February 12 Coordination Group meeting minutes


[Attendees]  


Summary of Actions:

  • Action 1: Steering Committee members that that have not already done so are to provide Ivan with one Coordination Group lead and one alternate per agency. Contact Ivan at [ideloatch@fgdc.gov]
  • Action 2: Ivan will resend the National Vegetation Classification Standard e-ballot and request responses by COB February 22. A non-response will indicate approval for endorsement.
  • Action 3:  Ivan urges Coordination Group members to attend the ESRI Federal Users Conference on Feb 20-22. Contact Roxanne Lamb at rhlamb@usgs.gov if you can provide assistance at the LoB exhibit booth. Available openings are on Wednesday, 2/20, 4:00-6:00 pm and Thursday, 2/21, 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 1:00-2:00, 2:00-3:00 pm.
  • Action 4: Contact Dennis Crow at dennis.crow@wdc.usda.gov  to help co-lead the Lifecycle Management WG, A-16 sub team theme.
  • Action 5: Contact Dave Paschane at david.paschane@va.gov  to participate in the Geo-enabled Business WG.     
  • Action 6: Contact Matt Leopard at leopard.matthew@epamail.epa.gov  to participate in the Common Services WG.
  • Action 7: Contact Lew Stanford at lew.sanford@usdoj.gov to Chair the Grants and Contracts WG. 
  • Action 8:  Matt Leopard to talk with Doug Nebert to help to accelerate best practices.
  • Action 9: Agencies are strongly encouraged to identify additional members to participate in all LoB WG’s.
  • Action 10: The next Coordination Group meeting will be held on March 4.

Welcome and Introductions – Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC


Steering Committee recap/ NGAC update – Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC


Ivan recapped the January Steering Committee meeting, where the National Geospatial Advisory Committee’s 28 members were announced. Of the 28, half represent non-government organizations and the other half represent government organizations. Anne Hale Milglarese, Furo EarthData, Inc. will serve as Committee Chair and Steve Wallach, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, will serve as Vice-Chair. The NGAC will convene for the first time in April and their future meetings will coincide with the June and October Steering Committee meetings. The NGAC will develop their by-laws and agenda items with the Coordination Group member input.

The Department of the Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary Lynn Scarlett issued a memo, regarding the “Next Phase of Geospatial Line of Business.”  This memo sunsets the Geospatial Line of Business Task Force, and transitions the responsibility for interagency oversight to the FGDC Coordination Group. Steering Committee members were recently asked to provide Ivan with one Coordination Group lead and one alternate for this oversight. An Executive Committee will be formed from members of the Steering Committee from the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Environmental Protection Agency and NASA. They will be tasked to facilitate the recommendations of the LoB. The Committees’ first meeting will be held sometime in the next few weeks and they will likely study Imagery for the Nation.

The seven LoB Workgroups themes and Chairs are named (see below) and are in need of more members for full participation. There is concern about inconsistent agency representation in the Workgroups. Agencies should take the responsibility to step into the role and form these teams together. We are grateful to have Grant Thornton to help us move along.

Action 1: Steering Committee members that that have not already done so are to provide Ivan with one Coordination Group lead and one alternate per agency. Contact Ivan at ideloatch@fgdc.gov
Q. Can we manage our portfolios and are they the right ones to meet the business needs?
Should the contents of the sub teams have new themes?
A. We may need a lexicon for us to decide on the themes.

The endorsement of the National Vegetation Classification Standard is not yet complete. Several SAOGI’s have not cast a ballot.

Action 2: Ivan will resend the National Vegetation Classification Standard e-ballot and request responses by COB February 22. A non-response will indicate approval for endorsement.

The Department of the Interior’s strategic plan was provided to OMB for FY08 and FY09. The plan included a summary of milestones and DOI is awaiting OMB feedback.

ESRI Federal Users Conference and participation – Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC


Action 3:  Ivan urges Coordination Group members to attend the ESRI Federal Users Conference on Feb 20-22. Contact Roxanne Lamb at rhlamb@usgs.gov if you can provide assistance at the LoB exhibit booth. Available openings are on Wednesday, 2/20, 4:00-6:00 pm and Thursday, 2/21, 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 1:00-2:00, 2:00-3:00 pm.
On Wednesday, February 20, there will be a discussion with ESRI and the GSA SmartBUY Program Management on the requirements of smaller agencies for access to geospatial tools. The discussion will be in Room 306 at the Washington Convention Center 11:30 - 1:30 pm. 

