March 24, 1999 Special Presentation

Lance McKee
Vice President, Corporate Communications, OGC Inc.

Jim Farley
Technical Director, Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies
University of Arkansas

with
Louis Hecht
Vice President, Business Development, OGC Inc.

Open GIS Consortium, Inc.
Disaster Management Special Interest Group

SUMMARY

EIIP Tech Arena Online Presentation
Wednesday - March 24, 1999 - 12:00 Noon EST

The Open GIS Consortium's
Disaster Management Special Interest Group

Lance McKee
Vice President
Corporate Communications
Open GIS Consortium Inc.

Louis Hecht
Vice President
Business Development
Open GIS Consortium Inc.

Jim Farley
Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies
University of Arkansas

The EIIP Virtual Forum hosted a special event in the Tech Arena with three speakers from the Open GIS Consortium (OGC): Lance McKee, Vice President, Corporate Communications for OGC; Louis Hecht, Vice President for Business Development, OGC, and Jim Farley from the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies.

The Open GIS Consortium is a 180-member organization dedicated to open systems geoprocessing. Open geoprocessing means access to disaster information over the net with any kind of device to speed information and support decision-making. The disaster management community has an opportunity in OGC to participate in developing interoperability technology in of disaster information network requirements. The OGC recently formed a Disaster Management Special Interest Group (DM SIG) to review disaster management community requirements and discuss a range of issues related to how the private sector can work together with agencies to develop technologies that support interoperability among systems used by the participants in Disaster Management.

The OGC DM SIG wants to know:

• how people and organizations handle and cope with disasters
• how they would like to use or otherwise impose technology for support
• what kind of technology, how should information be delivered
• how should it be framed (text, maps, simple query)

LANCE McKEE

Vice President, Corporate Communications
Open GIS Consortium, Inc.

Lance McKee is Vice President, Corporate Communications for the Open GIS Consortium, Inc. Prior to joining OGC in 1994, Mr. McKee worked as an independent marketing communications consultant and freelance writer, writing for computer companies and trade magazines. He worked as GIS marketing manager for MASSCOMP from 1986 through 1988. Before joining MASSCOMP, he worked as a civil engineering draftsman and assistant
surveyor. Mr. McKee is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin - Madison and holds a Masters Degree in Education.

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JAMES A. FARLEY

Technical Director, Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies
University of Arkansas

James Farley is the Chief Technical Officer for the University of Arkansas Fulbright College of Arts and Scieces, Technical Director at the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST), and is also Associate Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas. Farley received his MA in Anthropology from the University of Arkansas in 1983 and his BA from SUNY Buffalo in 1977.

Professor Farley has been at the forefront of strategic Information Technology applications and open systems geoprocessing for nearly twenty years excelling in technology development and basic research. Farley has has given international recognition to the Center as a result of his work in the Middle East, China, the Netherlands, Japan, Venzuela and Great Britain.In addition, Farley has served as a technology advisor to the DOD, USDA-NRCS and NIMA.

Farley is a Founder and a former Vice President in the OpenGIS Consortium. Over the past six years he has worked to make the message of OpenGIS a reality in state and local government through the strategic application of integrated information technologies and applied technology transfer initiatives.

Farley has published numerous articles,book chapters and one monograph. He is also a regular columnist providing software and technology reviews to industry publications such as GIS World, GeoInfo Systems and Business Geographics. Most recently Farley has worked to bring the vision of open systems technology to the global disaster management community and to create an international network of Centers of Excellance in Environmental Dynamics and Spatial Information Technologies.

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LOUIS G. HECHT

Vice President, Business Development
Open GIS Consortium, Inc.

Louis G. Hecht joined The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) in 1996 as Vice President of Business Development. In this position he is responsible for the implementation of strategic memberships, business relationships and managing business planning. Mr. Hecht has 24 years of experience in the fields of information technology, resource management and spatial data
management and analysis, and he has authored numerous columns and articles. In 1990 he founded Environmental and Geographic Information Systems Consulting. As principal he guided several industry leading organizations in reassessing the US and International markets to determine the efficacy of their products in meeting industry needs. As a consultant to OGC he helped formulate the Strategic Membership and Application Integration Membership levels, based on his long experience in helping major organizations define and meet their needs for geoprocessing technology.

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OPEN GIS

What is OpenGIS?

OpenGIS is defined as transparent access to heterogeneous geodata and geoprocessing resources in a networked environment. The goal of the OpenGIS Project is to provide a comprehensive suite of open interface specifications that enable developers to write interoperating components that provide these capabilities.

What is the OpenGIS Consortium?

OGC is organized as a tax-exempt "membership corporation," as defined in section 501(c)(6) of the US tax code, whose mission is to promote the development and use of advanced open systems standards and techniques in the area of geoprocessing and related information technologies. OGC is supported by Consortium membership fees and, to a lesser extent,
development partnerships and publicly funded cooperative programs.

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