The business of the Network shall be managed by a Steering Committee consisting of 18 members. Steering Committee members may serve for a maximum of two consecutive three-year terms. In any given year, one-third of the Steering Committee members shall be approved by acclamation at the Annual Meeting except when vacancies may require more than one-third be approved. Individual Steering Committee members shall be selected to represent the following groups: state government, regional planning organizations, municipal government, public utilities, nonprofit non-governmental organizations, academia, private businesses, and 11 members-at-large. View past steering committee members here.
View the subcommittee members.
Executive Committee
|
President City of Hartford, CT 860-757-9958 |
Vice President Town of South Windsor, CT Thad.Dymkowski@southwindsor.org
|
Secretary BETA, INC |
Committee Members
| Cary Chadwick | Academia Representative | University of Connecticut, CLEAR |
| Aaron Nash | Municipal Representative | City of Hartford |
| Steve Perry | Non-profit Organization Representative | Granby Land Trust/Sperry Geospatial, LLC |
| Jessica Mercier | Private Sector Representative | BETA, Inc |
| Dan Czaja | State Government Representative | Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection |
| Mark Hoover | Regional Planning Organization Representative | Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments |
| Keith Anderson | Utility Representative | Connecticut Natural Gas Corporation |
| Steven Birney | Past President | City of Norwalk |
| George Obeng | Member-at-large | Connecticut Department of Transportation |
| Steven Birney | Member-at-large | City of Norwalk |
| Mike Towle | Member-at-large | Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCog) |
| Jeff Nolan | Member-at-large | M5 Information Services |
| David Cook | Member-at-large | Fuss & O’Neill |
| Kevin Dunkin | Member-at-large | Town of Newtown |
| Thad Dymkowski | Member-at-large | Town of South Windsor |
| Jennifer Dierkens | Member-at-large | CT Natural Gas |
| Rebecca Talamini | Member-at-large | AppGeo |
| Kristen Ponak | Member-at-large | GEI Consultants |
| Jennifer Petrario | Member-at-large | Town of East Hartford |
Connecticut Natural Gas Corporation
Keith has been working in the GIS field since 2000. Over the past seven years he have been the GIS Mapping and Records supervisor for Connecticut Natural Gas. His responsibilities include supervising CNG’s Mapping Technicians as they map our gas distribution facilities, customers and land base changes throughout our 26 town franchise area and the collection and scanning of CNG’s paper records into our record management system. He is also on the AvanGrid Gas GIS integration committee which is integrating GIS systems, standards and work flows between 6 different gas utility companies. Prior to his time at CNG, he worked at Close Jensen and Miller as their GIS Analyst and Environmental planner and various other engineering firms doing surveying, CAD drafting and GIS work. Keith is a 2002 graduate of CCSU, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Geography.
City of Norwalk
sbirney@norwalkct.org
Steven Birney is the GIS Analyst for the City of Norwalk, CT. Steven graduated with honors from Central Connecticut State University where he holds a BA in Geography, specializing in Geographic Information Systems. Initially he was introduced to GIS while working for the National Park Service at Haleakala National Park in Maui and Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. Now he administers the enterprise geographic information system for the City of Norwalk. He specializes in municipal GIS, QAQC, cartography, and application development. When not climbing, biking, or hiking, he’s working on solving problems with GIS. He loves learning about new tools and features just as much as teaching about them, and is always excited to hear how others are using GIS.
David is a graduate of Eastern CT State University and lifelong CT native- I took all of the GIS courses with Dr. Roy Wilson (prior to Dr. Meredith Metcalf’s arrival at ECSU). For seven years I have worked at Fuss & O’Neill as a hydrogeologist and have been involved in many projects throughout the state involving remediation, permitting, transportation, and natural resource studies/investigations. My GIS duties for the company include administration/publishing/developing content on our Enterprise Server and our AGO organization portals, training and onboarding for GIS users across the company, and have been an advocate for electronic data collection by suggesting keystone hardware and software installments.
