The Greenbrier Chamber of Commerce rolled out its new logo and a new city map at a business after hours event Monday night at the city municipal building.
Love Hines, executive director of the chamber said, "There hasn't been (a new map) in 10 years, and the town has grown quite a bit. It's a nice, color, topographical map. One side goes up to the county line, the other side goes down to Springhill, and it goes as far west as Wooster. With the new elementary school going in, we thought we needed to include that."
Kyle Engelhardt of Tyler Surveying discussed the making of the map and its features. He said the fact that the city map had not been updated in 10 years made the project take a while.
"We had to pull from a lot of different resources, everything from emergency management to Google Earth," he said. "I work for a surveying company, so we have a lot of data that goes back several years. The entire project lasted the better part of three months. The majority was adding roads that were not on any maps at all."
He added, "I'm very pleased with it. It's my first map and I'm very pleased with how it turned out."
Engelhardt said the new city map is a little different from typical maps in that it is two-sided. One side is a large area of the county that includes Wooster. There is also a street index that includes streets outside Greenbrier, he said.
Jeff Jackson, general manager of Tyler Surveying, said the map is a good foundation for the future because it establishes a way for the city to "step into" the Geographic Information System.
Engelhardt displayed examples of GIS, digitized maps that the user can interact with. On part of the digitized Greenbrier map, he plotted existing fire hydrants and placed 200- and 300-foot circles around the fire hydrants to indicate where additional fire hydrants might be needed. He also displayed a copy of a digitized Maumelle map that has sewer pipes indicated by different colored lines.
Hines said maps will be available at city hall at the water department and the city event center as well as some area banks, real estate agencies and title companies.
Chamber President Sammy Hartwick said of the map, "It really looks good. I think everyone's going to be real impressed."
The new chamber logo, featuring shades of green and the slogan "Greenbrier: The Place to Call Home," was also unveiled Monday night. The logo was designed by 501 Advertising, Hines said.
Board member Jon Patrom said of the logo, "I'm very excited. I think it gives us a new image for what we're doing and where we're going We're on a completely different page."
Patrom said the chamber will hold a meeting in September "to discuss our vision and mission."
He said since hiring Hines, the chamber has held its annual banquet and Monday's after hours event. Upcoming events include a teacher breakfast and a business expo in the fall. The chamber will also soon release a new magazine-style membership directory, he noted.
"The chamber was started and did great and served well for its purposes. The city's changed and we needed a major makeover," he said. "The face of Faulkner County is changing, and we felt like we needed to step up to the plate."
Chamber Vice President Barbara Lorenz said, "I love the new logo because it's new, it's innovative, it's up and coming, it's where we're going. We're heading into a new era."
(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
