Ted MacKinnon New President of The Geomatics Association of Nova Scotia (GANS)
The Geomatics Association of Nova Scotia is a small non profit professional organization in Nova Scotia that foster the application of geomatics within all sectors of Nova Scotia with collaboration among a broader geospatial community.
They promote the further development of the Nova Scotia Geomatics Industry, helping to make it competitive both domestically and internationally, and increasing its material contribution to the Canadian economy.
This year’s GANS Annual General Meeting was held at the Halifax Central Library, below is a short summary of the event.
Hugh MacKay (Past President) summarized several past events and accomplishments, highlighting many of the key programs that the Board initiated during the past year and acknowledged all GANS generous sponsors for their generous contributions. Hugh recently became Executive Director East for GeoAlliance Canada and emphasized how GANS is highly recognized as one of the professional organizations in Canada that sets new standards in the sector and that other groups follow our lead.
Eric Melanson, (Treasurer) provided a summary on the Association’s finances during the past year. Dave Keefe (Executive Director) then thanked Board members (Timothy Dine, Pierre Gareau, Charlie Walls) that were finishing up their tenure and moderated the election of new Board Members. Several awards and certificates of appreciation were awarded to members and students.
Then GANS welcomed 3 new Board of Directors and a new President. Jackie Woodruff, Anthony Matthews, and Simeon Roberts were all unanimously elected as new members of the GANS Board of Directors. Ted MacKinnon was elected as GANS President and John Trites was re-elected as Vice President. Ted thanked the Board for their progress and accomplishments over the past few years and highlighted some issues that the new GANS Board will focus on during the next 12 months.
Colin MacDonald, Director of Nova Scotia Internal Services helped GANS better understand GeoNOVA products & services by providing demonstrations of recently released online mapping applications and tools and also provided some sneak peaks of upcoming mapping tools that have yet to be released to the public. Dr. Claudio Aporta and Dr. Melanie Fournier from Dalhousie University provided a joint presentation on their spatial research related to the Arctic and mapping traditional knowledge and needs for Inuit.
On behalf of GANS, we would also like to welcome the new GANS Board and extend thanks to the event working group for putting on another great event. Photos of the event are available on the GANS website http://gans.ca