University of Connecticut, Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR)
cary.chadwick@uconn.edu
Cary Chadwick is the coordinator of the Geospatial Training Program at UConn’s Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR). She develops and teaches short courses using CT’s public domain data and geospatial technologies including desktop GIS, smartphone GPS, remote sensing and online mapping tools. As part of CLEAR’s geospatial team, she also helps to update and maintain the CT Environmental Conditions Online (CT ECO) website which provides a variety of online maps and tools for viewing Connecticut’s environmental and natural resource information and statewide orthophotography. CTECO is a partnership between CLEAR and the CT DEEP.
Jennifer has been an Associate Analyst with Connecticut Natural Gas since 2018 where she supports the engineering departments GIS. Prior to that, she was a GIS Specialist at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology for 3 years. Jennifer is a graduate of Fairfield University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. She is currently finishing her Master’s Degree in Geography from Central Connecticut State University.
Kevin has been the IT\GIS Specialist for the Town of Newtown now for over 2 years. Kevin holds a BA in Sociology and Anthropology and minor in Environmental Studies and Communications from Fairfield University. He was initially introduced to GIS through his statistical analysis research with his professor at Fairfield in 2014 where he provided support in the advocacy of local non-profit initiatives for legislative reform. His passion for both people and the natural world has led him to continue exploring the relationship between the two with the use of GIS for over 5 years now. Since Fairfield, he has worked directly with municipal GIS systems in the cities of Bridgeport and Norwalk. He has worked extensively on planning, police\dispatch, public works, and IT projects and looks forward to returning to the steering committee in his second consecutive term.
Connecticut Department of Transportation
George.Obeng@ct.gov
George does wonderful things at CT DOT. Once he submits his bio, it will be posted here.
Town of South Windsor
Thad.Dymkowski@southwindsor.org
Thad Dymkowski is a certified GIS professional working for the Town of South Windsor with experience successfully completing GIS projects for a multitude of organizations in government, private sector, and academia. He has comprehensive knowledge of data creation and analysis, GIS server management, application design, database administration, web mapping, and 3D digital model creation. He earned Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees in Geography from CCSU. He developed an original curriculum for a GIS certificate program and is currently teaching it at Central Connecticut State University for its seventh successful year. He is a founding member and facilitator of the annual GIS Day Event for State of Connecticut. He currently serves as the treasurer for the New England chapter of URISA and is a past President of the Connecticut GIS User to User Steering Committee.
Town of Newtown
kevin.dunkin@newtown-ct.gov
Kevin Dunkin is the GIS Specialist for the Town of Newtown. Kevin graduated from Fairfield University where he holds a BA in Sociology and Anthropology and minor in Environmental Studies and Communications. He was initially introduced to GIS through his statistical analysis research with his professor at Fairfield where he provided support in the advocacy of local non-profit initiatives for legislative reform. His passion for both people and the natural world has led him to continue exploring the relationship between the two with the use of GIS. Since Fairfield, he now has direct municipal GIS experience with the cities of Bridgeport and Norwalk. He has worked extensively on planning, public works, and IT projects and looks forward to becoming more involved with and participate in the GIS
community.
Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments
mhoover@ctmetro.org
Mark have been a GIS professional for the past 9 years. Currently, he is a GIS Analyst with the Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments where he works on a variety of transportation, conservation and municipal projects. Before that he was involved in academia, first as a Research Specialist with CLEAR, where he modeled salt marsh migration from sea level rise and then as a Research Associate at Yale where he worked on modeling CO2 evasion from streams. Mark graduated from UConn with a BS in Environmental Science and a MS in Natural Resources.
Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection
Daniel.Czaja@ct.gov
Dan has been a GIS professional for the past 19 years. He is currently the GIS Coordinator with the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection where he is in charge of Statewide 9-1-1 mapping. Before that he worked for the Capitol Region Council of Governments as a GIS Analyst. Dan is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University.
