2026 WA GIS Conference: Full Schedule

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8:30am PDT

The Notebook: [Python] has always been enough

Thursday May 21, 2026 8:30am - 9:00am PDT

A love letter, or rather, 365 love letters to the Python Notebook. This presentation will cover the when, where, and how to use Python Notebooks; gotchas to watch out for and quality of life tweaks to make; lastly, preserving your romance for your future self through effective version control.

Speakers

Jordan Carmona, GISP

GIS Solutions Supervisor, County of Pierce

Jordan Carmona is a GIS Supervisor, whose team is responsible for GIS application development and infrastructure within the Spatial Services unit at Pierce County, Washington. He began working professionally in 2014 and has worked in a variety of sectors: private consulting, municipal... Read More →

Thursday May 21, 2026 8:30am - 9:00am PDT
407-408

Technology, Python

9:00am PDT

Using Native SQL Geometry for Cloud-Ready, Lightning-Fast Overlays

Thursday May 21, 2026 9:00am - 9:30am PDT

407-408

Serving high volume, complex reports that require querying dozens of GIS layers for a single parcel is a major performance hurdle. Our Districts and Development Conditions Report simultaneously queries nearly 60 layers, which has the potential to severely impact application performance. This session details the architectural overhaul we implemented to overcome this challenge without changing the core query structure. Our key improvements were optimizing the underlying data storage by moving to the native SQL Server geometry type and using spatial SQL queries.

Speakers

Fred Lott

GIS Developer, King County

Fred is with the Geo Engineering team of the King County GIS Center and focuses on application development and data analysis.

Harkeerat Kang

GIS Engineer, King County

Harkeerat Kang is a GIS professional with over 25+ years of experience working in public sector. Her focus mostly has been on designing, implementing, integration of systems, application development and solution architecting.

Thursday May 21, 2026 9:00am - 9:30am PDT
407-408

Technology, SQL

9:30am PDT

Covington Water District Chat Bot

Thursday May 21, 2026 9:30am - 10:00am PDT

407-408

This presentation describes an AI application developed for Covington Water District that combines conversational AI with GIS-based utility analysis. The application includes dedicated GIS routes for parcel water availability and meter lookup, allowing users to ask natural-language questions about whether water service is available to a property, whether nearby infrastructure exists, and what existing meter information is associated with a parcel or address. It can also combine GIS findings with district documents such as administrative code, standards, rate tables, and forms to provide a single, grounded answer. The talk focuses on the GIS side of the application: how location-based questions are routed into parcel and meter workflows, how spatial data is connected to policy and service requirements, and how conversational AI can improve access to GIS-driven utility information for local government and water district operations.

Speakers

Shawn Buck

GIS Engineering Analyst, Covington Water District

Shawn Buck, GISP
GIS Engineering Analyst at Covington Water District
Shawn is a GIS Analyst with over 15 years of experience in local government. He holds a Master's degree in Geospatial Technologies from the University of Washington. Throughout his career, Shawn has demonstrated a profound passion for data and technology, leveraging GIS technology... Read More →

Dan Dulan

Covington Water

Thursday May 21, 2026 9:30am - 10:00am PDT
407-408

Technology, AI

10:30am PDT

A Journey of GIS Data Integration into an Asset Management System

Thursday May 21, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am PDT

407-408

A Journey of GIS Data Integration into an Asset Management System – Eliud Flores Saenz – City of Pullman

This presentation details the path the City of Pullman took in preparing its GIS data into a third-party asset management system.

It will discuss the challenges, insights, and lessons learned during that process, as well as the strategies that were implemented and devised to centralize data into a single authoritative GIS-focused source. Among such challenges that will be discussed are: lack of geospatial data for tracked assets, incomplete legacy data from authoritative sources, differing definitions of what constitutes an asset across departments and workflows that were implemented to solve said challenges. I will also expand upon some Cartegraph-specific troubleshooting and creative solutions we are trying to implement to get the most use out of this system in conjunction with our Esri ArcGIS Portal.

While this presentation focuses on Pullman and Open Gov’s (formerly Cartegraph) Asset Management system, its principles and strategies detailed here are broad enough in scope to be universally useful across the spectrum of asset management systems. Such as creating a standard for asset IDs and managing data structures.

Speakers

Eliud Flores Saenz

GIS Analyst, City of Pullman

Eliud Flores Saenz is a GIS Analyst with the City of Pullman, where he serves as one of the organization’s GIS data stewards. With three years of municipal GIS experience, he works on a variety of projects spanning data management, asset tracking, and operational support for city... Read More →

Thursday May 21, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am PDT
407-408

Government, EAM

11:30am PDT

Rebuilding King County’s Open Data Platform for the Cloud Era

Thursday May 21, 2026 11:30am - 12:00pm PDT

407-408

King County has undertaken a major modernization of its King County GIS Open Data portal to improve reliability, enhance user experience, and transition away from aging on premise infrastructure. The previous Open Data site was built on an older Esri Configurable App and depended on datasets stored on a server scheduled for retirement in June 2026—along with several datasets that will also be decommissioned at that time. To meet these challenges, King County redesigned the site using Esri’s Hub Initiative and migrated all content to new, hosted layer views in ArcGIS Online.
This presentation will walk through the technical and organizational steps involved in rebuilding the King County GIS Open Data site, including content redesign, data retirement and redirect strategies, and approaches for ensuring continuity of service during system and dataset retirement. The session will highlight the communication and outreach efforts used to keep internal and external users informed throughout the transition. Additionally, challenges to sharing hosted feature layer views through a hub site will be discussed. Attendees will gain practical insights into modernizing an enterprise Open Data environment while minimizing disruption to their stakeholders.

