Before I begin the substance of my talk this morning, let me begin with the confessions of a non-techie policy wonk. The truth is that I use my e mail and word-processing, and I occasionally do research on the internet, but I leave EXCEL and Powerpoint to my staff, and my eyes hurt when I try to read a map on a screen. I am hardly a cutting edge technology user - but I promise you that I am more adept than many policy makers and local community leaders are. So why, then am I here to address you this morning at the 4th Annual GIS Conference?

Let me begin by reading you a little parable I cut out of a magazine several years ago.

"Once upon a time, a great land flourished by the sea. With clean and plentiful water, this sunny territory nurtured immense cities, vast expanses of agriculture and exquisite and varied natural regions. The land's subjects procreated. And as word of the area's bounty spread, subjects from other, less munificent places came to partake of the land's wealth and beauty. The economy of the territory expanded as the population increased. But with that expansion also came air and water pollution, high housing costs, traffic congestion, commercial encroachment into farmlands, overcrowding at schools, and generally a lot more hassle. And then the land, once so wonderful, was not quite so wonderful anymore."

This little story, all too familiar to most of us, is the oft-repeated story of many places in this great state. Little by little, as more people come, and as "the land's subjects procreate," California will continue to commit land resources to development, to provide housing and roads and job producing industries for the people in this dynamic place. With California's population currently at about 33 million, we can only imagine what the future will be like when the state is home to 65 million, which almost certainly will happen within the lifetime of many of us. Imagine the Los Angeles Basin with seven million more people - or the Bay Area with 3 million more residents. There is no question that the enormous population growth that comes to the State will place further stress on the State's natural resources, and the largest metropolitan areas, and its important coastal regions. And then the population will pour into the Great Central Valley - arguably, the State's last Frontier.

For a lot of California's urban dwellers, the Central Valley is just a hot place one has to travel as quickly as possible on the way to Yosemite. The Valley is actually an important and valuable resource; one of the state's most important and least understood regions.

The Great Central Valley of California stretches more than four hundred miles from Mount Shasta in the north to the Tehachipis in the south. This is a valley rich in natural resources and vital to the State's economy as the generator of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs annually. The Valley contains important natural features; two major river systems, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, that join at the Delta, through which passes 40% of all the State's water. There are majestic groves of valley oaks, wetlands that attract millions of migratory birds annually and deep alluvial soils that have helped make the Valley the richest agricultural region in the world. Agriculture quenches its thirst with the giant Central Valley Project, which is often regarded as one of the Seven Manmade Wonders of the World.

In spite of the important natural resources and the thousands of acres of fertile farmland, 60% of the region's population lives in 96 growing cities, including Sacramento, the State Capital, Davis and Chico, college towns, Fresno, the heart of valley agriculture, and Bakersfield, headquarters to the State's rich oil industry. The Central Valley is currently home to almost five million people: even conservative estimates suggest that the valley's population will swell to more than 12 million by 2040. Growth and change are frequently at the top of local political agendas, but all too often, they mean growth in the number of unemployed and changes in the crime rate. Major urban problems and attitudes have come to the once rural valley for the first time.

When San Francisco's Gold Rush attracted fortune seekers from all over the world to California, it was a 19th century phenomenon. When the post war boom brought people flocking to Los Angeles, it became a twentieth century icon. The Central Valley will be the 21st century challenge for the state and for the nation. Nowhere in the State are the issues of the next century more clearly defined: demographic change, population growth, export trade expansion, technology development, economic diversification, water policy, air quality, conservation and development will all shape the debate about the future of the Great Central Valley, and in so doing, the Valley will influence all of California.

The Valley doesn't have to repeat the development patterns of previous regions of the state. There is real opportunity to learn from the experiences of LA, Orange County, and Santa Clara County. Not only do we have the advantage of hindsight, allowing us to pick and choose from the good and the bad results of urbanization in other areas, there are new tools that give us the opportunity to evaluate choices differently, and be more thoughtful and proactive in our growth and development decision making.

Many of you may know that I worked in the Wilson Administration for almost seven years, first as an Assistant Secretary of the State Resources Agency and then as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Governor's office. During that time, I had many wonderful experiences and learned many valuable lessons. In fact, a few of them I will share with you right now - I have had them printed on virtual bumper stickers, so everyone can see them: first, "Its Not A Rational Process," second, "Nature Always Wins," and finally, "There Are No Leaders Without Followers." We'll come back to those later, let's return to the Resources agency. There are a few events that caught my attention and ultimately engaged me in looking for new technology solutions, particularly GIS.

First, I was reading a report written for a Department Director, and the report said that this Department spent approximately $13 million annually on the collection of data, which was almost entirely inaccessible to the public because once collected, it was simply put into the file cabinets of the research biologist or the Game Warden or whoever happened to gather it. It was never shared or "truthed" by anyone except the gatherer of the moment. This not only represented an incredible waste of resources; it also represented what people began to perceive as the arrogance of government, especially by regulatory agencies.

