National Visiting Committee
Chérie Aukland is an Associate Professor of IT and Program Head for the Geographic Information Systems Program at Thomas Nelson Community College in Williamsburg, Virginia. She has a diverse academic background of Mathematics, Computer Science (M.S. College of William and Mary), and graduate work in GIS at Virginia Tech and NC State. Her experience and interests include web design and programming, web and mobile GIS, best practices for distance learning, creating service learning opportunities for GIS students and application of GIS across curricula. She contributed to Project GTCM and is currently a participant in the second phase of the iGETT-Remote Sensing Project. Chérie is a Co-Investigator of the GeoTEd grant, an Advanced Technological Education grant from the National Science Foundation (Expanding Geospatial Technician Education Through Virginia’s Community Colleges, DUE # 0903270; 1205110).
Contact: 752-258-6592 or auklandc@tncc.edu
David DiBiase leads the Education Team within Esri’s Industry Solutions group. The Team promotes GIS use and spatial thinking in higher education, schools, and youth groups worldwide. Before joining Esri, David founded the Penn State Online GIS Certificate and Masters degree programs. He served as lead editor of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Geospatial Technology Competency Model and the GIS&T Body of Knowledge published by Association of American Geographers. He also led the National Science Foundation-funded “GIS Professional Ethics” project from 2008-2010, and continues to offer professional ethics workshops for Penn State Online.
Contact: 909-793-2853 or ddibiase@esri.com
As one whose principal expertise lies in the application of computers to interesting problems, Michael Kennedy is deeply involved in the area of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Since the early 1970s he has conducted work on "making a computer believe it's a map."
Professor Kennedy is the author of the comprehensive textbook Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS -- A Workbook Approach to Learning GIS, Third Edition, published by John Wiley and Sons, 672 pages, 2013 (ISBN: 978-1-118-15980-4).
He also wrote the highly successful and unique textbook The Global Positioning System and GIS, now in its third edition, CRC-Press -- Taylor & Francis Group, 304 pages, 2010 (ISBN 978-1-4200-8799-4).
Contact: kennedy@uky.edu
Andrew Mendola is the Educational Program Manager at Pictometry International. As the EDU Program Manager, Andy is responsible for integrating Pictometry’s solutions and imagery into curriculum of multiple disciplines and grade levels. Prior to this role Andy was a trainer for Pictometry in their Customer Technical Services Department. As a trainer he traveled the US training the county governments that were under contract with Pictometry on the use of their software and imagery datasets. Andy is a certified New York State teacher with 14 years of classroom experience as well as a certified New York State School Administrator.
Contact: andrew.mendola@pictometry.com
Dr. John Ritter, Prof., Dept. of Geomatics, Oregon Institute of Technology, Esri Desktop Associate, CTT+ Trainer, and ESRI Certified Instructor. Dr. Ritter came to Oregon Tech in 1996 to start OIT’s Environmental Sciences program after being a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center. Dr. Ritter has guided the growth of the GIS program at OIT from initially an emphasis within the Environmental Sciences program to a full 4-yr degree option within OIT’s Geomatics Department. Dr. Ritter is the Director of the OIT GIS Service Center and teaches numerous GIS classes at OIT. He is also the president of Aspen GIS Services, Inc. (member of ESRI Partner Network).
Contact: 541-885-1495 or john.ritter@oit.edu
Gordon F. Snyder, Jr. is Executive Director and Principal Investigator for ICT Center at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC), where he also manages curriculum development for networking. At STCC he helped develop the Verizon Next Step program and now serves as the New England telecommunications curriculum coordinator for the program. He is the author of four engineering and engineering technology textbooks and has over 14 years of consulting experience in the field of communications and LAN/WAN design. He has served on several local and national boards including the Microsoft Community & Technical College Advisory Council, the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council and the National Skill Standards Board (NSSB) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Voluntary Partnership representing the telecommunications, computer, and information industry sector. He currently chairs the Institute for Telecommunications Technologies Board at Cuyamaca College, El Cajon, California, the NSF National Center for Optics and Photonics Education Board in Waco, TX and the Convergence Technology Center Board in the Dallas Fort Worth. TX metroplex. Closer to home he chairs the Technology Enterprise Council (TEC), a regional, industry-led organization working hand-in-hand with academic institutions and other non-profit organizations to advance the growth and success of companies driven by information and communications technologies in Southern Vermont, Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. In this region he also sits on the Regional Technology Coucil (RTC) Board of Directors and the RTC Executive Committee. He also writes a bi-monthly technology column for the Spanish newspaper La Prensa. In 2001 he was selected as one of the top fifteen technology faculty in the United States by Microsoft Corporation and the American Association of Community Colleges and in 2004 was selected as the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council Workforce Development Leader of the year.
Contact: gsnyder@stcc.edu
Mr. Weber is the GIS Director at Idaho State University (ISU) and has held this position since the inception of the GIS Training and Research Center (GIS TReC) in 1998. He has been involved in the Geotechnology industry since 1989, is a Certified GIS Professional (GISP) and recipient of Esri’s Special Achievements in GIS award in 2000 and again in 2013. He is also a past-President of the Northern Rockies Chapter of URISA, former Vice-President of the Intermountain Chapter of ASPRS, and chairs Idaho’s geodetic control technical working group.
Mr. Weber has a MS in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana and has authored/coauthored over 40 peer-reviewed journal papers and is the principal investigator on over 20 external grants totaling nearly $8M in awards to the GIS TReC at ISU. Mr. Weber serves on the Geographic Information Science Institute (GISCI) certification committee and chaired its recertification sub-committee. Mr. Weber was
instrumental in obtaining Idaho State University's membership into the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) and serves as ISU's principal delegate. He is also a standing member of the Idaho Geospatial Council- Executing Committee (IGC-EC).
Contact: 208-282-2757 or weberkeit@isu.edu