Action Item Update from the last Coordination Group Meeting – Pat Phillips, FGDC


Matt Leopard was to give feedback on the federal agency licensing with Google Earth. This action has been rolled into the responsibilities of the Common Services Workgroup.


Cooperative Agreement Program Update – Gita Urban-Mathieux, FGDC

The CAP awards are undergoing final review and will be announced by the end of February.

EPA’s Geospatial Metadata Framework - Michelle Torreano, EPA/Jessica Zichichi


[Presentation]


EPA's Geospatial Metadata Framework- the initial efforts to develop geospatial metadata framework system had problems and this resulted in the system not being widely used.The current  GeoData gateway technology oversees EPA's contribution to Geospatial One-Stop and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure and coordinates and reports on interagency initiatives. The technology allows users to manage their information. and is used across the EPA, states and other Federal agencies.  EPA will continue in the future to focus on meeting customer needs, implement stakeholder feedback and to enhance the technology to improve user experience.

Statement: EPA will have an exhibit booth and have a lunch time talk at the ESRI Federal Users Conference.

LoB Working Group presentations – John Mahoney, USGS


[Presentation]

With the transition of the LoB task force to the Coordination Group, there is a need to update the charters as well as to look at the Steering Committee and the relationship with the Executive Committee and the NGAC.

Each of the group Chairs provided ten minute presentations introducing the team members; the major tasks; vision; measures; key miles stones; and next steps.

• Joint Business Case -Michael Thieme, DoD-Census  
• Performance Management -  John Mahoney, DOI- USGS 
• Enterprise Architecture -   Doug Nebert, DOI-USGS
• Lifecycle Management - Wendy Blake Coleman, EPA
• Geo-enabled Business - David Paschane, VA
• Common Services - Matt Leopard, EPA
• Grants and Contracts -  Lew Sanford, DOJ

Action 4: Contact Dennis Crow at dennis.crow@wdc.usda.gov to help co-lead the Lifecycle Management WG, A-16 sub team theme.

Action 5: Contact Dave Paschane at david.paschane@va.gov to participate in the Geo-enabled Business WG.     

Action 6: Contact Matt Leopard at leopard.matthew@epamail.epa.gov to participate in the Common Services WG.

Action 7: Contact Lew Stanford at lew.sanford@usdoj.gov to Chair the Grants and Contracts WG.  


Statement: The Geo-enabled Business WG will hold a workshop on February 26. This WG is hoping to identify non traditional geospatial type folks, not specifically geo-tech types to help plan communications. Getting through to non traditional geospatial customers is a problem. There are non traditional geospatial folks in management and terminology is an issue.

The Common Services WG held a few workshops to define their licensing needs

Q. Will your enterprise licensing agreement target non-federal?
A. Some agencies, for instance, DOE, have very few federal employees. There are many contractors and I assume the ELA’s will cover non-federal.

A. The folks from the GSA should answer this. They can help to clarify. If licensing is done correctly, it’s a win for both sides; there are benefits especially to the public when this is done correctly.

Statement: Terminology defining what is a service, tool or software should be more precise.

A.   The Common Services WG sponsored a workshop to define the nomenclature.  The focus was on web services, optimizing the architecture will be the real key. Our job is to showcase all the good examples of the federal government. At the ESRI Federal Users Conference we will host a lunch hour talk about the Common Services LoB. We are looking for agencies that do not currently have an enterprise licensing agreement.

Action 8: Matt Leopard to talk with Doug Nebert to help to accelerate best practices wikis.  Best practices can be reviewed and shared.

Statement:  There is a broad group of agency dollars both contractor and federal. Changing grant guidance language is difficult when trying to change FAR language.

Statement: Tim Young, OMB is happy to champion guidance and to get us working on this again.
Statement: Due to additional job responsibilities, Lew Sanford, Chair of the Grants and Contracts WG is looking for a champion to Chair this team. Lew will stay on through the transition of a new Chair.


Wrap Up /Discussion       Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC

How successfully we communicate to the non tradition geospatial customers is key. 
For those of you following the elections, they are showing great technology on television but non-users don’t realize just how much effort goes into the production.

Statement: The election technology is all being done with geocodes. We need to reach non geospatial types on their own ground. When using an agency’s own data, a manager will ask how much the technology costs – we can’t do that. Get them to the table using their own data with a quick crosswalk – see the world the way they see it and address the solution as a common service.

Action 9: Agencies are strongly encouraged to identify additional members to participate in all LoB WG’s
The agencies that are not participating in a WG are characterized as more user type agencies.

Action 10: The next Coordination Group meeting will be held on March 4.