Indeed the oil industry is one GIS user segment with huge growth

I noticed Joe F. mentioned the following in a recent posting... "Is geospatial work associated with the oil patch seen as a potential career for GIS students?" Well, indeed, this is a no-brainer really isn't it?? I for one can provide a small example simply by looking at a company I used to work for in Canada. AXYS used to have a couple of small offices and then rolled out a GIS division in their Calgary office in about 1998 or 99. Over the years the GIS division has swelled to dozens of folks and was even scooped up by Jacques Whitford to form Jacques Whitford AXYS Ltd - you'd have to contact them for exact numbers. This is but one small example of the oil and gas industry fueling the growing GIS marketplace and no doubt there's many more... this was happening long before oil approached $100 per barrel and will continue on once it blows past that figure. FYI, for a read on the oil supply being at its peak or not see here