Changes in Geospatial Technology and Threats to the Private Geospatial Market to be Highlighted During MAPPS Summer Conference

Reston, VA, June 16, 2010 - Forces affecting the private geospatial profession such as government insourcing, sensor fusion, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), IVHS, consumer "apps", ethics, and cloud computing will be discussed during the MAPPS Summer Conference July 29 - August 2 in Lake Tahoe, NV.

The future of the Global Geospatial Intelligence (CGI) data production and how the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) is moving from a product based system to a database maintenance system will be presented in the keynote by Ms. Karen Thomas, Director, Source Assessment and Global Foundation at NGA.  Thomas will also highlight how this information will provide a new wave of the National System for GeoINT (NSG).

"Geospatial technology and the market in which our member firms do business is ever changing.  As usual, our program committee has met this challenge by designing a schedule of timely sessions," said Jeff Lovin, PS, CP, (Woolpert, Inc., Dayton, OH), MAPPS President. "Thanks to Eric Andelin (Bohannan Huston Inc., Dallas, TX) and his committee, a lively program that will educate business owners and senior executives on the changing technology and business threats and opportunities will highlight the conference."

Technical sessions will include topics on cloud computing; Intelligent Vehicle and Highway Systems (IVHS); mobile device and web based applications in Location Based Services (LBS) and the future technical and business opportunities available; sensor fusion; bathy/hydro mapping, and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).

Business trends such as the threat of government insourcing, how the health care reform legislation will affect both business and personal coverage, ethics in the geospatial profession and market opportunities such as the development of smart phone applications using geospatial data and technology will be discussed.

MAPPS will present the results of its recently conducted survey of salary and non-cash benefits programs in its member firms and the fourth semi-annual economic survey of the membership. The conference will also include the annual MAPPS business meeting and elections for Board of Directors.

A full conference program and matrix is available on the MAPPS website.

About MAPPS

Formed in 1982, MAPPS is the only national association exclusively comprised of private firms in the remote sensing, spatial data and geographic information systems field in the United States. The MAPPS membership spans the entire spectrum of the geospatial community, including Member Firms engaged in satellite and airborne remote sensing, surveying, photogrammetry, aerial photography, LIDAR, hydrography, bathymetry, charting, aerial and satellite image processing, GPS, and GIS data collection and conversion services. MAPPS also includes Associate Member Firms, which are companies that provide hardware, software, products and services to the geospatial profession in the United States and other firms from around the world.  Independent Consultant Members are sole proprietors engaged in consulting in or to the geospatial profession, or provides a consulting service of interest to the geospatial profession.

MAPPS provides its 180+ member firms opportunities for networking and developing business-to-business relationships, information sharing, education, public policy advocacy, market growth, and professional development and image enhancement.

For more information on MAPPS, please visit www.MAPPS.org.