January 17, 2013 -- Congressman Joe Garcia, a Democrat from Florida’s 26th District, will be the keynote speaker for the MAPPS Winter Conference, to be held January 27-31 at the Trump International Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, FL, MAPPS ( www.mapps.org), the national association for private sector geospatial firms, announced today. 

Rep. Garcia was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on November 6, 2012. His district spans from West Miami-Dade to Key West. He serves on the House Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Natural Resources.

“It is a privilege to have Congressman Garcia give the keynote address at the MAPPS Winter Conference and provide the membership insight on the new Congress,” said John Palatiello, MAPPS Executive Director. “MAPPS strives to connect members of Congress with private sector geospatial professionals in an effort to showcase the products and services utilized by Federal agencies to benefit the citizenry of the United States.”

Prior to being elected to Congress, Rep. Garcia served as Director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact for the United States Department of Energy. He will speak on the 113th Congress and issues under the jurisdiction of the committees on which he serves. Of particular interest to MAPPS members, the Judiciary Committee oversees Federal Prison Industries, reform of which MAPPS has long supported in order to prevent unfair competition with private firms. The Natural Resources Committee has responsibility for the FLAIR Act, Map It Once, Use It Many Times Act, and the Digital Coast Act.

Sessions at the MAPPS conference will focus on education and continuing professional development, networking to build business-to-business relationships, and ways to better manage a surveying, mapping or geospatial company. Topics on the conference program will include: 

Mergers and acquisitions; human resources: performance evaluations and 360 reviews; health care reform: implementation in your firm and family; wealth management; National Geospatial Advisory Council (NGAC) update; indoor mapping; sensor fusion; automated feature extraction; thermal mapping; asset management; Florida market for geospatial services; Federal agency updates; location/mobile mapping; ethics; privacy issues and geospatial firms; legislative issues roundtable; geospatial excellence awards; CFO issues panel; and an important session on "big data" with Microsoft, Amazon, Esri, and Google all presenting.  

MAPPS is offering a special membership promotion for firms that are not current members. The association invites principals of firms to attend the Winter Conference at the non-member rate, but if the firm joins MAPPS prior to the end of the conference on January 31, 2013, the firm will be credited with the difference between the member and non-member rate. The reimbursement will be credited toward the firm's 2013 membership dues in MAPPS.

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 160+ 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.