Spring NEARC 2026: Full Schedule

10:15am EDT

Working with Overture Maps in ArcGIS Pro: Workflows, QA, and POI Conflation

Tuesday May 26, 2026 10:15am - 10:45am EDT

Overture Maps is a new open geospatial dataset providing a shared base map of the world. The project was launched by Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, TomTom, and Esri, with its first public data release in 2023. Overture integrates contributions from multiple sources into a unified data model and is updated monthly.

This presentation demonstrates workflows for using Overture data in ArcGIS environments, including ingesting GeoParquet datasets, conversion to file geodatabases features, and deriving geocoding locators, network datasets, and 3D building layers. Strategies will also be shown for transforming nested Overture-native hierarchical attributes into simpler geodatabase tables.

A major focus will be on multi-value matching between Overture places and other POI datasets using location, name, address, phone, website and feature type attributes.

The session will also review Overture’s fully sharable and game-changing open data license. Links to the sample datasets will be provided.

Speakers

Brian Hebert

Solutions Architect, ScribeKey, LLC

Tuesday May 26, 2026 10:15am - 10:45am EDT
Room 168

Optimizing Workflows

10:45am EDT

Novel Strategies for Arcade-based Automation

Tuesday May 26, 2026 10:45am - 11:15am EDT

Room 168

Oftentimes, the options for automating attribute calculations in ArcGIS hosted feature services can seem limited. One of the most common approaches is leveraging external tools such as Python, FME, or Power Automate. While powerful, these solutions can be difficult to maintain for end users who have limited exposure to ArcGIS. This presentation will highlight a novel alternative solution for automation when working with hosted services. We will discuss how our team created an ArcGIS field map that enables complex, automated data calculations on hosted services to track stormwater asset inspection and maintenance statuses year-to-year and determine their optimal inspection schedules based on newly collected data. Our solution leverages a combination of Arcade-powered smart form calculations and map symbology in conjunction with a hosted join layer to achieve all automation on-the-fly within the web map, eliminating the need for external processes.

Speakers

Colin Bergmann

Water Resources Engineer, VHB

Tuesday May 26, 2026 10:45am - 11:15am EDT
Room 168

Optimizing Workflows

11:15am EDT

BETA Group, Inc.’s Snow Route Optimization Program

Tuesday May 26, 2026 11:15am - 11:45am EDT

Room 168

This presentation highlights BETA Group, Inc.’s Snow Route Optimization Program, developed within its Asset Management and GIS division to modernize municipal winter maintenance operations. Many communities still rely on static PDF maps for plowing and salting activities, creating challenges for contractors, new staff, and crews adapting to changing conditions. BETA’s GIS-driven approach addresses these limitations by mapping and analyzing existing routes, balancing lane mile workloads across equipment and personnel, and generating optimized routing solutions. Through these tools, municipalities can improve operational efficiency, enhance decision making, and support more resilient winter maintenance strategies.

Speakers

Isaiah Spencer

GIS Specialist, BETA Group, Inc.

Tuesday May 26, 2026 11:15am - 11:45am EDT
Room 168

Optimizing Workflows

1:15pm EDT

From Scan to System: Enabling Predictive Asset Management Through BIM–GIS Integration

Tuesday May 26, 2026 1:15pm - 1:45pm EDT

Room 168

Across the Northeast, organizations responsible for complex facilities - utilities, public agencies, and institutions - are challenged by disconnected spatial, 3D, and asset management systems. This presentation demonstrates how NV5 integrates reality capture, BIM, ArcGIS, and Cityworks into a unified, GIS‑centric operational framework. Using real municipal implementations, we show how scanned facilities are transformed into ArcGIS‑native 3D Building Scene Layers with authoritative asset data preserved. A key innovation is NV5’s multi‑asset 3D Select Tool, enabling GIS users to select multiple assets directly in 3D and initiate consolidated work orders. The result is a scalable, GIS‑driven approach to predictive asset management that extends asset life and moves organizations beyond traditional 2D workflows.