The second significant occurrence came when I needed a map of a region in Southern California, where I was beginning to do some work on an endangered species problem. I asked for information relating to land ownership, frequency and occurrence of the species, natural features, and urbanized areas - a fairly standard list of requests, I believed, but when the product was delivered, it came in two boxes - a single base map and six mylar overlays! I couldn't believe my eyes (Now mind you this WAS in the early 90's.) I was convinced there HAD to be a better way to evaluate the information.

The third significant moment came when we were visited by a gentleman from Australia, where they were building a database called ERIN. There had been a natural disaster or crisis in policy in Australia, and the Prime Minister called all the members of his cabinet to evaluate the possible choices and work through solutions. When they got to the Prime Minister's office, each brought his data and recommendations for solutions, but as it turns out, the substance of their maps differed significantly and they spent three days trying to reconcile differences in the data and decide what was correct and how to deal with the discrepancies. The Prime Minister vowed at that moment that he would direct the development of a common database - so that the next time they came together they could discuss policy, not information and base data. He instituted ERIN, the Environmental Resource Information Network, to build a single database of natural resource data for the entire continent. Well, if Australia could have such a system, why did I still have to have maps and ill-fitting overlays in my office in California? The gauntlet was thrown!

For me, the next step was the most difficult - I was given the prerogative of chairing the Resource Agency's GIS Technology Task Force. Remember, I told you early on that I am not a technically trained person - in fact I still do not operate a VCR, and I have trouble understanding why the function key when pressed three times does the same thing as the mechanical stem on my wristwatch. In any case, there I was sitting in what seemed at the time to be a very large and dark room, trying to explain to all these techno wizard propeller heads what I thought we ought to be doing! And I got the run-around - big time. The answers to most of my questions came in techno-babble: gigabytes, and metadata, and platforms and operating system codes and disc capacities, and black box theories and - you know the stuff - the kind of talk that puts any policy maker into a sound sleep or a technophobic shock almost instantly.

Somehow we got through it all; a few of the techno nerds took pity on me, and the result was CERES, the California Environmental Resources Evaluation System. The State of California's award winning distributed database, and on-line information system, that responds to three of my major concerns - First it gets that expensive data out of the biologist's filing cabinets and makes it available to anyone in the world. Second, it allows for the integration of data layers to produce new information sets that are responsive to individual needs and unique query. Third, it begins to establish a common set of data, so that we don't have to spend our time arguing over the facts, as the Prime Minister's Cabinet did in Australia.

While CERES is not the universal solution, it does begin to give us a glimpse of the promise of information systems and data solutions for policy makers, especially those of us who are concerned about the future of the Great Central Valley. There is a chance to create a new model that includes a healthy economy, a sustainable agricultural industry, and ensure the conservation of the unique natural resources of the region. The key to its accomplishment will be the ability to put all important information we know, all of the data layers, the land base, the predictions and the options on the table - to be debated and discussed and argued by all the interest groups and stakeholders until supportable, sustainable solutions are found for the long term.

I had the opportunity to work on the Natural Communities Conservation Planning Program or NCCP in Southern California, where three of the most populous and fastest growing counties of the state - Orange, Riverside, and San Diego - were almost brought to their knees by a small songbird called the California Gnatcatcher, that was listed as a state and federal endangered species in 1992. With massive amounts of data, and some of the best mapping systems used anywhere, private landowners, local governments, state and federal wildlife agencies and the development community came to agreement over a habitat conservation program that will ensure the viability of the species, and in fact, all of the species in this coastal sage scrub habitat, that will ensure a preserve system of several hundred thousand acres, and allow for development and agriculture to continue in appropriate ways across the region. The complex agreements were absolutely dependent on massive amounts of data, complicated maps, and geographic information systems that were literally created to solve problems as they arose. The NCCP moved GIS from the university laboratories into the supervisors and city council chambers for a brief moment.

Geographic Information Systems have the potential to be the basis for ensuring the successful future of the Central Valley. They can not only demonstrate changes over time, to give us a historic look at past population distribution or vegetation changes, they can also monitor and manage current information in real time, giving us a view of the present that is necessary to understand the complicated interrelationships of natural systems. Geographic Information Systems can provide us with the tools to model alternative futures, and make intelligent and rational choices with a pretty good understanding of the likely impact of those choices.

GIS can be used by planners, assessors and appraisers, by developers and conservationist, by farmers and highway builders, by designers, and downtown redevelopers and by local police. GIS can visually demonstrate social and economic relationships; it can provide images that bring meaning to census tract data and crime statistics, and it can be used to establish medical service areas and cancer clusters. With all this great potential, and all these great uses, why is it necessary to have a discussion about the application and general adoption of GIS? The folks should be knocking down your door waiting in line for their chance to hire you and pay your fabulous salary, right? Not!

Why not?

