March 2006

Welcome to The Sensor -- the newsletter of the Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions (EIGS) bringing you the latest developments from Mississippi’s emerging geospatial industry cluster. Please feel free to share this with friends and colleagues. To subscribe, visit www.eigs.olemiss.edu

For further information, or to submit story ideas, please contact Lisa Stone - lstone@olemiss.edu 

EIGS Consultant Johnna Van recently spent a few minutes with Tim Brogdon, Vice President of Business Development, GB Tech, Inc., and talked about the company and what the future has on the horizon for Air-O-Space.

Van: Tim, why don’t you give our readers a brief synopsis of Air-O-Space.

Brogdon: Air-O-Space provides solutions to aerial imagery needs. We have focused on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs and a portable LiDAR mapping system. We have a lot of different camera systems that range from traditional to digital and multi-spectral. Our UAVs send the images to the ground station so that our customers can see what the UAV sees, when it sees it. In addition, we also can fly other folk’s instrumentation using our systems as a test bed.

Van: What attracted Air-O-Space to Mississippi?

Brogdon: Bare with me this is a little involved. Air-O-Space is a wholly owned subsidiary of GB Tech. GB Tech ran multiple Labs for NASA at Stennis Space Center. During that period, we also supported a GIS/Remote Sensing program at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. So, we have been interested in GIS/Remote Sensing for some time. However, because of our NASA Stennis contract, we saw an opportunity with the technology cluster (EIGS) being developed in Mississippi. So our primary focus then was to provide technical services to NASA. This allowed us to go a step farther and expand our offerings to new customers. That began the development of a new innovative group – Air-O-Space.

Van: I understand that Air-O-Space has some exciting new developments. Can you share those with our readers?

Brogdon: You bet! After Katrina, like most companies, we supported some of the activities related to recovery. Through this interaction with search and rescue, we discovered that our existing UAVs were not the best design for their specific needs. We needed something even easier to launch and recover, more robust and quicker to get in the air. So, our guys within Air-O-Space (specifically Skip Wright and Robert Galiano) developed a new UAV specifically for the First Responders, Law Enforcement and Search & Rescue. We completed the prototype and are at the beginning of a marketing campaign to sell these new UAVs to Law Enforcement, First Responders and Search and Rescue organizations. The low price is also a real benefit to our customers. We are a fraction of the cost comparison to competitors such as inhabited aircraft (fixed wing or helicopter) and other UAVs.

Van: Can you give our readers a specific example of how the technology has been used to solve a problem for one of your clients?

Brogdon: Sure. I mentioned the post Katrina activity. Well we visited the EOCs to see if there was anything we could do to help. During one of the visits, Mr. Bruce Barton (Team Leader, Rescue and Recovery Team – 1, Rescue International) asked if we could help him locate items in areas that they just couldn’t get to in a timely manner. Skip and Robert flew our existing UAV and they were able to help in a couple of areas. However, there were several others where they simply didn’t have a place to land. So, they went back to the office and brainstormed to come up with a solution. Within 4 days they had it – they built, tested and flew the new UAV a little over a week from the day of their last flights with our earlier UAV. So, within 2-weeks they conceptualized, designed, fabricated and flew a brand new UAV that turns out to be a new product for Air-O-Space. Bruce was very pleased with the results.

Van: Give us a quick overview of the potential clients that could potentially benefit from this technology?

Brogdon: Law Enforcement, in fact we have already supported the Picayune Police Department in their drug intervention activities. First Responders, we can provide them with situational awareness from an overall aerial view and close evaluation of a specific location or activity. Both these have a real benefit of keeping the responder out of danger. For example, if a fire breaks out in an area where there are items that could explode. You can fly the UAV over that area and see if the fire is in danger of exploding the items or not. Search and rescue can use this UAV to give them an immediate view from the air to locate someone or determine how to approach a given situation. We also believe that boarder control could use our UAVs to assist them in their jobs. So, Homeland Security is another potential customer.

Van: In closing, could you tell our readers what makes this unique and different from what has traditionally been on the market?

Brogdon: Well in the past UAVs have been expensive and were always plagued with the problem of high liability cost and responsiveness. Our new UAV is inexpensive and built to be very safe and easy to operate. You can take off and land pretty much anywhere and a rough landing won’t bother it. Also, it weighs much less than 10 pounds and if it hits something, it just bounces off.

