Greetings URISA members.... The Board is very happy to provide the new URISA Connect Listserv as a member benefit. I want to use the Listserv to let everyone know about some recent URISA advocacy activity. Sometimes the work that the URISA Board and URISA's committees do might not be readily apparent to members. First in March we received a request from a URISA member to provide a letter from URISA stating our postion regarding a bill (PS2422) in the Puerto Rican Legislature which would include most GIS-related activity within the realm of licensed survey practice. URISA responded to this request on March 23 with a letter urging the Legislature to follow the guidelines developed in the 'Model Law for Surveying' and the 'Model Rules for Surveying' that were developed collaboratively between URISA and the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) in 2003. Shortly thereafter URISA was notified that a protest had been filed by a firm with the USDA regarding the 2012 National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) solicitation. The protest claimed that the USDA should have used a 'qualifications based solicitation' (QBS). If this protest had been allowed to stand, it would have likely resulted in the cancelation of the 2012 NAIP solicitation. The NAIP program is an important source of imagery for many state and local GIS programs across the US. URISA wrote a letter to the USDA on March 28 providing relevant information regarding the protest based on URISA's long standing position regarding QBS. URISA worked in parallel on this issue with NSGIC, which also wrote the USDA challenging the protest. By the middle of this month we learned that the protest had been withdrawn, allowing the 2012 NAIP program to go forward. Advocacy is an important part of the value that URISA provides to its members and the community that we serve. Let me know what you think.... -Greg Babinski, GISP, URISA President To adjust your email preferences (set to Digest delivery, or unsubscribe from this list), visit: //www.freelists.org/list/urisa You can also unsubscribe by sending email to urisa-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with unsubscribe in the Subject. Questions about the URISA Listserv, comments on performance, or questions about subscribing should be sent to info@xxxxxxxxx