) has been named the recipient of the 2021 Summit Award for the “GIS Person of the Year”. Mike has a career story that exemplifies the amazing diversity of GIS professionals that we encounter in our own careers. Mike is a former Vice President and long-time Board member of WAURISA whose GIS career arc includes both the public and private sectors and he has spent the last 22 years as a successful GIS businessman as the sole proprietor of Ascent GIS. 

Through Mike’s creativity, willingness to lead, and passion for creating opportunities for others, Mike has significantly changed the GIS profession in Washington State for the better. It is hard to imagine our group being as successful and relevant as we find it today without the contributions Mike has made.

WAURISA is pleased to announce that Josh Greenberg has been named the recipient of the 2020 Summit Award for the “GIS Person of the Year”.  Josh is a former President and long-time Board member of WAURISA who currently works as a senior GIS Analyst for Skagit County.  Through his creativity, willingness to lead, and passion for creating opportunities for others, Josh has significantly changed the GIS profession in Washington State for the better.  As the long-time chair of the Professional Development committee, current chair of the Marketing committee, member of the Technology committee, and the lead of the Washington Government GIS Leaders special interest group, Josh remains among WAURISA’s most active and influential volunteers.  It is hard to imagine our group being as successful and relevant as we find it today without the contributions Josh has made.

Nominating statements and earlier award announcements:

I’ve known Josh for numerous years; however, it wasn’t until I joined the WAURSIA Board almost eight years ago that I discovered what an amazing asset he was to the WAURISA Board.   If any of us had any questions about almost anything WAURISA related, its bylaws, its policies, our management software (Wild Apricot), our budget, our workshops, our annual & regional conferences, OneURISA, etc., etc.) our immediate response was to ask Josh and 9 times out of 10 he had the answer or knew who had the answer and quickly replied to us. When I served as WAURISA president I continually sought his sage advice and was always rewarded with practical, insightful assistance and guidance. Josh is funny, clever, engaging and a joy just to sit down and share a beer with and I consider myself very lucky to have him as a friend. Thanks Josh for all the energy, joy, and commitment you bring to everything you do and congratulations on your well-deserved WAURISA Summit (GIS Person of the Year) award. 

Ian Von Essen, WAURISA past president

The traits that have helped him {Josh} significantly change the GIS profession within Washington State include his creativity, willingness to lead volunteer professional organizations and he is passionate about creating opportunities for others in GIS to grown and learn. 

He was the keynote speaker in 2018 for the State GIS Day in Olympia and creatively thought about the future of GIS.  Josh has actively volunteered and lead technical workshops for the WAURISA members both at the conference and mid-year workshops in Spokane.      

He is always interested in promoting learning opportunities for others in the GIS profession.

Joanne Markert , WATech/ Office of the CIO 

Josh has always been an active part of the GIS community, even before joining the WA URISA board, and he remains actively involved with WAURISA even after leaving the board. Once on the board, Josh was quick to get involved, and offered great suggestions to help the chapter bring even more value to our members. Above all, Josh is great at listening to and thoughtfully offering solutions to ideas and issues brought forth by chapter members, and keeping the GIS community at large at the forefront of everything he does. He’s a great resource for historical WAURISA activities – I can always go to Josh with a question and he has the information or knows where to get it. Sage Josh.

Heather Glock, WAURISA board member

I met Josh in 2015, it was the night before the conference in Vancouver, a bunch of us had volunteered to put badges together. By dinner time everyone had dispersed and i realized i didn't know where everyone had gone and was getting hungry. In the lobby i noticed Josh and recognized him from earlier, i smiled  and was about to walk out the door when he asked where i was going to go for dinner. i said "i am just going to grab a sub from subway" He immediately responded " no you are not, let's go find some good food" we walked over a mile and finally found a restaurant, split a pitcher of beer, shared our life stories and had a blast. We have been friends ever since. What I didn't know at the time was, if you are friends with Josh he will try to recruit you for something. In the 5 years since then, I have been on 3 different conference committees and became the secretary of the board. I credit 95% of that involvement to Josh. Thanks for all the energy you bring and recruitment you do!