Air-O-Space International, a charter member of the Mississippi geospatial industry cluster, is a wholly owned subsidiary of GB Tech, Inc. Air-O-Space specializes in providing high resolution aerial remote sensing acquisition including LiDAR and Multispectral data. GB Tech provides science and engineering services and specialty niche services including software Verification and Validation in addition to UAV applications. Using custom designed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), light aircraft, and specialized camera and sensors, Air-O-Space provides raw or processed high resolution aerial still and video photography, LiDAR and multi-spectral data. For more information, visit www.gbtech.net or contact Skip Wright at 601-749-4446, swright@gbtech.net.

IMAGE OF THE MONTH

Image of Sestriere, Italy (top),  the site of the Alpine events in the 2006 Winter Olympics. The Torino Olympic Villiage area is shown on bottom. Both images courtesy EIGS member company DigitalGlobe, Inc.

DID YOU KNOW?

The National Remote Sensing and Space Law Center (NRSSLC) at The University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS, extends its reach around the entire globe? “The [space law] center has become recognized as an authoritative source for space law development,” said Joanne Gabrynowicz, director of NRSSLC. “The center’s work in Africa extends its service to a whole new continent. We’ve served in Asia, Europe, North and South America, and now, for the first time in Africa.”

From: “Helping Africa Earn its Wings” by Natashia Gregoire, UM Lawyer, Fall/Winter 2005-06

SEEN AND HEARD

“2006 promises to bring scads of new applications and users to the geospatial doorstep. Yes, the business outlook for Earth imaging and geospatial information is highly favorable in 2006, with economic risk scenarios at low likelihood through 2007. Now is the time for industry leaders to take action – merge, acquire, invest, build and grow. This is as good as it gets.”

Edward A. Jurkevics,
Chesapeake Analytics Corporation
Earth Imaging Journal, January/February 2006

UPCOMING EVENTS

March 13-15, 2006
2006 Mississippi Governor's Homeland Security Conference
Choctaw, Mississippi

March 17-18, 2006
2006 ESRI Developer Summit
Palm Springs, California

March 19-22, 2006
National States Geographic Information Council 2006 Midyear Conference
Annapolis, Maryland

April 3-4, 2006
5th Annual Southern BioProducts Conference
Choctaw, MS

April 4-6, 2006
22nd Annual Louisiana Remote Sensing & GIS Workshop
Baton Rouge, LA

April 10-12, 2006
1st Geospatial Integration for Public Safety Conference
Nashville, TN

April 25-28, 2006
Annual Planning & Development District Conference
Tunica, MS

May 1-5, 2006
ASPRS Annual Conference
Reno, Nevada

LEGISLATIVE CORNER

On Monday, Governor Haley Barbour vetoed a bill that would raise the fees for reinstating driver’s licenses. The money would have been put in a fund to pay state troopers’ overtime. Supporters of the bill argued that it would also help to put additional officers on the roads. However, the Governor, in his veto message, questioned the idea of tying pay to increased fees from traffic tickets. The bill now goes back to the Senate, where Judiciary B Committee Chairman Gray Tollison can recommend an override or let it die. Other items pending before the legislature include a potential a pay hike for state employees. Raise proposals in the Senate and House of Representatives differ in generosity. The House's plan which passed early in the session, provides about 27,000 state employees a $2,000 annual raise. The Senate would rather realign salaries with market rates, meaning annual raises of up to $8,000 for some employees. The minimum raise under the Senate's plan would be $1,200 annually. The Legislature has been in session since Jan. 3.

Be Sure to Listen!

On January 20th, EIGS was featured in a radio interview on WTNI 1640 AM during “Coast Conversation.” The interview included Lisa Stone and Chris Harvey of EIGS; Skip Wright of Air-O-Space; Andy Dougherty of 3001, Inc.; and Don Peyton and Craig Harvey of NVision Solutions. The focus of the interview was the EIGS sponsorship of the Coast Recovery EXPO and the role of geospatial technology in recovery and rebuilding efforts after Hurricane of Katrina.

