Realizing the growing importance of GIS in business, Dr. William Tallon, Chair of the Department of Operations Management and Information Systems (OMIS) in the College of Business at NIU, began to take action in the Fall 1996 semester. He prepared a grant proposal for GIS hardware and software from Intergraph Corporation, a leading worldwide vendor of GIS systems. The following semester, Intergraph responded by donating a server and 12-station Windows NT computer laboratory to the OMIS Department. Intergraph and NIU also entered into an alliance that recognized NIU as one of six Intergraph Centers of Excellence in the United States. This is a special recognition that is a privilege given only to universities for which multiple departments cooperate and promote student learning of GIS. NIU's Department of Operations Management and Information Systems in the College of Business and Department of Geography in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are the partners in this effort. It seems most appropriate that the Business Geographics Center should originate as a result of cooperation between two seemingly diverse disciplines as geography and business. We owe a special thanks to Susan L. Nolen, Executive Consultant in Business Development at Intergraph Corporation, for her time and effort in providing NIU with state-of-the-art GIS software from Intergraph. A second GIS alliance was established in October 1999 between Microsoft Corporation and the OMIS Department in the College of Business at Northern Illinois University. Microsoft introduced its MapPoint 2000 desktop mapping software during the summer of 1999. Microsoft provided the OMIS Department with twenty copies of Microsoft MapPoint 2000 as a public relations venture providing Microsoft with an example of how GIS technology is used in business classes in universities. We are greatful to Angie Ong, Product Manager--MapPoint, and Microsoft for providing us with this opportunity and a continued, long-term alliance. Microsoft MapPoint 2001 was introduced by Microsoft in March 2000, and Microsoft has generously provided 40 copies of MapPoint 2001 to our Business Geographics Center. More recently, BJ Holtgrewe, Senior Product Manager and Technical Evagelist of Microsoft Corporation, has provided 40 copies of MapPoint 2002 and Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition. This most generous donation will allow our students to develop COM add-ins and Visual Basic applications using the MapPoint 2002 object model. Many developments have transpired in order to make the Business Geographics Center a reality. They are summarized as follows: Interested College of Business faculty attended a MicroStation (CAD basis for mapping) training session at the NIU Geography Department. A number of College of Business faculty have attended a week-long MGE training session at Intergraph headquarters in Hunstville, Alabama. The Intergraph equipment and software were installed in the Advanced Applications Center in Wirtz Hall, home of the NIU College of Business. Class materials for a business geographics course were developed by Dr. Richard G. Born, Associate Professor of MIS in the OMIS Department. The OMIS Department offered its first course ever in business geographics during the Spring 1999 semester. Dr. Born gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled The Geographic Information Systems Initiative to the OMIS Executive Advisory Council at its March 1999 meeting. Dr. Born attended the Business Geographics Conference '99 (BGC99) held at Navy Pier in Chicago from October 4-6, 1999. Many vendors displayed the latest developments in GIS technology, and there were numerous seminars available in all areas of business use of geographics. Business Geographics was offered as a course for the second time, with a major change in content from a study of MGE to GeoMedia Professional and MapPoint 2000. The NIU Curriculum Committee approved a new course, OMIS 679--Business Geographics. This course is designed as an elective in the Master of Science Program in Management Information Systems. Dr. Born attended training classes at Intergraph headquarters during May 2000, learning how to create interactive mapping web sites for business using Intergraph's GeoMedia Web Map product. The NIU Curriculum Committee approved a new course, OMIS 379--Business Applications Geographic Information Systems. This course is designed as an elective in the B.S. program in Operations and Information Management. This course will be offered for the first time during the Spring 2002 semester. During June 2001 Dr. Born attended a one-week training course on ESRI's ArcGIS 8 product line. During April 2002, Dr. Born attended the Business Geographics Conference in Toronta, Canada.