Ric Skinner of The Stoneybrook Group, LLC is a Certified GIS Professional with over 30 years of professional experience in hospital & healthcare preparedness, health geographics and environmental management. While The Stoneybrook Group is based in Massachusetts it is available to provides services and grant collaboration regionally and nationally. Ric is the book editor and a chapter author of GIS in Hospital and Healthcare Emergency Management. He is an active member of the International Assn. of Emergency Managers (IAEM), Urban & Regional Information Systems Assn. (URISA), and other professional organizations and their listservs. Following the old adage “if I give you a fish you will eat for one meal; if I teach you to fish you will never go hungry,” Ric’s consulting objective is to teach others how to use GIS to meet their needs for assuring that the right people, have the right information, at the right time and in the right format. While he has used ESRI GIS software since the late 1980s, he recognizes that many small organizations and budget-strapped municipalities cannot afford the investment of money and people for a GIS that has many features and functions they really don’t need. That’s why he now focuses on the “leaner and less costly” GIS capabilities that Depiction provides.

I have had the pleasure of working with Ric both virtually and in person. I appreciate his knowledge of GIS, healthcare and policy affecting both, and his desire to foster collaboration and effective use of Depiction. Ric is very enthusiastic about GIS (he has been called a “GIS evangelist”) and about Depiction, both in its current functionality and its potential. We have featured him in two Depiction Perspectives interviews (June 2010 and June 2011), and several blog posts.

For the past year or so, Ric has been working with Chris Floyd of Disaster Resistant Communities Group, to put on the Formidable Footprint online tabletop exercise series. He uses Depiction to produce interactive and static maps that illustrate the location and effects of the disaster for each innovative, free monthly event.

Please contact Ric Skinner via email with any questions and visit The Stoneybrook Group, LLC to learn more about his company.

During the exercise, management and staff will have the opportunity to work together as a unified disaster response team. The team will work through the various activities associated with preparing for, then responding to and recovering from, a category two hurricane. Whether you have a disaster plan in place that you want to assess, or if you are looking for a compelling reason develop one, “Hurricane Biz” will provide you with both the tools and experience to help you reach your goal.

The exercise will be facilitated online using the ON-Line eXercise (ONX) System, and will also make use of Depiction’s mapping capabilities to help businesses better create plans that take their unique geographic location into account. To learn more, visit www.HurricaneBiz.org.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Depiction allows small-business owners, emergency managers, disaster volunteers, families and first responders to find location-based answers for the “what ifs?” they may face, said Depiction Inc. founder and board chairman Mike Geertsen.

“This helps people tell stories about their lives,” he said. “It lets you mix the real and fantasy, lets you ask that ‘What if?’ “…

For $199, Depiction is an affordable way for business owners to create their own continuity plans to prepare for disaster when they’re not using it to craft market strategies.

This is one of the best articles I’ve seen about Depiction anywhere, so if you’re curious about the software–both what it does and how it started–I’d encourage you to read the whole thing.

Click here to view the embedded video.