Find it at www.eigs.olemiss.edu

EIGS Congratulates EIGS Partner Heather Annulis

Heather Annulis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi has been named to the Mississippi Business Journal's 2005 list of Top 40 Under 40 for business leaders. Dr. Annulis was honored at the Top 40 Under 40 Luncheon in Jackson, MS along with the other 2005 recipients.

Now in its 13th year, the program was established by The Mississippi Business Journal to recognize young leaders for achievement in both the business world and their communities. Nominees must be employed in Mississippi and have lived and worked in the state for at least two years and must be under the age of 40. A three-judge, independent panel selects the winners. Those selected were honored at a luncheon at the Mississippi Trade Mart in Jackson where more than 500 people attended the Top 40 awards event.

Dr. Annulis has taught and conducted research in the Colleges of Science and Technology and Business and Economic Development at The University of Southern Mississippi since May 2000. Dr. Annulis earned a Ph.D. in International Development and a Master’s in Organizational Communication from The University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, respectively.

Dr. Annulis has been instrumental, as a co-principal investigator in generating over $3.5 million in external funding in three years. Associated with this funding was research conducted through NASA to help develop a well-trained geospatial workforce. Results of the research include a Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM), a GTCM Online Assessment Tool, a Web Portal for Geospatial Workforce Development Information, and a Workforce Readiness Scorecard for implementation of the GTCM. Dr. Annulis has also been funded through the Department of Labor to implement the GTCM in a Geospatial Technology Apprenticeship Program. She regularly speaks to national audiences on the results of this research.

In 2002, the Southern Growth Policies Board recognized Dr. Annulis at the Governor’s Association Conference as an Innovator in Workforce Development. In 2003, the National Aeronautics Space Administration honored Dr. Annulis with the Public Service Group Achievement Award for her work on the National Workforce Development Education and Training Initiative team.

Dr. Annulis is a member of the American Society of Training and Development, the International Society of Performance Improvement, the Society for Human Resources Management, and the Academy of Human Resource Development.

Conference Report: MEDC Winter Conference

“Remember, Rebuild and Renew” was the theme of the Mississippi Economic Development Council’s 2006 Winter Conference in Jackson, February 8-10, 2006. EIGS was a premier sponsor for this event as well as an exhibitor with Lisa Stone, EIGS Acting Director and Marty Inman, Assistant Director of Commercial Operations in attendance.

The conference was well attended by professionals from chambers of commerce, economic development foundations, Planning and Development Districts, Development Partnerships as well as the Mississippi Development Authority. There were also representatives from counties and cities from around the state and a good number of private firms among others.

One of the primary economic development concurrent sessions featured Mr. Gray Swoope, Deputy Director and COO of the Mississippi Development Authority who talked largely about the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 and how this legislation provides Federal Tax Incentives to encourage rebuilding of the areas hardest hit by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. More than 40 Mississippi counties are included in the Zone for individual and public assistance. Some of the incentives include:

• Enhanced Section 179 expensing for Small Businesses (eligible small businesses may expense $200,000 of investment made in the Zone)

• An increase of the rehabilitation tax credit to help restore commercial buildings

• Tax incentives for employer-provided housing

• Provisions for expensing of cleanup costs

• Expansion of the employee retention tax credit

• Extension of the net operating loss carryback period from two to five years.

For more complete details and additional information about the use of the GO Zone to help rebuild your business and community visit:
http://www.mississippi.org/content.aspx?url=/page/gulfzone& 

The event also featured an address by the Honorable Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, as well as a panel of MEDC members from the Coast who provided an overview of how their communities fared through Katrina and how they are now working to rebuild and renew their Coastal cities.

The 2006 Summer MEDC Conference will be held July 19-21, 2006, at the Grand Resort in Tunica, MS. For more information, visit www.medc.ms. 

