From emergency response and natural resource management to transportation planning and public health, location-based data and mapping tools have become core components of how the state delivers services. On November 19th, Washington state and local government GIS professionals came together in a fully hybrid event showcasing how they apply geospatial science to transform decision making.  This day-long event, in its 14th year, is held on GIS Day, which is part of National Geography Week.

Callie Goldsby, the Chief Information Officer for the Washington Department of Commerce, welcomed everyone with opening remarks highlighting GIS as a business enabler. GIS enables data for decision-making that impacts the lives of everyone in the state. According to Callie, “GIS is foundational to how the government gets business done, and spatial thinking is truly mainstream.” This fact is reflected in Governor Bob Ferguson’s proclamation of November 17-21, 2025 as State Geography Week.  

This year’s event keynote was from Ralph Hogaboom with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, where he serves as the Chief Information Security Officer. Ralph kept everyone’s attention with his measured take on Artificial Intelligence, specifically generative AI in the workplace. These tools help generate ideas, texts, images, and videos based on human inputs and prompts. Ralph spoke about the careful balancing act between sacrificing capabilities and gaining productivity with generative AI. AI might help us get work done more quickly, but is it at the cost of losing our capacity to do hard work? Ralph argues people need to put in effort and go through the discomfort that comes with learning new, difficult things. Our capability to do hard thinking has value and is worth paying for. Ralph cited Theodore Roosevelt’s famous quote “Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. No kind of life is worth leading if it is always an easy life.” We’re in the very early stages of mass adoption of generative AI. Ralph cautions us not to jump onto the AI hype train before thinking about the environmental and cultural impacts it introduces. Be mindful that AI lacks standards. It is unstable, has no warranty or guarantee. For now, consider AI one valid pathway to getting stuff done, but not the only pathway. In closing, Ralph encouraged us to “be the statistical outlier you want to see in the world.”

WA DNR Chief Information Security Officer Ralph Hogaboom with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources presenting the good and bad of generative AI

The keynote was followed by the State Agency Roll Call, where 15 state agencies (among the 40+ agencies in Washington using GIS) each spent two minutes highlighting their 2025 GIS accomplishments and goals for 2026. Common themes fell into two camps: those dealing with software and business operational workflows including software and application upgrades, implementing recent Esri license changes, meeting WCAG web accessibility requirements, and managing GIS in cloud environments. The other topical area was program-related topics like using GIS to support both interagency and state-local collaboration and the governance needed to support these efforts, funding challenges, roadmap/strategic planning, incorporating new technologies such as drones and AI, and finally, increasing GIS literacy among non-GIS professionals by developing training and other learning opportunities to help unlock the power of GIS for a wider audience. 

To finish the morning, Washington’s State Geographic Information Officer Joanne Pearson delivered the State of the State GIS address, underscoring the state and its residents as the driver for GIS efforts tackling homelessness, public safety, and accessibility. Joanne highlighted the critical work by state and local agencies planning EV charging stations, locating and securing voter ballot boxes, and supporting public safety for the 2026 FIFA World Cup games in Seattle. Joanne finished her talk with details about the state’s geospatial data integration plans and meeting FedRAMP authorization. “GIS is woven into how Washington does business every day,” said Joanne Pearson, Washington’s state geospatial information officer. “Events like Joint Agency GIS Day are vital because they bring people together to share ideas, strengthen partnerships, and keep improving the location-based services that communities count on.”

Following lunch, the afternoon featured twenty breakout sessions with focused conversations around research projects, public communication strategies, remote sensing technologies and more. In total, 20 presentations were spread across four breakout rooms. Topics included:

Room One presentations: 

• Creating smarter workflows with Survey123, Experience Builder, and JavaScript

• Deploying redundant architecture for ArcGIS Enterprise

• Building maps for different audiences and skill levels

• Modernizing custom GIS web viewers

Room Two presentations: 

• A discussion on how to educate people on the potential and capabilities of GIS

• Experiences from the field for GIS in wildfire emergency response

• Housing service disparities

• Accessibility in GIS

Room Three presentations: 

• Zoning and electric vehicle charging

• Leveraging GIS dashboards for public safety and service

• AI in Washington State

• Circumnavigating the Esri ecosystem

• The journey to named users in enterprise systems

• Smartphone data to measure outdoor activity and health

Room Four  presentations: 

• Low altitude coastal remote sensing

• Drones for environmental services

• Detecting structurally complex forests

• WA EMDs critical infrastructure analysis capabilities

• GIS for support of 2026 FIFA World Cup

• Understanding tsunami risks and community preparedness in Tacoma

The afternoon featured four rooms of concurrent presentations

The breadth of the discussion topics showcased the many uses, challenges, and obstacles that GIS can be used to improve, and highlighted how GIS teams in Washington strive to stay on the leading edge of the industry. The format made it easy to get to the sessions you wanted and there was a remote option for those who could not be in person in Olympia. The 14th Annual Joint Agency GIS Day showcased how geospatial technology drives innovation across Washington. Don’t miss next year’s event—November 18, 2026—where we’ll continue exploring the future of GIS together.