There are, in fact, still barriers to widespread GIS application, which must be acknowledged and addressed by the inventors and the technicians. First of all, lets be honest about age. Most of the new technologies are simply not understood, and in many cases not trusted by the folks in my generation. (We were the ones over thirty that no one could trust, either) This is a significant issue when you look at the average age of policy makers, bank presidents, and financial advisors. While there are significant exceptions to what I am about to postulate, generally local governments will not, in the near future be the repository for cutting edge GIS applications. There is a significant gap in age and understanding between the folks who are making the investment decisions and approving local government budgets, and those who are capable of offering a wide array of new solutions through the application of new technologies. I believe we are still several years away from having policy makers who really understand and rely on technology and its application, who are willing to tolerate error and risk in the new system as much as they are willing to drive cars that break down occasionally, or take expensive prescriptions that don't always provide cures or follow sometimes unreliable tips for the stock market.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ARE, FOR THE MOST PART, ILL EQUIPPED, EITHER FINANCIALLY OR TEHNICALLY TO IMPLEMENT NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN ANY TIMELY WAY. NEW MODELS FOR PROVIDING ACCESS TO DATA AND SERVICES HAVE TO BE FOUND. University centers, private constoria, memorandum or understanding between multiple partners - there are a range of options to be considered. But it is not even remotely rational to think that all local governments will have their own GIS data systems for anything more than public works and taxation in the near future, and even that may be stretching it.

Data can be efficiently agglomerated on a regional or sub-regional level, but there is a real danger, that without some serious efforts at collaboration, within a region, several data sets will develop simultaneously, and will create unnecessarily redundant information and unnecessary expense. Some data could also come into conflict as it did in Australia. Right now, within the San Joaquin Valley, there are at least half a dozen centers gathering data, hoping to become regional centers, and to the best of my knowledge, most are unaware of each other, and most feel they must compete, rather than collaborate, to see who "wins." IN GIS ESPECIALLY, BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THE INFORMATION, THE EXPENSE OF GATHERING IT AND THE VALUE OF BUILDING ON AN ACCEPTED BASE, COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION ARE ESSENTIAL.

Even though I have described to you some incredible results from the application of GIS technology, it's still pretty complicated - still really only in the purview of the technically elite. One of the bumper stickers I described to you earlier was THERE ARE NO LEADERS WITHOUT FOLLOWERS. Public policy choices for land use, for development and for conservation have to be made by elected officials, who listen to the stakeholders - the developers and the landowners. They listen to the expectations of the public - those of us who form a constituency and express a preference to our leaders. All politics are local. GIS will be most valuable when it reaches the public, and becomes popular and usable, and allows Jack and Jill and their kids to sit around the game table or the monitor after dinner and look at the impacts of different kinds of choices for their own lives. What would the impact on public policy decisions regarding growth in the Central Valley be if folks could model real alternative development scenarios on their network computers the way they play SIM City in the abstract now? I look for the day when real data, simplified and "brightened up" a bit for public consumption forms the base of simulation games like "Sim Valley" and "Sim California." GOOD DATA, NO MATTER HOW ACCURATE AND IMPORTANT WILL NEVER BE WIDELY USED BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC OR BY POLICY MAKERS THAT ARE NOT TRAINED PROFESSIONALS UNLESS IT IS MORE USER FRIENDLY AND SOMEWHAT SIMPLIFIED.

We live in a visual age. We watch television more than we read newspapers, we watch movies and videos more than we read books, and we rely on illustrations to show us how to assemble bicycles and computers, rather than reading long, complicated instruction manuals. GIS, then is perfectly positioned to provide information for a whole host of decisions - but it has to be attractive - easy to understand without a complicated instruction manual or a training session. GIS will become more valuable when it incorporates more simulation - buildings, roads, and airports in 3D, not just two-dimensional lines on a screen. GIS has to become part of the virtual reality revolution, because the next generation, -the generation of kids that are growing up with those funny masks and gloves on, -will not be content to look at lines on a flat map, even if the map represents real time representation of fifty data sets that are modified and updated by satellite photo every fifteen minutes in fifteen second quads.

Back to my mission and the Great Valley Center. The mission is to support organizations and activities that contribute to the economic, social and environmental well-being of California's Central Valley. The Great Valley Center is focused on providing information to support the decision making process in order to strengthen the base in the valley, and give people the opportunity to avoid the patterns and mistakes of the past - to find ways to sustain the agricultural base and diversify the economy. I think it is critical that a regional database be available to policy makers and the public, to demonstrate choices and the possibilities and challenges of future actions. -But it has to be simple, affordable, accessible and credible. It has to support a variety of uses, and demonstrate at the very least, technical collaboration and cooperation across jurisdictional and organizational lines. It has to bring complex government computers into living rooms and boardrooms, schoolrooms and game rooms.

Geographic Information Systems can have an enormous impact on the analysis and evaluation of information. They could be the basis of change, or they can be the purview of the technically elite who sit around in small circles decrying the state of the world, but unable to affect it. The challenge is before you. The opportunity and the potential are great. I hope during the next few days and the coming weeks and months; you will find new ways to meet them both. The gauntlet has been thrown. Thank you.