January 28, 2010 (Des Plaines, IL) – The King County (Washington) GIS Center and URISA have partnered to launch a new Pacific Northwest Education Center and have announced a full week of URISA-certified workshops, May 3-7, 2010. The five courses were selected from URISA’s portfolio of 24 day-long, GIS-related workshops. URISA-certified workshops are developed, reviewed and maintained by subject matter experts and provide vendor-independent education for GIS professionals and users. 

Workshops being presented at the Education Center, May 3-7, include:

• An Overview of Open Source GIS Software • Addresses and IS/GIS Implementation: Key to GIS Success • Cartography and Map Design • GIS Program Management • Building Quality Spatial Data

The Center will be run by the King County GIS Center staff, as part of its GIS training program, GIS Training Express(TM). 

URISA Certified Workshops are detailed, along with a Training Calendar, here: www.urisa.org/workshops 

URISA – The association for GIS professionals – is a non-profit professional and educational association that promotes the effective and ethical use of spatial information and information technologies for the understanding and management of urban and regional systems. It is a multidisciplinary association where professionals from all parts of the spatial data community can come together and share concerns and ideas. More information is available at www.urisa.org.  

The King County GIS Center is a part of King County chartered as an internal service fund to provide GIS services to county agencies and external customers.  The King County GIS Center operates King County’s enterprise GIS and provides data, services, and training to help put GIS to work. More information is available at www.kingcounty.gov/gis.