2013 MAGIP Elections

Congratulations To Our Newest Board Members!
Meghan Burns - Vice President
Karen Coleman - Member-at-Large
Hunter Simpkins - Member-at-Large

Elected Positions:

Vice President - 3 Year Term
Member-at-Large (2 Positions) - 2 Year Term

Appointed Positions:

Technical Committee Chair

If you, or someone you know is interested please email

Wendy Largent at wendy_largent@hotmail.com

If you are interested in the Technical Committee Chair position, please send an email to Chris Stump at cstump@mt.gov or the MAGIP Technical Committee at magip.mt+tech@gmail.com.

Additional Election information can be found on our Election Overview page.

Elected Board Positions Open:

Vice President:

Meghan Burns, GIS Analyst, TREC

Meghan Burns currently holds the position of Secretary on the MAGIP Board of Directors. As a MAGIP Board Member she has been working to finalize the Spatial Data Distribution Best Practices and assisting with the upcoming Spring Meeting. She is a GIS Analyst at TREC contracted to manage and maintain the GIS for the Montana National Guard and specifically the facilities at Fort Harrison and the installations throughout Montana. She holds a Master’s of Science degree in Geographic Information Science and has been working in the field of GIS for approximately ten years.

Erica Hoffman, GIS/IT Manager for Park County and the City of Livingston

My name is Erica Hoffman. I am the GIS/IT Manager for Park County and the City of Livingston. I have been working here for approx. 5 years. I graduated from Montana State University with a BS in Earth Science and an emphasis in Geography. Before taking the job in Livingston, I worked in the Special Projects division for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and also worked for the Backcountry Trails program in Yellowstone National Park. I have 2 small children and enjoy spending time with them hiking, camping and skiing.

Member-at-Large (2 Positions):

Karen Coleman, Biological Data Systems Coordinator, Montana Natural Heritage Program

It all started back in 1994 when I was asked to map some trees for some ecologists. We had a 10-hectare plot with its very own coordinate system, with every single tree over 5 cm dbh mapped. We did it with Excel. Then one day, we decided we wanted to relate that tree data to OTHER available data in the surrounding area…. And wham! I became a GIS’er overnight. Bye bye custom coordinate system, I had to learn about REAL coordinate systems. I went on to get my M.S. in Forestry at the University of Minnesota, taking advantage of the Forestry Department’s Remote Sensing Lab and the resources of the Master’s in GIS program at UMN. After a brief stint as a GIS Technician for the Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota, I was hired as the Biological Data Systems Coordinator for the Montana Natural Heritage Program in 2004 and have been here ever since. I am currently working on my GISP certification application and hope to add those letters to my title soon.

Hunter Simpkins, GIS Analyst/Cartographer with the Road Inventory and Mapping Section (RIM), Montana Department of Transportation (MDT)

Hunter Simpkins has been working in the transportation planning field for over 15 years. She earned her degree in Archaeology, but quickly learned that mapping sites was preferable to excavating them. She has been a GIS Analyst for the past 13 years, combining GIS analysis with planning and environmental studies to produce EAs and EISs for highway projects.

Hunter worked for Parsons Brinckerhoff and CDM prior to joining the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) in 2011. At MDT, Hunter is a GIS Analyst/Cartographer with the Road Inventory and Mapping Section (RIM). She manages Field Inventory for the yearly Fuel Tax Allocation process, and she serves as the SDE manager. Hunter is currently active in implementing online mapping at MDT via ArcGIS Online for Organizations.

If elected, Hunter would bring knowledge of online mapping and technical expertise in the day-to-day tasks of GIS analysis and database management. She is experienced in writing easy-to-understand technical documentation for geoprocessing operations. She is also skilled at and enjoys troubleshooting mapping and data issues. She is proud to be a member of an organization like MAGIP and to have access to its varied membership to continue to advance her knowledge.