MAPPS Announces Fourth Annual 'Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards' Competition, Deadline August 31, 2010

MAPPS (www.mapps.org), the association of private geospatial firms, has announced that it will host its fourth annual Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards competition, recognizing the professionalism, value, integrity and achievement that member firms have demonstrated in their projects and technology developments over the previous year.

"The Awards Program is an opportunity for MAPPS member firms to showcase the high-quality work that is being performed in the geospatial community," said John Palatiello, MAPPS Executive Director. "The awards program demonstrates the cutting edge technology and professional expertise that MAPPS member firms implement in projects serving their clients."

The award recipients will be announced and recognized on Wednesday, November 17 as part of the MAPPS Fall Policy Conference and in cooperation with the ASPRS/CaGIS Fall Specialty Conference in Orlando, FL.

The Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards program has six categories: airborne and satellite data acquisition; photogrammetry/elevation data generation; remote sensing; GIS/IT; small projects; and technology innovation. A Grand Award will be selected from the six category winners to represent the MAPPS Project of the Year.

In 2009, the MAPPS Project of the Year was awarded to Merrick & Company (Aurora, CO) for their "Levee Recertification Using Geospatial Technologies" project. Conducted for the City of Wichita Kansas, Department of Public Works, the project gathered and processed data for one of the first levee recertification projects in the U.S. as part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 2005 mandate following Hurricane Katrina. The Merrick team collected over 1,000 square miles of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and digital aerial imagery, with the specific area of the project being a 33-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that consisted of levees, floodways, improved channels, and control structures. The mapping project involved LiDAR data collection, color digital aerial imagery and elevation data collection.

The 2009 category winners were Intermap Technologies for "Intermap Technologies Completes NEXTMap Europe" in Airborne and Satellite Data Acquisition; Photo Science "Spatial Data Interoperability at the Florida Department of Transportation" in GIS/IT; Kappa Mapping, Inc. "Color Infrared Imagery Makes Accurate Vernal Pool Mapping Possible in Bar Harbor, Maine" in Small Projects; Optech Technologies "New Product Introduction in Hardware: ALTM Oriom" in Technology Innovation; and Merrick & Company in the Photogrammetry/Elevation Data Generation category.

The 2010 contest is open to all MAPPS Regular and Associate Member firms. The deadline for submitting entries is August 31, 2010.

To learn more about MAPPS and the Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards program visit www.mapps.org/awards/gpseawards.cfm.

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.