Global Perspectives

Geospatial 'Bill Gates' to visit New Zealand

www.computerworld.com -- An international expert on geospatial and location-aware technologies recently told Wellington audiences that businesses hugely underestimate the potential of such technologies for improving their bottom line and service to customers. Peter Batty is vice president and chief technology officer at US-based graphics and geospatial vendor Intergraph. Batty gave the keynote address at a seminar on February 28 in Wellington organized by the Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA). Batty’s keynote covered developments in wireless communications and mobile devices, location tracking technologies, as well as web services and internet-related developments. He also discussed the impact of “non-traditional vendors” such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo on the geospatial IT industry. Chris Stoltz, general manager for GITA Australia and New Zealand, compared him to Bill Gates. “He’s the sort of person who has an understanding of spatial data and location-aware technologies that goes beyond what most of us would dream of having,” Stoltz says. “And because of this he has very valuable insights to share with us”. Stoltz says Batty is keen to get a message to the managers of businesses that “they have within their grasp the capability of vastly improving their organisations in terms of both financial performance and delivery of services to their clients.”

Algeria Buys Two Small Remote Sensing Satellites

TOULOUSE, France - About 25 Algerian aerospace engineers will be taking up residence here for 32 months as part of a contract between EADS Astrium and Algeria's space agency for the production of two small high-resolution Earth observation satellites.
The Alsat-2 spacecraft will utilize the Myriade small-satellite platform and provide black-and-white images with a 2.5-meter ground resolution for the Algerian National Space Technology Centre. Launch of the satellite is scheduled to take place in late 2008.
The contract, announced Feb. 1, is the fourth high-resolution optical Earth observation spacecraft to be built by EADS Astrium for foreign governments. But the spacecraft built for Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea are larger and more expensive.

Polish students use GIS to study their cultural heritage and natural resources

www.gisdevelopment.net -- ESRI announced recently that the Podlasie Heritage Association (PHA) and ESRI Polska have initiated an educational project to introduce GIS to secondary school students in the Podlasie Province of Poland. The plan is to set up GIS clubs in the schools so students can learn how GIS can help in environmental conservation, cultural heritage preservation, and the sustainable development of their region. The students will be involved in building an integrated GIS database, which will include the cultural and natural resource information of Podlasie.

Southern Hub to Deploy Geographical Database in HealthCare

www.thanhniennews.com -- Ho Chi Minh City will utilize the GIS (Geographic Information System) database within the next several months to assist travel in its medical response emergency system, said a city official. Dr. Phan Van Nghiem, Head of the Medical Profession section under the municipal Health Department said Sunday his
department would install the GIS computer system to manage the city’s ambulances besides finding the fastest and shortest route to any emergency site. As expected, the system will be installed at the Trung Vuong Emergency Hospital in district 10 in the first quarter this year.

Mosquito Control Protecting Bermuda’s Citizens and Tourists

www.geoplace.com- - The threat of a mosquito-borne disease outbreak such as West Nile virus, Yellow Fever or Dengue Fever is significant, especially in areas with abundant water sources. The Bermuda Department of Health implemented a pioneering environmental health solution with full mapping capabilities to protect its citizens and tourists…The benefit of spatial information in environmental health applications is widely recognized. However, until recent advances in the industry, GIS was rarely utilized to its full capacity. As GIS becomes increasingly user friendly and affordable, it’s being integrated into more environmental health solutions. The Bermuda Environmental Health Database System (BEHDS) is a Web-based analysis and reporting tool that includes extensive GIS capabilities.

Director's Cut

Personal Reflections: This month for the “Director’s Cut” please indulge me while I take a slight detour from my normal topics on the geospatial industry. It has been 6 months since Hurricane Katrina made landfall. She literally and figuratively changed the landscape of our state and region. First, let me qualify what you are about to read by saying that I live in Jackson, roughly 200 miles from ground zero where Katrina came on shore. But, my ties to the area are strong. My husband and I both graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans. We lived in Ocean Springs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for several years where I worked at the Stennis Space Center before moving to Jackson. Our best friends still live in Ocean Springs and my cousin and my children’s Godparents live in New Orleans.

I have made three trips to the devastated area since August 29, 2005.

October 25, 2006:
My first trip down was to Stennis Space Center to meet with my friend and co-worker Chris Harvey. Stennis itself looked pretty good 8 weeks after the storm, but while there we drove around to some of the communities. Pearlington, Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and Kiln were a different story. Driving along the beach in Waveland felt like being trapped in a faded color picture filled with despair: there was a strip of land which used to have houses where now there is nothing and all the trees were just brown from wind burn. It was unbelievable and felt completely barren. There were some trailers in front yards or on slabs of what used to be a house. There were also a good number of people living in tents. Even though I saw it with my own eyes, it was so hard to comprehend people in America living in tents!

