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”.
