A program of professional, educational and technical sessions has been announced by MAPPS and NSPS for their joint National Surveying, Mapping and Geospatial Conference to be held March 14-18 at the Hilton Hotel in Crystal City, Va.

"These sessions will provide attendees and members perspectives on some of the major issues facing the profession," say MAPPS Executive Director John Palatiello and NSPS Executive Director Curtis Sumner. "Our goal from the beginning was to provide conference sessions that are not otherwise available to surveyors and practitioners in other geospatial disciplines in their experience at state conferences. These presentations will give conference attendees new insights on the geospatial profession, projects, applications and technologies."

The conference will provide more than 30 hours of education that may qualify for continuing education credit for licensure or certification.

The conference will feature a series of technical sessions presented by individuals, as well as by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an exhibit hall, a mock trial educational workshop and a workshop on the new ALTA/NSPS standards, the NSPS Student Competition, the organizations' annual "Lobby Day" meetings with Congressmen and Senators on Capitol Hill, as well as NSPS committee meetings and MAPPS and NSPS Board meetings.

For more information on the conference and to register, visit the event's official website.

About MAPPS

Formed in 1982, MAPPS is the only national association exclusively comprised of private firms in the remote sensing, spatial data and geographic information systems field in the U.S. The MAPPS membership spans the entire spectrum of the geospatial community, including member firms engaged in satellite and airborne remote sensing, surveying, photogrammetry, aerial photography, LiDAR, hydrography, bathymetry, charting, aerial and satellite image processing, GPS, and GIS data collection and conversion services. MAPPS also includes associate member firms, which are companies that provide hardware, software, products and services to the geospatial profession in the U.S. and other firms from around the world. Independent consultant members are sole proprietors engaged in consulting in or to the geospatial profession, or provides a consulting service of interest to the geospatial profession.

About NSPS

NSPS is a national professional society and federation of state societies of professional surveyors and persons trained, registered, or interested in the profession of surveying and mapping. NSPS advances the sciences and disciplines within the profession and strives to establish and further common interests, objectives, and political efforts to help bind the surveying profession into a unified body in the U.S.