R5 GIS Coordination Team Meeting Minutes 06/01/00

Region 5 GIS Coordination Team Meeting Minutes
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Office - Hadley, MA

Memorandum

Date: October 2, 2002
From: Linda Shaffer
Subject: R5 GIS Coordination Team Meeting Minutes

Attendees:

Linda Shaffer/NWRS-CSDS
Michelle Babione/NWRS-Conte NWR
Andrew MacLachlan/ES-SNE/NYB
Chris Castiglione/FR-Lower Great Lakes FRO (by telephone)
Mike Drummond/ES-VAFO (by telephone)

Team members not in attendance:

Mike Weaver/LE
Ed Christoffers/RDT
Bill Zinni/NWRS-Planning
Ralph Tiner/ES-NWI

Today=s meeting started at 9:00 am with a review of our last meeting=s minutes.

We noted that Ed Christoffers is now the RDT Liaison for our team. Many thanks to
Linda Repasky who has served that role for the past 2 years.

The agreement between USGS/BLM and ESRI for the enterprise licensing scheme on
ESRI software and products is not yet complete. FWS doesn't yet have the final dollar
figures for how much it will cost for FY03. Deb Green has, however, gathered support
in Washington for FWS to sign the agreement once it is finalized. Washington will
determine how the costs will be split amongst the Regions and/or programs. In the
meantime, if someone needs to purchase an ESRI product, the only option is to use GSA
pricing. We suggest waiting until the agreement is finalized, though, since GSA pricing
is quite high.

We discussed finalization of the R5 GIS Strategic Plan for Outreach and the Spatial Data
Library (SDL). Michelle will add further comments gathered at today's meeting and
information on estimated costs for the various Outreach options. Linda will finish
incorporating SDL Strategic Plan comments and meet with the SDL Subteam on Oct. 10
to finalize the plan. Linda and Michelle will meet on Oct. 9 to hammer out a briefing to
the RDT on the Strategic Plan. We will include recommendations and budget requests. 
The RDT Briefing is scheduled for Oct. 21 8:30 to 9:00 am.

We then briefly discussed our Team response to the Gulf of Maine Program's habitat
analysis proposal that we submitted to the RDT (via Ed Christoffers) and to GOMP staff. 
Ed thanked us for the response and noted that the RDT will discuss a regional needs
assessment for the final products of the proposed analysis at a future stay-at-home
meeting. Meanwhile, Andrew will contact GOMP staff to gauge their reaction to our
response.

Team members will attend 2 meetings in November and provide briefings on GIS issues
and activities. Linda will attend the NWRS Project Leaders meeting in Auburn, NY
November 4-5 to brief them on GIS activities. She will ask for feedback on the Outreach
Strategic Plan proposals for Project Leaders. Michelle will attend the Regional Biologists
meeting in Hadley November 19-20 and coordinate their GIS activities with ours.

We discussed the January workshop for the remainder of the meeting. The initial call
for presentations and volunteers resulted in responses from 2 volunteers and several
presentation proposals by FWS and USGS staff.

Proposed FWS-R5 presentations are:

	Dan Greeley/NWRS on Internet/intranet capabilities 
throughout the region and support of ArcIMS applications.
	Herb Bergquist/ES-NWI on eelgrass mapping.
	Al Zelley/NWRS-Missisquoi on something interesting.
	Michelle Babione/NWRS-Conte on landscape ecology applications.
	NWRS/CSDS on something interesting.
	Chris Castiglione/FR on something interesting.
	Mike Drummond/ES-VAFO on applications.
	Mike Weaver/LE on LE needs and applications for GIS.
	R5 GIS Coordination Team (Michelle and/or Linda) on who we 
are, what we do, and the Strategic Plan. We intend to get feedback from attendees on the 
Team's current and planned activities (Marci Caplis to facilitate). 
 
Proposed presentations by others are:

	Paul Steblein/NWRS-WO on the Promises Team's GIS initiatives. 
	John Sauer of Patuxent on their regional GIS project.
	Mike Anderson of TNC.
	Panel of federal GIS coordinators from USACE-New England 
(Will Rogers), NPS-Boston (Nigel Shaw), USGS-New England Liaison (Lynn Bjorklund), and 
hopefully EPA-Boston (Deb Cohen) have agreed to attend and provide information on their
agency's GIS activities.  Marci Caplis to facilitate the panel discussion.
Two USGS employees submitted proposals for presentations: Linda Leake of USGS/Upper 
Mississippi Environmental Science Center on a GIS/Decision Support System for Acadia 
National Park and Adam Schultz of USGS-Reston on an internet GIS application. Michelle and 
Andrew will determine whether or not to fit these presentations into the schedule.