January 27-29, 2006:
My kids and I traveled to New Orleans to visit my cousin and their Godparents. It was strange. The city’s population is way down and you could not only see it, but you could feel it. Normally, you can’t help but feel the energy and vibrancy of the city. Not this time. A lot of the damage in New Orleans is not as visible as on the Coast, at first glance. We drove through one of the most devastated parts of the city - the Lakeview neighborhood closest to the 17th Street Canal levee that broke. That was pretty overwhelming. The houses are still standing and from the outside they almost look like nothing is wrong. Yet, they are empty, there is still no power, and there are huge mounds of mud everywhere higher than a SUV. It definitely had the feel of a ghost town. It was surreal that there are whole areas of the city that are unpopulated. Yet, you drive simply one or two streets over into another section and lights are on, restaurants are bustling, people are everywhere and it is almost like nothing has happened.

In spite of all this, we had a great trip. It was great to see family and friends, we ate lots of good food, and the kids had a great time seeing the ships on the Mississippi River, eating beignets, riding a streetcar on the Riverfront, walking down the RiverWalk, and playing in Jackson Square. But in the end, it is really hard for me to see how the city is ever going to get back to the way it was. So much of the uniqueness of that city is the people. With huge segments of the population gone, it makes me wonder if the city can ever be the same again.

February 3-5, 2006:
Most recently, my family traveled to Ocean Springs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to visit our best friends who were almost finished rebuilding their house. These are the friends that lived with my family well into the fall after Katrina hit before they finally gave up on FEMA and purchased their own trailer. Their house was not in a flood zone and was over 15 feet above sea level, but still got 6.5 feet of water. Anything that they did not evacuate with was lost. If you looked at the house from the outside, you would swear that it didn’t get any damage. But the reality is that they have had to rebuild their house from the inside out. And they are one of the “lucky” ones. Just a few streets away, the houses are either a pile of rubble or are nothing but a slab of foundation.

Driving down Front Beach was just sad. We ended up at the Ocean Springs-Biloxi Bridge and it was unbelievable to see such a massive structure just completely gone. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about where the flooding occurred. It is understandable that houses on the beach did, but then you go miles inland and houses there flooded. There is still a faint smell in the air. And, Ocean Springs, known as an affluent, art community, still has people living in tents smack dab in the middle of the downtown. This is just part of the “new normal” for people living in Ocean Springs and all along the Gulf Coast.

I know it is still on the national news, but the coverage is nothing like it is in the local media. Here it is a constant fact of daily life. It is on the news every night, it is in the paper every day. It dominates every aspect of our lives – the news, politics, business, health, church, you name it. Governor Barbour was not exaggerating on the day after the storm when he stated, “"I don't think you've seen anything like this. We're talking nuclear devastation." But seeing it on TV is nothing like seeing it in person. If you have not been down there, I encourage you to go. Not to gawk or sightsee. But to understand. Understand what people are dealing with….understand what these amazingly strong people are dealing with.

I struggled with whether it was appropriate for me to feature this in the “Director’s Cut,” but it was important for me to write this and share it with our readers because I know, love, respect, and work with so many people who have been directly impacted by this event and are still dealing with it on a daily basis. I think it is important for the nation to realize that things are not going to be “right” down here for years to come. I also think that, while it is an inevitable fact that life must go on, it is also imperative that we don’t forget. With hurricane season 2006 now just 3 months away, we simply cannot forget.

SkillsUSA Announces a New College Competition

SkillsUSA will be offering new national college competitions for programs of study that support fast growing occupations, including Geospatial Technology. If you are a geospatial technology student, you now have the unique opportunity to:

• Connect with national business and industry representatives in your field

• Showcase your skills at a national level

• Compete for the SkillsUSA title of best in the United States for Geospatial Technology

• Be awarded the STARS (Spatial Technology And Remote Sensing) Entry Level Geospatial Certification

For more information and complete details and sponsor list or to register for this
exciting event, visit: www.skillsusa.org/collegecontests.html

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