2026 WA GIS Conference

2026 WA GIS Conference

8:00am PDT

Registration and Refreshments Meydenbauer Center

8:30am PDT

Beginner Experience Builder Course 401-402Mary Phillips Real-Time GIS 409Ryan Richardson Applied Drone Mapping Workshop - From Collection to GIS Integration 407-408TJ Abbenhaus • Ryan Richardson • Gerry Gabrisch • Peter Keum GIS Management Boot Camp 403Greg Babinski, MA, GISP, EthicalGEO Fellow

12:00pm PDT

Lunch On Your Own TBA YPI & WGGL brownbag lunch Bellevue City Hall

1:30pm PDT

Advanced Experience Builder Workshop 401-402Mary Phillips WGGL Forum 409Jennifer Radcliff • Stephen Beimborn YPI Special Interest Group 404-406YP-SIG Core Team

5:00pm PDT

Welcome Social The Redd Dog

8:00am PDT

Registration and Refreshments Meydenbauer Center

9:00am PDT

Plenary and Keynote 404-406

10:30am PDT

Teaching GIS After April 24, 2026: A University Perspective on Title II WGAC 2.1 Accessibility Standards 407-408Stacy Warren Modernizing DNR's Custom GIS Viewers 409Anna Ballasiotes Using risk & condition to develop asset management strategy 403Raymond Chow Esri's GeoAI Capabilities 401-402TJ Abbenhaus

11:00am PDT

Building the future broadband map of your county 409W. Nick Pappin Happy Citizens and Empowered Agencies Using GIS Permitting Technology 403Brett Ruoti GIS Digital Accessibility at the City of Seattle 407-408Zinta Smidchens • Catherine Wendland • Suzy Brunzell

11:30am PDT

Mapping Aquatic Biodiversity in Washington using Environmental DNA 409Allison Ying Modernizing Valuation: Leveraging GIS to Improve Assessment 403Kyle Wikstrom One and a half centuries of topographic mapping at USGS 401-402Elaine Guidero

12:00pm PDT

Lunch Meydenbauer Center

1:30pm PDT

Identifying Wildfire Risk Using Geospatial Technology 409Molly Jackson GIS Career: How to Map it? 407-408Shaun O'Neil • David Kreinheder • Nat Henry • Catherine Crook • Katie Heim Using GIS to Understand Tribal Treaty Rights 403Michelle Totman Zero to Production: A GIS Professional's Process for Building Real Apps with AI 401-402Adam Cabrera

2:00pm PDT

Drone to map, Now What? – KC Wastewater Drone Program to Support Sustainable Infrastructure 409Joseph Geigel, GISP • Peter Keum • Jason Celeste

2:30pm PDT

Break Time Meydenbauer Center

3:00pm PDT

Land Cover for Environmental Applications 409Kevin Fuchs What "They" Don't Tell You About WAB-to-ExB Migration 401-402Harkeerat Kang • Adam Cabrera GIS vs. IT—or GIS with IT? Defining the Future of Enterprise GIS 407-408Fernando Llamas Jr • Tamara Davis • Zinta Smidchens • Sabra Schneider • Jill Oliver Building Statewide GIS Career Pathways to Agriculture and Natural Resources 403Heather Spalding • Daniel Cuevas • Jeffry Rhodes

3:30pm PDT

High Resolution C-CAP Land Cover Data for Puget Sound 409Bret Folger Beyond the Prompt: Finding and Following the Golden Thread in Long-Duration AI-Centric GIS Projects 401-402Tim Rawson

4:00pm PDT

Cover Crop Mapping in Skagit County: A Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing Approach 409Emma Tomaszewski From Maintenance Burden to Innovation Engine 403James Gutierrez

