Water Resources Division CPAC Home Page

The USGS Water Resources Division Computer Policy Advisory Committee (CPAC) asked me to express to you their sincere appreciation for the presentations made regarding information on computer activities and processes related to the Director.s Office, Geologic discipline, Biologic discipline, and Mapping discipline during our recent meeting in Reston. After subsequent discussion by CPAC, it became apparent that there is potential value in continuing this level of computer-related interchange. To that end, we would like to offer an open invitation to you or a qualified representative of your choice to visit any of our meetings.

A few of the benefits from such interaction could include raised interdisciplinary computer awareness, identification and solution of common problems, and merger of similar activities with potential cost savings.

As you may be aware, our meetings are held quarterly at a different Water office location throughout the country. This pattern has been adopted to meet our charter requirement for maintaining contact with grass-roots computer users. In this way we can both identify and respond to needs before they become large problems and also become aware of innovative computer activities and applications that may be of general interest. A common element of each meeting is an informal town-meeting session with all office staff invited to interact with CPAC members.

Continuing in the spirit of increasing interdisciplinary computer awareness, CPAC has discussed a range of additional ideas. We could hold multi-discipline town meetings, visit non-Water offices near our meeting sites, invite computer-related briefings from non-Water staff, and even hold some CPAC meetings at non-Water sites. We would enjoy hearing your responses to these possibilities.

Our next meeting is in Honolulu, Hawaii from October 31 at 8am to November 2 at noon and we will include an increased level of interchange with USGS staff located in the State. Our following meeting will be in February 2001 at an as-yet undetermined site in the northeastern part of the country.

Thanks again for your interest and please let me know as soon as you can whether you or a representative will be with us in Hawaii as time for logistic arrangements is very short. My e-mail address is cgoodwin@usgs.gov and my phone number is 850-942-9500 x3011.

Carl R. Goodwin, District Chief
WRD, Tallahassee, Florida

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