Untitled Document

ITD hosts quartet of conferences with precision

The convergence in Boise began Saturday (May 4) and continued through
Wednesday (May 8), offering delegates an unprecedented integration
of professional and technical presentations.

Last week was a something like a block party. First there was a backyard barbecue; then invitations to your next-door neighbor. And his neighbor. Before you knew it, the gates are wide open and you had a steady stream of guests.

Shannon Barnes knows the feeling.

What began as a subcommittee meeting on information systems for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) morphed – or snowballed, says Jackie Lynskey – into a party of four concurrent and overlapping conferences.

The Geospatial Information System for Transportation (GIS-T) annual meeting joined the conference and added its own technical and educational tracks. The Transportation Research Board added another branch and brought along a Business Intelligence Peer Review.

The convergence in Boise began Saturday (May 4) and continued through Wednesday (May 8), offering delegates an unprecedented integration of professional and technical presentations.

“I have been doing conference management for more than 15 years and have never seen one run so smoothly,” Barnes said. “The technical aspect was flawless.”

Opportunities for conflict and confusion? Undoubetly, Lynskey admits.

Speakers were not required to send electronic copies of their presentation in advance. And some tracks changed speakers every 30 minutes. Coordinating the demand for technical assistance was a logistics challenge, but everything flowed surprisingly well, Lynskey said.

Yeoman efforts from ITD staff and Boise Centre technicians pulled off the multiple demands with precision.

“The ITD staff was truly outstanding,” Barnes said.

It included Lynskey, Erika Bowen, Susan Doyle, Tyler Zundel, a host of ETS employees and representatives from across the country – more than 30 for just the AASHTO segment, Barnes estimates.

Planning for the AASHTO/ASIS conference began a year ago, Lynskey explained. Initially, organizers expected about 100 attendees. When GIS-T and TRB asked to share the venue, the number mushroomed to more than 400, including guests and their families from United Arab Emirates, Spain, England, Canada and the U.S.

“It was an international affair,” Barnes said.

ITD committed 15-20 volunteers to stage the event and sent more than 70 attendees to the concurrent conferences. They came from ETS, the Division of Highways, Division of Motor Vehicles, the Bridge Section and all six districts. Local and regional agencies also sent delegates.

In addition to coordinating conference registration, a vendor hall and the program tracks, ITD volunteers arranged for extracurricular activities that included a dinner on the Basque Block and tours of the Basque Museum; a trolley tour of the city, Old Boise Penitentiary and the Botanical Gardens; trips to the western Treasure Valley; and winery tours.

“The weather was perfect,” Barnes said. It provided visitors an ideal opportunity to experience Boise culture while networking with other professionals and peers. Post-conference surveys indicated guests were impressed with the conjoined events, including a guest from North Carolina:

First of all, thank you so much for hosting such an amazing conference. This was my first time attending GIS-T, and I got so much out of it. I went to our state GIS conference this fall and even in that environment, there are so few people (except for my colleagues) that do what I do. GIS-T really brings the right people together and addresses issues that many of us are encountering," wrote Faith Baxter Stuart of Raleigh, N.C.

"It was also my first time in Idaho. Boise is a beautiful and unique city. I truly enjoyed it and was sad to leave. My favorite experience in Boise was the block party. I didn’t realize there was a Basque community in Boise and that was such a fun celebration of their culture. I loved the dancing, that was really cool.

“We were very proud to show them Boise,” Barnes said.

The organizations apparently will part ways next year, with the GIS-T symposium planned for Burlington, Vt., and the AASHTO subcommittee meeting scheduled for Bismarck, N.D.