Christina Chelf, WAURISA secretary

“I enthusiastically endorse the nomination of Josh Greenberg for the Summit Award.   Since I became involved with the group, no one has contributed more time, energy and enthusiasm to the Washington State Chapter of URISA than Josh.  His contributions to the Technology committee have ensured we have the tools to communicate with our members and with each other and to present ourselves in a professional manner on our web site.  His work on the Professional Development committee has resulted in dozens of useful training sessions that help the members of our community advance in their careers.  Not to be overlooked is his work to form and operate the Washington Government GIS Leaders group, which provides supervisors and managers with a forum to learn practical approaches to solving the problems we all face and to develop leadership skills to benefit their agencies and the staff and communities they serve.  It’s hard to imagine our group being as successful and relevant as we find it today without the contributions Josh has made.”

Stephen Beimborn, City of Seattle, WAURISA President

The Washington Office of the Chief Information Officer and WAURISA are proud to present this years Government helping Government GIS Recognition Award to Peter Keum. 

Peter Keum has worked for King County Wastewater Treatment Division GIS for over 20 years. He has been a leader in GIS by sharing his knowledge. While he uses traditional GIS tools at the King County, he also pushes the boundaries by looking at open source technologies and encourages collaboration among all GIS users regardless of platform.

Peter’s commitment to helping others, explore and learn about geospatial technologies has made the Washington State GIS community a better place.

Congratulations to Don Burdick, Summit Award Winner!

WAURISA is pleased to announce the winner of the 2019 Summit Award is Don Burdick, GIS Project Manager at the City of Bellingham, WA. The Award, established by WAURISA to recognize significant contributions to the GIS Profession, is given to a person who fits a long list of criteria. As a Summit Award winner, Don has shown that he has significantly changed the GIS profession, is known for his excellent work and successful GIS projects, and has volunteered significant time for the GIS profession and the community in Washington State. Don has demonstrated these qualities through WAURISA involvement on the board, teaching workshops and doing presentations along with implementation and integration projects.

Don has enjoyed a successful 27-year career with the City of Bellingham, filling numerous roles with titles ranging from GIS Analyst to Technical Services Manager. In his current role as the City’s GIS Project Manager, Don coordinates the development of enterprise GIS projects and integrates them with other city systems, coordinates GIS staff, and administers GIS services and integrated permitting, asset management and document management systems. He was also a partner in Salish Coast Sciences a GIS and IT consulting services company from 2011 through 2017 providing GIS needs assessments, strategic plans and integration projects with local governments and non-profits throughout the region.

This would sound like an intimidating workload for anyone, but Don still finds time to volunteer his expertise. He served on the WAURISA board for 12 years as board member, President, Past President and then as WAURISA’s Treasurer from 2011 to 2018.

Again, congratulations to Don, and may he have many more years of success!

To learn more about WAURISA and the Summit Award, or to view past award winners,  please visit our awards page.  

The 2019 Washington GIS Conference Poster, Map, Script and Web App Winners:

Thank you to everyone that participated in this year’s contest!  We had a great group of entries!  The winners for 2019 were:

o    Best Cartographic Design: Matt Stevenson for his “Sagelands Heritage Map.”

o    Best Analytic Presentation: Taylor Rulien for “Fish Barriers vs Funding.”

o    Best Data Integration: Tonya Kauhi, Jennifer Radcliff, Maria Sevier, Christina Chelf, Kaitlin Schrup, Sheena Harms, and Stacey Curry for “Blueprint of Drawdown:  How Supporting Women and Girls Can Reduce Carbon Emissions (CO2) Worldwide.”

o    Best Online Interactive Map or Application: Ben Silver for “King County Shoreline Master Plan.”

o    Best Student Map: Kevin Tran for “Seattle Homeless Deaths and Shelter Suitability Analysis.”

o    Best Script: Anthony Von Moos for his script “Automate Email Alerts for Permit Approvals.”

o    Best GIS Inspiration: Jennifer Hackett for “Get Wet!!!”