4:10pm PDT

OSM Efforts to Support Safe Routes to School 407-408Clifford Snow

4:30pm PDT

Sponsor and Main Conference Social Meydenbauer Center

8:00am PDT

Registration and Refreshments Meydenbauer Center

8:30am PDT

Kayak-Based Citizen Science: Mapping Real-Time Water Temperature in Puget Sound with GIS 409Brian Footen Hexagon Content Program – off-the-shelf aerial ortho imagery and elevation data 403Rob Eadie A Tale of Two Experience Builders: Migrating Tacoma's Map Applications 401-402Alicia Bradshaw • Idalis Laboy Cintron The Notebook: [Python] has always been enough 407-408Jordan Carmona, GISP

9:00am PDT

Using GIS to calculate geomorphological change in a river system over time 409Katie Messick ‘My Job Would be Impossible Without GIS!’ GIS Makes the Impossible Possible 403Greg Babinski, MA, GISP, EthicalGEO Fellow The Power of Digital Twins: From Complex Data to Operational Insights. 401-402Mischa Hey Using Native SQL Geometry for Cloud-Ready, Lightning-Fast Overlays 407-408Fred Lott • Harkeerat Kang

9:30am PDT

Spatial patterns of foraging activity in endangered killer whales shift with changes in Chinook salmon abundance 409Kimberly Nielsen A GIS Workflow for 3D Printing Topographic Models 403Noah Flick Chehalis River Basin Early Flood Warning System - A Decision Support Tool 401-402Sarah Harvey, MGIS, GISP Covington Water District Chat Bot 407-408Shawn Buck • Dan Dulan

10:00am PDT

Break Time Meydenbauer Center

10:30am PDT

Advancing Spatial Data Collaboration for Ecosystem Recovery: An Overview of the PSEMP Spatial Data Work Group 409Tyson Z Waldo • Mike Leech A Journey of GIS Data Integration into an Asset Management System 407-408Eliud Flores Saenz Celestial Infrastructure: The History, Science, and Future of Global Satellite Positioning 403Noah Flick How to Build a Production App and ETL in One Week(ish) 401-402Bill Keller Dick Thomas Award Presentations 404-406DTA Finalists

11:00am PDT

Estimating the Climate Resiliency of WA Dairy Farms 409Michael Lowry

11:30am PDT

Rebuilding King County’s Open Data Platform for the Cloud Era 407-408Thomas Ryan • Mary Ullrich Connecting and Empowering Communities Through Map Guides to Inventory Trees Within Their Communities 403Nelson Pham Experience Builder: Beyond the Map 401-402Mary Phillips

12:00pm PDT

Annual WAGISA Business Meeting 401-402 Lunch Meydenbauer Center

1:30pm PDT

Relationship Goals - Linking Construction Drawings to a Map 409Steve Schunzel, GISP New ArcHydro tools to facilitate connecting data to hydrography through linear referencing 401-402Joshua Greenberg Drone Panel - We Came, We Flew, We Mapped 407-408Jim Mudd • Peter Keum • Jesse Alton • Keisha Chinn • Ben Delyea • Alex Arams ArcGIS for Real-Time Winter Weather and Street Sweeping Operations 403TJ Abbenhaus

2:00pm PDT

Taking GIS into the Well: Building a Replicable Condition Assessment Framework with Survey123 409Max Sugarman Powering the Future: Mapping Solar Potential Across WSDOT Rights‑of‑Way 401-402Golnaz Badr, PhD, GISP

2:30pm PDT

Bringing Branch Editing to PostGIS/QGIS 409Roma Hicks Understanding post-truth GIS 403Gene Martin Beyond the Map: Immersive 360 Degree Imagery and Drone Mapping for Stream Restoration in the South Puget Sound 407-408Alex Arams Unlocking the Past to Empower the Future: Geo-Enabling WSDOT’s Statewide Real Estate Parcel Inventory 401-402Golnaz Badr, PhD, GISP

2:45pm PDT

Tree Canopy and Land Cover: Tacoma's GIS Approach 409Shawn Leonard

3:15pm PDT

Closing Plenary 404-406

4:00pm PDT

Tavern Hall Tavern Hall

2026 WA GIS Conference

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