This year we hosted KAM’s first ever all virtual conference October 27-30th. While we missed seeing each other in person, the virtual conference offered a great opportunity to come together in safe way to hear informative presentations, meet new members and network with each other. Attendees had the opportunity to take pre-conference workshops including Moving from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro taught by Ken Wilkerson, GISEDGE; Kansas NG911 GIS Data Maintainer Class taught by Sherry Massey, Dickinson County GIS Coordinator and Eileen Battles and Kristen Jordan from DASC. Another class, Editing Parcels in ArcGIS Pro, was offered after the conference by Frank Conkling of Panda Consulting.

Our opening session kicked off on Tuesday October 28th with a very thought provoking and entertaining keynote given by John Nelson who works in the Content Team at ESRI. John showed some of his mapping wizardry using such things as pivot tables to transform simple tabular data into spatial representations and creating a cross-stitch style map of the State of Kansas. Check out more of John’s work on his website or his Instagram.

We had a great variety of sessions this year, with concurrent sessions being held live on GoToMeeting or pre-recorded on YouTube. Some of the topics included Real Estate Title; ArcGIS Pro Parcel Fabric; ArcGIS Hub; The National Map Products and Services; Siting Optimization; Arcade; Esri Experience Builder. We had several sessions on the COVID-19 response at the state and local levels. It was really impressive to see how our members were using data and tools to help in this important endeavor.

It was a fun time getting to know our new members at the past-president and new members’ reception. Quite a few people were able to join because it was virtual that might not have been able to travel otherwise. That seemed to be one of the perks of a virtual conference.

The new board was elected and includes the following members:

President | Pam Dunham - Butler County

President Elect | Amy Roust – KDHE

Past President | Erika Stanley – Wood Environment and Infrastructure

Secretary | Tyler Wehr – Leavenworth County

Treasurer | Drew Bean – Saline County

Director | Tyler Fleming – Douglas County

Director | Christian Kennedy – Wyandotte County

Director | Clint Miller – City of Lawrence

Director | Cesalea Osborne – City of Lawrence

Our award winners this year included:

George Donatello Lifetime Achievement Award: Linda Sibert, Kansas Department of Agriculture

Most Valuable Member: Lee Allen, Shawnee County

Prestigious Cartographer/GIS Professional: Pam Cannon, Linn County

Outstanding Mapping Project: Bryce Hirschman, Douglas County 1933 Road Map Linear Referencing

KAM Conference Map Gallery's Best Map: Lisa Olson, Seward County with the Arkalon Assault Race

I would like to thank our Program Committee, especially the chair Lee Allen, Jamie Scheiber of Custom Meeting Planners and all of our sponsors for making this conference happen. Hopefully, we will be back together again in person for the 36^th Annual KAM Conference in Topeka, KS October 25-29, 2021!

Erika Stanley, KAM past-president