A lot has happened in the GIS world in the two years since our last MidAmerica GIS Symposium (MAGIC). We have seen the rapid expansion of GIS into the cloud, the mobile frontier of GIS improve dramatically with tablets and smart phones becoming common place, and web mapping continue to evolve into a richer and more user friendly experience. GIS is more and more engrained in what we do on a daily basis. Business processes now consider GIS to be an integral part of their design.

Come to MAGIC and hear from the experts on the future of geospatial technologies! Our keynote speakers are well versed in our rapidly changing geospatial environments and bring a solid perspective on the technology for tomorrow's solutions.

Sean McGrath, CTO of Propylon

Sean is co-founder and CTO of Propylon. He heads up the CTO Office out of Propylon's Lawrence, Kansas facility. He has almost 30 years of experience in the IT industry, most of it in the legal and regulatory publishing space. He holds a first class honors degree in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin. He served as an invited expert to the W3C special interest group that created the XML standard in 1996. He is the author of three books on markup languages published by Prentice Hall. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and regular contributor to the trade press. He runs a technology oriented blog at http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com.

Brigadier General John W. Heltzel, Director of Kentucky's Division of Emergency Management and Deputy Commander Kentucky National Guard

General Heltzel is Director of Kentucky Emergency Management and Deputy Commander of Kentucky's Joint Task Force Headquarters. The General led one of the largest Seismic Exercises ever conducted in the Commonwealth. The CATOPS 08 Exercise was designed to prepare the National Guard, Emergency Management and the Commonwealth for the potential response in the event of an earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Region on Kentucky's western border. CATOPS 08 successfully integrated the planning and response elements of the Kentucky National Guard, State and County Emergency Management Officials, in addition to FEMA and Homeland Security. In July 2008, General Heltzel accepted the appointment by Governor Steven L. Beshear to direct the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management. Within his capacity as Director, General Heltzel is responsible for coordinating all resources of State and Federal Government in the event of Natural or Manmade Disasters and Emergencies throughout the Commonwealth. More information can be found at http://kyem.ky.gov/about/director.htm.

Engaged and focused leadership is essential to ensure progress. Learning how to gain the support and vision of agency leaders and forward thinkers is critical to achieving new levels of success and capabilities. Using Emergency Management as a backdrop, General Heltzel will put forward ideas for creating technology solutions for the future. Heltzel's address will provide insight into the following questions: With more data available than at any time in our history, and the exponential growth in processing power, what will it take to become change leaders and not just trend followers? How can we use emerging tools to effectively develop and implement solutions that defy our current organizational limitations?

Dates to Remember

• March 23: Deadline to enter Project Showcase.
• March 25: Room reservation deadline at the Westin.
• April 22 - 26: MAGIC!

Contact Us

MAGIC Website - www.magicgis.org
2012 Symposium Chair
Consortium Chair
Web Administrator

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us!

© 2012 MidAmerica GIS Consortium, Ltd. - all rights reserved.