St. Simons Island — The Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center’s GIS Division received top honors at this year’s Georgia Association of Regional Development Centers’ (GARDC) conference. Taking home both the first and second place awards for cartography, the CGRDC’s GIS Division swept the category.

The 2007 GARDC training conference was held on St. Simons Island last month. Regional Development Centers from around the state spent three days hearing from state representatives regarding upcoming issues in the next legislative session, learning about new policy initiatives, and discussing ways to better serve local governments in the areas of solid waste management, transportation, and the local update of census addresses (LUCA), among others.  

Each year at their annual conference, the GARDC holds a poster contest in which GIS teams from Regional Development Centers across the state can participate. This year’s contest was a first for the GARDC in that the contest was judged by representatives from the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.   

Awards were distributed in the areas of cartography and analysis. The first place prize consisted of the winning regional development center receiving a choice of virtual online training courses by ESRI. Second place allowed the winning RDC to choose from a series of books related to GIS technology and related services.

Not only did the CGRDC receive recognition at this year’s conference, but GIS staff won the poster contest in 2005 and placed second in 2006.

GIS manager Chris Chalmers and Paul Speich, GIS technician, were on hand to receive the award on behalf of the CGRDC. Other GIS members who were not present were Ron Sadowski, GIS technician, and Reggie Allen, assistant GIS technician.

Chalmers stated that these awards demonstrate the CGRDC’s commitment to provide quality mapping services to their member counties and municipalities.

“This recognition shows that the CGRDC is one the premier GIS divisions in the state,” he contends.

Chalmers continued, “Our division is dedicated to providing essential GIS services to member counties and governments across the region.”  

CGRDC GIS Division services include DRI mapping, comprehensive plan development, GIS technical services, parcel mapping, GPS location mapping, bike and pedestrian plan development, etc.

For more information about the GIS Division and available services, please contact the CGRDC at (912) 264-7363.