Stephen F. Austin State University

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will officially dedicate Stephen F. Austin State University’s Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center Thursday after touring the state-of-the-art facility she has championed since its creation.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the Columbia Center, located at 106 S. Pecan St. in downtown Nacogdoches. Following some brief public remarks by the senator, the center will be open to the public for tours.

“Not only will we be officially dedicating the center on Thursday, but it will also be an opportunity to acknowledge and thank all the people throughout the region who have supported us in this endeavor,” said Dr. James Kroll, the center’s director. “Of course, the Columbia Center has no greater supporter than Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and we look forward to expressing our appreciation to her, as well.”

Established by Congress in 2005, the Columbia Center is the national model for a growing network of regional centers, delivering the most up-to-date geospatial information and tools for regional support in the areas of emergency planning and response, economic development and natural resource management. The Columbia Center also provides backup services, data storage and redundancy to other regional centers and serves as a conduit between local, state and federal entities.

As a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Hutchison has secured a total of $10.1 million in funding for the network, which now includes regional centers at the University of Texas at El Paso and Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The director anticipates a new center at Lamar University in Beaumont will be added in 2008. Representatives from the other centers will be attending the dedication ceremony, along with university officials and emergency managers and planners from Nacogdoches and surrounding counties.

“This wonderful new facility will help the Columbia Center continue its already outstanding efforts,” Hutchison said. “I am so proud of the work the center has done so far, and I am glad to support it.”

In the short time since its creation, the Columbia Center has played an important role in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Umberto by providing emergency maps identifying evacuation routes and locations of shelters and other critical services, as well as probability maps for damage to the electrical grid. The Columbia Center also provided invaluable mapping information to federal authorities following the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy in February 2003.

For more information, contact the SFA Office of Public Affairs at (936)468-2605.