M5 Information Services
jefferygnolan@m5is.com
Jeff Nolan is a management consultant focused on improving the performance of supply chains through applied analytics. His work has been featured in BusinessWeek and Aviation Week & Space Technology and has been noted in the Harvard Business Review. He has taught statistics and was involved in what Forbes Magazine reported as the first industry-academic collaborative MOOC (massive open online course) that enabled 13,000 students to run web-based statistical analysis live. He believes that though GIS we can do what Buckminster Fuller advised: “To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”
City of Hartford
NASHA001@hartford.gov
Aaron Nash has served the public sector for close to 10 years. He is currently working as the GIS project leader for the Department of Public Works at the City of Hartford. His current duties include building mobile and web applications and managing all spatial data in the public right of way. Before his time at the City of Hartford, Aaron worked for the Town of Vernon as the GIS coordinator developing Vernon’s first GIS system. Aaron has earned his graduate degree in Geography from CCSU and has his GISP.
Town of East Hartford
Jenny is the GIS Analyst for the Town of East Hartford. Jenny received her BS from Eastern Connecticut State University in Environmental Earth Science with a Concentration in Sustainable Energy and a minor in GIS. Jenny then continued onto her MS from University of Rhode Island in Environmental Earth Science and Management with a concentration in Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis. She is currently building and maintaining the geospatial environment for East Hartford working in planning, public works, IT, and more.
Granby Land Trust/Sperry Geospatial, LLC.
sperry325@gmail.com
Steve was first introduced to GIS during a college forestry careers class. He knew then and there his career path was laid out. Little did he know how much this field would evolve to what it has become today. Steve’s GIS career spans 20 years mostly with the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) and with Wayne County, MI. During his time with SEMCOG, he initiated the first ever multi agency regional orthophotography flight in Michigan covering over 5,000 square miles. While as the GIS Technical Manager at Wayne County, Steve oversaw the road network conflation initive as well as the conversion of over 800,000 parcels to the County GIS parcel fabric. However, the passion Steve has with GIS is how it can be adapted to so many disciplines to answer questions and build collaborative relationships. Six years ago Steve and his family moved to Connecticut for his wife’s job. While being a stay at home dad he volunteered his GIS services to the Granby Land Trust and just recently formed his own consulting company. Steve received his Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Michigan Technological University and his Masters in Geography/GIS from Eastern Michigan University. He is also a GISP.
GEI Consultants
KPonak@geiconsultants.com
Kristen Ponak is a GIS Professional (GISP) and GIS Analyst at GEI Consultants. She’s earned nearly a decade of experience in GIS design/analysis, Web-GIS deployment, mobile application development and 3D visualization for various environmental, water resources, ecological and geotechnical projects all over the northeast states. She graduated from the University of Connecticut, with a bachelor’s degree in GIS and Web-Technology. To round out her education, Kristen’s Master’s Degree from Central CT State University is in Ecology and Environmental Science. Kristen stepped into the consulting world after she was a GIS Technician for Northwest Conservation District, Candlewood Lake Authority, and a Resource Assistant for CT DEEP Wildlife.
Rebecca has been working at AppGeo for four years. Prior to joining AppGeo I was a student at Westfield State University, graduated in 2015 with my BS in Environmental Science and BS in Geography and Regional Planning with a minor in GIS and applied geography. I started off as a GIS analyst intern at AppGeo, hired 9 months after starting the internship as an analyst and I am now a project manager. I work with about 20 different municipalities, mostly in Connecticut but some in Massachusetts and Rhode Island as well. I also work on large state agency projects focusing on transportation, HPMS and mapping out state ROW.
Mike is the GIS Manager at Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCOG) and he oversees the GIS and Analytical efforts. Mike also has interests in modernizing municipal processes to reduce workloads, increase web security, and provide engaging data visualization. He received a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and a M.S. in Geography from Clark University.