GIS meeting spreads info about new technology

VIRGINIA BEACH

When Norfolk chose to send its first damage-assessment teams to East Ocean View and Willoughby after last week's nor'easter, it was thanks to GIS.

When Old Dominion University biologist Kent Carpenter tracks the frequency of aquatic life across the world, it's also thanks to GIS - short for geographic information systems.

Practitioners use words such as "geospatial resource portal" and "cartographic visualization technology" to describe the field. In simplest terms, it's "tying together maps and data," said Fraser Picard, the city of Norfolk's GIS team supervisor.

More than 150 people, from adult techies to high school students, gathered Friday at the Advanced Technology Center for "GIS Day" to learn more about the up-and-coming computer tool.

The serious side included lectures on applications for areas such as health care and sanitation.

The fun came later, when about a dozen participants engaged in a scavenger hunt - geo-caching, for those in the know.

Holding GPS devices, they slogged through mud, tromped through brush and traversed ditches at the edge of Tidewater Community College's nearby campus in search of five plastic containers.

The winner was among the youngest - Ryan McMullin, 21, a TCC student. McMullin found four.

Maybe he had an edge. McMullin is taking the introductory GIS class at TCC and intends to complete the college's recently launched GIS certificate program.

The program, said George McLeod, the college's GIS instructor as well as GIS systems engineer at ODU, aims to prepare students for entry-level jobs in the burgeoning field.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted a 21 percent increase in GIS-related jobs, such as mapping technicians, from 2006 to 2016. That's greater than the average for all occupations.

Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., an Idaho research firm, has forecast about 600 GIS jobs in Hampton Roads by 2014.

Audience members at the event - which was sponsored by TCC, the city of Norfolk and Michael Baker Jr. Inc., a Virginia Beach engineering firm - said salaries started around $30,000 and could reach six figures.

GPS, or Global Positioning System, devices - the gadgets that help you get to your destination - are perhaps the best-known application of GIS. But the field "impacts your lives in a lot of ways you may not be aware of," Robert Rike told the group. He's the Virginia account executive for ESRI, one of the leading purveyors of GIS software.

GIS, Rike said, can help determine the most efficient route for a school bus or the most profitable place to locate a coffee shop.

Just last week, it helped the city of Norfolk determine the neighborhoods with the most flooded streets and downed trees, Picard said. And it has enabled Norfolk to create a Web site - http://gis.norfolk.gov/crimeviewcommunity/wizard.asp - where people can determine the frequency of crimes near their homes.

Hua Liu, an assistant professor of political science and geography at ODU, discussed her research tracking which Indianapolis communities suffer the greatest incidence of West Nile virus in various seasons.

ODU, she said, also offers GIS certificates, on the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Old Dominion University will hold GIS Day at the Webb Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 7.

"It's booming," McLeod said, "because of the availability of computing power and the increase in imagination. People are just starting to realize the utility of it."

Picard foresees 3-D maps and more cell phone applications. McMullin hopes to be part of that future.

"My dad's a cartographer by trade, so I've been around maps pretty much my whole life," he said. "This is just the next level of mapping."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com