Speakers

Amanda Falkner

Account Executive (Northeast), NV5 Geospatial

Tuesday May 26, 2026 1:15pm - 1:45pm EDT
Room 168

Asset Management

1:45pm EDT

Using ArcGIS Dashboards to Manage Outreach and Construction for an LSLR Program

Tuesday May 26, 2026 1:45pm - 2:15pm EDT

Room 168

This presentation will go over products made for a large city's lead service line replacement program. The specific products covered will cover the methods used to collect and do QA/QC on Right of Entry (ROE) forms for material verifications in the program. This presentation will cover the Experience Builder and Survey123 products used to conduct ROE Outreach via calls and door knocks, the public-facing Survey123 product used to collect ROEs from residents of the city, and the Experience Builder product used to QA/QC collected ROEs, including various auto-flags used to identify potential errors in the ROE. It will also cover various products used for construction management in the lead service line replacement program.

Speakers

Nicholas Werner

GIS Specialist, Trinnex/CDM Smith

Jack Dennison

Trinnex / CDM Smith

Tuesday May 26, 2026 1:45pm - 2:15pm EDT
Room 168

Asset Management

2:15pm EDT

From Spreadsheets and GIS Layers to an Active, Scalable Geospatial Asset Management Program

Tuesday May 26, 2026 2:15pm - 2:45pm EDT

Room 168

Municipal asset management initiatives often begin with basic GIS layers, spreadsheet inventories, and fragmented workflows that do not scale. These constraints can reduce data quality, hinder coordination, and limit program maturity.

This presentation outlines practical steps to evolve these foundations into an operational, GIS-enabled asset management program supporting service delivery, coordination, and capital planning. Based on recent New England municipal projects, it presents an Esri-aligned path from static datasets to an integrated geospatial environment.

Topics include migrating inventories to centralized geodatabases, supporting multiple asset classes, aligning with business processes, and mitigating implementation risks. The session also shows how ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online enable field capture, inspections, dashboards, and decision support using out-of-the-box capabilities, emphasizing governance, role-based access, and phased delivery.

Speakers

John Diaz

Vice President/Director of Innovation, Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. (GPI)

John W. Diaz, PE, PTOE is a Vice President at GPI. After leading the New England Traffic Engineering Department for more than twenty years, he now runs GPI’s Innovation Services Group. His group explores and utilizes advancing technologies to improve transportation projects through the planning... Read More →

Tuesday May 26, 2026 2:15pm - 2:45pm EDT
Room 168

Asset Management

3:15pm EDT

GIS Has Grown Up. Our Roles Haven’t.

Tuesday May 26, 2026 3:15pm - 3:45pm EDT

Room 168

Understanding roles in GIS becomes more complex each year. The field has expanded beyond traditional responsibilities into a wide range of users, specialized skills, and subjects. Yet we still use “GIS Specialist” to describe roles requiring anywhere from five to thirty years of experience.
This mismatch creates real challenges. Titles and expectations are often unclear and projects are scoped without a full understanding of the expertise required. Esri user models now use a license structure designed to help but can be tricky to implement well. The result is not a lack of skill, but a lack of shared structure for understanding how GIS work is organized.
This presentation explores how keeping up with new skill sets requires shared terminology across the organization. It highlights why evaluating roles is critical to organizational capabilities and how to address this shift moving forward with changing Esri models. Especially relevant for people in organizations with many GIS users and limited capacity for designing the systems and workflows behind them.

Speakers

Michelle Toner

Senior Technical Specialist | Spatial Solutions, Haley & Aldrich

Michelle Toner is a Senior Technical Specialist - Spatial Solutions Lead at Haley & Aldrich. Her work includes designing and implementing approaches for environmental and climate-related analysis on projects that require new or adapted methods. This includes infrastructure vulnerability... Read More →

Tuesday May 26, 2026 3:15pm - 3:45pm EDT
Room 168

GIS and Us

3:45pm EDT

Strategically Planning the Regional GIS Hub at UMass - Amherst: Survey Results and Paths Forward

Tuesday May 26, 2026 3:45pm - 4:15pm EDT

Room 168

The Regional GIS Hub at UMass - Amherst is a partnership between UMass - Amherst's Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences in the College of Natural Sciences and Massachusetts’ Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS), part of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS). The Hub's goal is to support geospatial data and technology development and use throughout the region. Once operational, the Hub will assist local, state, and regional organizations—including regional planners, private businesses, and higher-education institutions—in using geospatial data and technology, and acquiring data, software, and consulting services. Students will conduct much of the work of the Hub, under the direction and close supervision of campus GIS faculty and research staff. This will provide real-world experience and training for the next generation of the geospatial workforce. This poster provides an update on the Hub's formation and operations.

Speakers