To see all the winners, please visit the Posters webpage.

2019 Dick Thomas Award Winners:

First place in the Individual category of the Dick Thomas Student Competition went to Naod Sebhat of Seattle U for “Characterizing the impact of the Kariba Dam on the geomorphology of the Zambezi River using a GIS based model”.  Second place went to Austin Jennings of UW Tacoma for “Time-Space Mapping in Congressional Districts—Using Distance Cartograms to Explore Gerrymandering”.  Third place was awarded to Carson Risner (Central Washington University) for “Washington State Rooftop and Community Solar Installations: A Spatiotemporal Analysis”.  Two Honorable mentions were awarded to undergraduate students from the University of Washington Tacoma, Rainey Carlin for “Proposed Remediation Sites Due to Arsenic and Lead Contamination:  Protecting Vulnerable Populations” and Shivani Lai for “Historic Preservation: Downtown Kent Core Walking Tour”.

In the Group category, first prize went to Zak Bartholomew, Katherine Collins, and Jeremy Leonard of UW Seattle for “Applying GIS to support salmonid conservation efforts in the Lower Nehalem Watershed, Oregon”.  Second place went to Kirsten Hooper, Abdulrahman Alsammahi, and Raghad Ashoor of Seattle University for “Sound Transit's Interactive Noise Map Application (INMA)”.  Third Place was awarded to Nancy Sola-Llonch, Trent Ducken, Christopher Fay of University of Washington Seattle for Beaver Relocation in Upper Columbia River Basin”.  An Honorable Mention was awarded to Aline Moch Islas of University of Washington

Evans School of Public Policy and Governance for “Creative Economy in Seattle through a Racial Equity Lens”.

WAURISA is pleased to announce the winner of the 2019 Summit Award is Don Burdick, GIS Project Manager at the City of Bellingham, WA.Don has enjoyed a successful 27-year career with the City of Bellingham, filling numerous roles with titles ranging from GIS Analyst to Technical Services Manager. In his current role as the City’s GIS Project Manager,  Don coordinates the development of enterprise GIS projects and integrates them with other city systems, coordinates GIS staff, and administers GIS services and integrated permitting, asset management and document management systems. Don still has found time to volunteer his expertise. He served on the WAURISA board for 12 years as board member, President, Past President and then as WAURISA’s Treasurer from 2011 to 2018.

 In the course of our careers as GIS professionals, we come across many types of people, GIS wunderkinds, computer programmers who discovered mapping, mappers who discovered computers, sales people, scientists, and government bureaucrats. We work with those who understand GIS and those who don’t want or need to. Our audience is by the nature of our work diverse, and touches on many disciplines. One of the roles of the GIS professional is to evangelize the spatial, to use place to answer problems that range from the universal to the specific. In this work, we are lucky to have a broad community of collaborators and colleagues, but none of this is exactly organic. In the background, there are those who seek to serve the larger, collective good of the profession, and one of those people is Heather Glock, nearly a 20 year veteran of ESRI, past WAURISA President, and all around good human. Congratulations to Heather!

Congratulations to Ann Stark, Senior GIS Analyst, City of Bellingham the recipient of the 2017 Summit Award. Ann’s contribution to the Washington State GIS community has been, and continues to be, outstanding and inspirational to us all. Her drive to bring GIS professionals together to develop solutions and expand knowledge and resources has helped many throughout the region. Ann exhibits professionalism on all levels. Her drive for excellence in the GIS profession along with her outreach, volunteerism (former WAURISA President), coordination, and mentoring makes her a very worthy recipient of the WAURISA’s GIS Person of the year (2017 Summit Award winner).

For more information about the Summit Award or to nominate a person for next year see here. 

WAURISA is pleased to announce that Chuck Buzzard of Pierce County GIS was honored with the Summit Award at the WA GIS Conference this year.  His contributions to the GIS community were recognized by his peers and more info here.