Speakers

Thomas Ryan

Principal IT Engineer, King County

Tom is a Principal IT Engineer at King County's GIS Center. His work includes developing custom web application to support GIS data, metadata, and property reporting. Previously he worked at Kitsap County, Apple, and the City of Seattle. He graduated with a Bachelor’s in Geography... Read More →

Mary Ullrich

IT Engineer - Senior, King County

Mary is a Senior IT Engineer at the King County GIS Center with 26 years of experience. She specializes in Web GIS administration, interactive GIS applications, and coaching GIS users through the intricacies of GIS software. Her work has included GIS database design, analysis, mapping... Read More →

Thursday May 21, 2026 11:30am - 12:00pm PDT
407-408

Government, Open Data

1:30pm PDT

Drone Panel - We Came, We Flew, We Mapped

Thursday May 21, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT

407-408

Drone pilots and GIS-drone enthusiasts, come together to share real-world experiences across the full drone-to-data workflow. Panelists will cover flight planning, data capture, processing, and GIS integration — with open discussion on best practices and lessons learned.

Speakers

Jim Mudd

GIS Director, Puyallup Tribe of Indians

James Mudd is the GIS Director for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, where he leads enterprise GIS services supporting Tribal programs, planning initiatives, and data-driven decision-making. With over two decades of geospatial experience, he specializes in enterprise GIS architecture... Read More →

Peter Keum

Drone Program Lead/GIS Analyst, King County

Peter Keum, M.S., GISP, King County Wastewater Treatment Drone Program Lead/GIS Analyst:. Peter is a Drone Program Lead and GIS Analyst for the King County Wastewater Treatment Division, where he merges his passion for maps with advanced drone technology. With over 28 years of GIS... Read More →

Jesse Alton

GIS and Data Project Manager, Environmental Services Office WSDOT

Jesse Alton serves in WSDOT’s Environmental Services Office as the GIS and Data Project Manager, bringing more than 20 years of experience in geospatial technology and environmental data systems. He maintains essential GIS data, GPS equipment, and custom online web applications... Read More →

Keisha Chinn

Environmental Information Program Manager, Environmental Services Office WSDOT

Keisha Chinn is the Environmental Information Program Manager for the Washington State Department of Transportation. She graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and a focus on Environmental Studies and GIS. Keisha has worked... Read More →

Ben Delyea

UAV Coordinator & GIS Analyst, Cowlitz PUD No. 1

Ben Delyea is the UAV Coordinator and GIS Analyst for Cowlitz PUD No. 1 in Southwest Washington. With six years in the public utilities sector, he specializes in integrating spatial analytics, remote sensing, and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into utility operations. Ben launched... Read More →

Alex Arams

GIS Analyst, Fish Biologist, South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group

Alex Arams is a GIS Analyst and fisheries field biologist with the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group (SPSSEG) in Olympia, WA. With nine years of experience in salmonid habitat assessment and restoration, he integrates drone mapping, UAV photogrammetry, RTK GNSS surveying... Read More →

Thursday May 21, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
407-408

Remote Sensing, Drone

2:30pm PDT

Beyond the Map: Immersive 360 Degree Imagery and Drone Mapping for Stream Restoration in the South Puget Sound

Thursday May 21, 2026 2:30pm - 3:00pm PDT

407-408

The success of a stream restoration project often depends on how well stakeholders can “see” the vision. Yet a persistent gap exists between restoration engineers and surveyors, and the grant funders, project partners, and communities they support. Static maps and survey notes rarely convey real-world conditions in a way that is accessible to everyone, making it difficult to fully grasp site conditions and restoration outcomes. While drone-based mapping provides high-resolution spatial coverage and critical context, canopy occlusion, shadowing, and water-surface artifacts can obscure in-channel complexity.

This presentation introduces a workflow that integrates georeferenced 360-degree imagery with drone photogrammetry to bridge that gap. By linking immersive, ground-level perspectives with orthomosaics and elevation models, users move beyond “paper fish” (on a flat map) to “real fish,” providing a tangible, on-the-ground sense of how restoration sites function. Our process combines RTK GNSS surveying, UAV photogrammetry, and oriented imagery datasets, allowing users to seamlessly transition from high-level spatial analysis to “virtual boots-on-the-ground” views while highlighting channel conditions, habitat features, and project performance over time.

Examples from South Puget Sound (WRIAs 10–15) demonstrate how this approach supports restoration monitoring, virtual site visits, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The workflow enhances both technical analysis and communication, making complex spatial data more intuitive and accessible to diverse audiences.

Speakers