We also had a request from staff at the Boston office of The Wilderness Society to
attend the meeting. We agreed that they are welcome to attend since attendance
is not limited to Service and federal GIS enthusiasts.

See list of action items below for more workshop issues.
A summary of requests that we will be making from the RDT are:
1.	Strategic Plan budget requests.
2.	Workshop:  

	Keynote address by Dr. Mamie Parker 
	Morning and afternoon session introductions by RDT members (3) 
	Budget request for tokens/gifts and travel expenses. 
	Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 4 at 9:30 am in the small auditorium.

We adjourned at 10:35 am much to the relief of the Fisheries staff who had reserved the 
room for 10:30 and were eagerly anticipating the start of their staff meeting.

ACTION ITEMS:

1.	DONE!     Linda will add costs of commercial data acquisition to the SDL 
Strategic Plan. Michelle will arrange a GIS update briefing at the Regional Biologists fall 
meeting.

2.	DONE!      Linda will send minutes of this Team=s meetings to Regional Biologist staff (Jan Taylor, Hal 
Laskowski, Jennifer Casey, Joe Dowhan).

3.	DONE!       Linda will meet with RDT administrative staff to schedule an October 
or November RDT briefing on the strategic plan for Outreach and SDL.

4.	WILL DO ON OCTOBER 21 at 8:30 AM.    Linda and Michelle will present a briefing 
to the RDT on the Outreach and SDL strategic plans.

5.	DONE!      Michelle will write a draft response to the request for review of the 
GOMP proposal for expanding watershed habitat analysis.

WORKSHOP ACTION ITEMS:

6.	DONE!     Chris will write a draft message to all R5 employees (plus other 
region=s GIS
coordinators) announcing the January 2003 workshop and calling for papers/presentations
and volunteers to help out with the workshop. Travel dates are January 28 and 31. 
Workshop dates are January 29-30. Hours are 8:00 - 4:30. Location is Regional Office
auditorium and computer training room. Interested persons should respond to Linda by Nov.
12 with their presentation ideas.

7.	IN WORK.   Linda will handle registration and food for the workshop and will get 
clerical assistance from someone in the RO. We=ll send out an email in December with a reminder 
in January requesting folks to register for the workshop in early January. This email must 
include the anticipated registration fee (cost of lunch and refreshments) and the draft workshop agenda. 

8.	Ralph is in charge of nametags.

9.	IN WORK.   Mike Drummond will handle the R5 GIS Resources booklet update.

10.	IN WORK.   Michelle and Andrew will develop the workshop agenda, coordinate
presentations and assist the presenters. Draft agenda is due Dec. 2.  They will develop an
anticipated budget for travel expenses for Mark Anderson and John Sauer.

11.	IN WORK.   Linda will investigate gifts/tokens for presenters, helpers, and 
attendees. Must estimate the cost and request a budget for this from the RDT.

12.	Andrew will invite an ESRI representative to attend, bring materials, provide a 
Doctor's office or similar service, assist users with the ESRI online course  "Migrating 
from ArcView 3.2 to ArcView 8, and answer questions about ArcGIS 8.

13.	Andrew will talk to External Affairs staff to request the services of an audiovisual 
specialist to assist during the workshop.

14.	Linda will request the following services from the RDT: keynote address (10-15 
minutes)by Dr. Mamie Parker, morning and afternoon introductions (3) by RDT members.

15.	GIS Team members will introduce the presenters and serve as time cops to keep the
workshop on schedule.

16.	Marci Caplis will facilitate the federal agency panel discussion and the R5 GIS 
Coordination Team feedback session.

17.	Linda will assign a volunteer the task of reserving a block of rooms at a nearby 
hotel.

18.	Linda will ask Rick Schauffler to serve as GIS expert in residence in the computer 
room to assist users with ArcGIS 8.

19.	The registration table will serve: sign-in sheet, name tags, tokens, workshop 
agenda, drafting dots for hanging posters, NCTC training materials, "GIS Resources in 
Region 5" booklet.