USA – The Geospatial Technologies program at Gainesville State College is getting national recognition, and will now be used as a model in the southeast for other colleges and universities.
The college announced Thursday that beginning in September, its Lewis F. Rogers Institute of Environmental and Spatial Analysis will serve as a senior partner and the southeast regional extension of the new National Geospatial Technology Center (GeoTech Center).
The GeoTech Center is a collaboration between eight colleges and universities with Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas as the lead institution.
“Our GIS program has truly put Gainesville State College on the map nationally,” GSC President Dr. Martha Nesbitt said.
Geospatial Technologies includes Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), remote sensing and mobile- and location-based services. “Geospatial” is anything that can be referenced in space and time using the combination of spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets.
Dr. Lewis F. Rogers, director of the Lewis F. Rogers Institute of Environmental and Spatial Analysis, said the project has been about 10 years in the making.
“One of our primary responsibilities in this GeoTech Center…will be helping other colleges develop programs and offering training,” he said.
To help with that training, the GeoTech Center is funded with a $5 million Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant from the National Science Foundation. The first round of funding will last for four years; however, the NSF has asked for a minimum 10-year commitment.
Of the total $5 million grant, Del Mar College will receive $3.2 million directly while partner institutions will share the other $1.8 million during the four-year grant period that runs through 2012. Gainesville State College will receive approximately $360,000 for the first four years.
Chris Semerjian, director of the college’s spatial analysis lab and co-principal investor of the grant, said that geospatial technologies was listed among the top three high-technologies, high-growth industries in the country as part of President George W. Bush’s High Growth Job Training Initiative, and has now become a $30 to 50 billion-a-year industry.
Semerjian said the demand for geospatial technology is increasing “exponentially” in the country. However, the demand “far exceeds” the supply, so a lot of the work is currently being outsourced overseas.
“So one of the main focuses of this national center is to increase both the quantity and quality of geospatial technicians in our own country.”
