Fairfax, VA – The meeting to explore a new trade association of equipment, instrument, and software firms in the surveying, mapping, GIS, and geospatial market, the Geospatial Equipment and Technology Institute (GETI), will be held on March 23 via web conference, it was announced today. The change was necessitated by the cancellation of the GEOWEEK event in Washington, DC. In place of the face-to-face meeting, the session will be conducted by web conference on Monday, March 23 at 4:00 PM EDT.
The intent of the GETI is to fill a niche for firms that provide of equipment, instruments, and software in the surveying, mapping, GIS, and geospatial market. GETI will be a forum for networking, advocacy, information sharing, market studies, business partnering, and other collaborative activities for geospatial equipment and technology firms.
Organizers have been working diligently to assure the new association complements and does not compete with or duplicate other trade, professional, and technical association activities. Rather, it will be designed to be a robust, dedicated, and focused trade association for equipment, instrument, and software firms in the surveying, mapping, GIS, and geospatial market that are otherwise Sustaining or Associate Members of other associations, and in most cases not voting members, with little or limited voice, and agendas of issues that rarely represent the interests and concerns specific to equipment, instrument, and software firms.
A webpage, www.jmpa.us/geti and a “SurveyMonkey” poll regarding the potential of the organization have been established, and an organizing meeting on the establishment of GETI originally scheduled during the GEO WEEK/ILMF/ASPRS/MAPPS assembly will convene on Monday, March 23 by web conference.
“It has been my pleasure to work with interested parties on the concept of GETI and the planning of this meeting to bring together representatives of leading geospatial equipment, instrument, and software firms”, said John Palatiello, whose firm, John M. Palatiello & Associates, Inc., has been coordinating GETI activities. Palatiello is one of the leading association management executives in the engineering and geospatial field, with more than 35 years of experience in managing national and state trade associations and professional societies in surveying, mapping, and engineering. An original member of the federal government’s National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC), Palatiello was named one of the “ten most influential people in the geospatial community” by Directions Magazine and is listed in Who’s Who in Professional Design Practice.
Decision-making executives and officials of surveying, mapping, and geospatial equipment, instrument, and software firms are encouraged to go to www.jmpa.us/geti to complete the questionnaire, sign up for the institute’s email list, RSVP for the organizing meeting and to obtain the call-in access information.
