Plenary Session
Tuesday, April 4

Lt. Governor John Bohlinger Welcoming Address John Bohlinger was elected as Montana’s Lt. Governor on November 2, 2004. John is a graduate of Billings Senior High School, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and has a business degree from the University of Montana. John's 33-year business career in Billings included work for many community organizations. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Billings Chamber of Commerce, First Interstate Bank West, Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch, and the Billings Studio Theater. John served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and as a member of the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church Parish Council. He also has served as president of the Board of Directors of the Yellowstone Art Museum and president of the Billings Symphony. John is also a veteran of the Montana legislature. First elected in 1992, John served three terms in the Montana House and was twice elected to the Montana Senate.

Mayor Jim Smith Welcoming Address James (Jim) E. Smith was elected Mayor of Helena, Montana in November of 2001. Prior to his election as mayor, Jim served as a city commissioner from January 2000 through December 2001. Jim was born in Anaconda in 1948. The family moved to Indiana when he was about one-year old, but nearly every summer included a trip to Montana. Jim returned to Montana in 1966 to attend Carroll College and graduated in 1970 with a degree in History. Mayor Smith received a Masters in Public Administration from Montana State University in 1992. Since 1978 Jim has worked on public policy and legislative matters with the Montana Senior Citizens Association, the Rocky Mountain Development Council, and the Region VIII Community Action Association. Jim is the co-owner of Smith & McGowan, Inc, a lobbying and association management firm representing the Montana Pharmacists, County Attorney’s Association, Sheriff’s Association, and Community Mental Health Centers.

Professor Mark Monmonier Keynote Address Societal Impacts of Geospatial Technology: Customization, Control, and Unintended Consequences Mark Monmonier is Distinguished Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He received a B.A. in mathematics from The Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and a Ph.D. in geography from The Pennsylvania State University in 1969. He has served as editor of The American Cartographer and president of the American Cartographic Association, and has been a research geographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and a consultant to the National Geographic Society and Microsoft Corporation. Monmonier’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984, a Chancellor’s Citation for Exceptional Academic Achievement from Syracuse University in 1993, the Association of American Geographers’ Media Achievement Award in 2000, and the American Geographical Society’s O. M. Miller Cartographic Medal in 2001. He has published numerous papers on map design, automated map analysis, cartographic generalization, the history of cartography, statistical graphics, geographic demography, and mass communications, and is author of several books, including Maps, Distortion and Meaning (Assn. of American Geographers, 1977); Computer-Assisted Cartography: Principles and Prospects (Prentice-Hall, 1982), The Study of Population: Elements, Patterns, Processes (Charles E. Merrill, 1983; with George Schnell); How to Lie with Maps (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991; 2nd ed., revised and expanded, 1996); Drawing the Line: Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy (Henry Holt, 1995); Cartographies of Danger (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997); Air Apparent, a study of the evolution and significance of weather maps (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999); and Spying with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2002), which received the Association of American Geographers’ Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography. Monmonier has served on the National Research Council’s Mapping Science Committee and the NRC Panel on Planning for Catastrophe, and is editor of Volume Six (the Twentieth Century) of the general history of cartography published by the University of Chicago Press. He is currently working on a book on the history, reliability and implications of cartographic representations of coastlines.