TIPS Bi-Weekly Meeting
February 1, 2007
09:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. (CDT)

 Participants

AR- Harry Morris, Bill Winters, & Susan Stoyek
MCR - Bill Joseph & Paul Behum
WR- Greg Morlock, Duane Matt, Robert Welsh, Mike Benavides, Lou Hamm, Paul Clark, Mary Greene, Janine Ferarese, Karyn Evans, Bruce Swartz, Cathy McNish, Jessica Villanueva, & Dianne Osborne

Review action/pending items from last meeting
Training Rosters: Karyn – we received a request from MCR that we get a roster out of DOI Learn that looks similar to the one out of the DNS.  Karyn is working with Barbara Evans, the data steward, from the Fish & Wildlife Service.  She has no solution at this time regarding the format change. Karyn will send Bruce the spreadsheet, so he pursue solutions.

Status Reports
Software Deployment: Aqtesolve (Debbie Dale is sending), Erdas has not gone out, has been copied and is ready to go out. AutoDesk Products (Map, Raster Design) will be ready next week (5 cd’s).  Has received all of the licenses except GMS 6.  Mary said it does not change and will not need to get that license for GMS.  All software disks need to go to Cathy, the original license disk.  Bill J. - wants to know what is needed.  Lou – original disks that the company sends.  AutoDesk licenses are on the web page.  Access will be given by Tom Mastaller.  The Carlson software is sent to every state that they work with (Bill J.), taking the current software off their web-site and making copies from there.  Cathy needs the master download CD.  Mary – reminding what was done in the past, have the software manager to send a copy of the license key to the software manager.  Gives a copy of what kind of access that we have.  The IG will be here next week.  Cathy would like to have one piece of paper or 60 pieces of paper for back-up instead of going to a web-site and etc.  Get a letter from the vendor about the license itself and go off of what Mary suggested. Mary – get a letter from the vendor of GMS with the license agreement.  Dan and Cathy are going to go through the files and find out what is needed to be updated. 

Mobile Computing: Signed on to ASMR to give a workshop in Gillette to first weekend in June.  Will ask for volunteers.  Worked well at the Billings Symposium.  85% complete of equipment distribution, MCR and WR are completed, there are still a few more to be distributed in the east. Evaluations/Reporting are being sent out to find out how the equipment is working.  Montana has given feed back about a 2005 distribution (ArcPad, Trimble Gear). 

Other Issues
FY2008 Conference/Forum: Committee has been put together, Bill Winters is heading this up.  The theme will be discussed today.  The request for this meeting has come from the NCMGC meeting, that there is a need for this.  At the Atlanta conference it was discussed that this should happen every few years.  Underground Mine Mapping should be added regarding the grants.  Mary thinks that we should open this up to have every major topic in TIPS to be presented.  OTT related in the TIPS program (applied science track) across OSM in general.  There are certain TIPS things that will not fit into the Theme of this conference regarding farmland and etc.  Geospatial will be the theme carried over from Atlanta, should we keep the 2008 meeting.  GeoChemical modeling should be an item that is applied to this meeting.  Both Paul’s have agreed that the Geospatial component be a main goal.  Bill W. had a conversation with Bill C. this should be business practice theme related.  Geospatial Theme PERIOD, not so much topical but using GIS for permit boundaries.  They had a hard time filling topics.  Conference call sometime next week to cover this topic.  Bill W is wanting to fill this conference with just Geospatial documents.  From a global perspective it should be just Geospatial.  There will be more papers than what they have room for.  Have subsets for the other Geospatial items like GeoChem.  Survey the National Coal Mine people to find out what their business practices for Geospatial items.  Mike B. didn’t you have to scramble at the end to find more papers last time?   Bill W – no, that it was reviewing them that was the problem.  Mary – does the marketing team have any input in this regarding TIPS, does the core team have any interest about OSM in general?  This whole concept has been put together in the last couple of weeks, a final team has not been put together yet.  Based on this discussion, it sounds as though we might wait until next week or the following weeks about this theme and plans for this meeting.  The plan is to put this in the FY2008 budget, it is not funded right now. 

Coordination with DOE Idaho National Lab: Steve Aldred, Asst Secretary over BLM, OSM, MMS has asked that we head up the coordination with the National Lab in Idaho.  OSM is tasked with meeting with the Idaho National Lab to find areas where we can help on another. If you want to find out more about their capabilities and what they have done for other agencies you can visit their web-site.  Could we use other money besides the applied sciences funds?  That was not brought up in this discussion.  This would be a department level.  OSM is under orders to represent TIPS and the agency (not generally WR except that this is in Idaho).  The big thing is to get on the web-site to see what they can do and what kind of cooperative areas might be useful for OSM and TIPS.  Paul C. mentioned that Kim Voires and John Craynon for the national academy of science would be a good contact for a list.  Fundamental stuff is better than applied. BLM is participating as well as USGS.  Google Idaho National Lab to find their web-site.  Mike B - they have a supercomputer too.  Their operation is all contractor.  The folks that are communicating with us will be contractors.

Budget: Tendency to overspend on the budget.  The first thing to be dropped because of over expenditures, will be the TIPS Team Meeting.  We have not cancelled it yet, we are looking into ways to get more funding. We are working on an effort with Len and Bill Joseph about asking about more funds regarding the SMCRA changes.  Bill J- The CLT said that the changes to SMCRA that they understand that there may be a need for more resources, states will get an increase in funding about 7 – 10 times more than what they are receiving now.   From a TIPS standpoint, we need to look at the training program because we are going to have to train the states more.  This includes the Indian Tribes as well for more training and resources.  These expansions are not just in software and the training program, but for the IT Infrastructure including staff and etc.  Billie Clark and Steve Trujillo are working really closely with Bill Joseph about these changes.  You’ll want to look into the new SMCRA laws if you are not familiar with that.   Regarding AML, talked about meeting with IMCC about interpretations.  They do not have a workload analysis, but do have tables that will estimate how much the states will receive.  This is hypothetical.  Dennis R and Danny L, are going to have to get really cranking to get the interpretations out soon.  The regulation writing is going to be pretty tough.

Next Meeting Thursday, February 15, 2007