My name is Tom Rauch. I am a Continuing Education Specialist at UC Berkeley Extension, Arts Letters and Sciences, responsible for developing new courses and curricula in computers and information systems. I am also a Lecturer in the Graduate School of Business Administration at St. Mary's College in Moraga, where I teach business strategy to MBA candidates. Prior to joining UC Extension last October, I evaluated the feasability of developing a GIS consulting practice for a high-tech firm in the North Bay area. Over a two year period, I developed a strong understanding of the functions and capabilities of GIS, particularly as they relate to vertical market applications. I also made — and continue to maintain — contact with GIS specialists, vendors, and educators in California. Based on my previous experiences, I was asked by UC Extension to explore the possibility of developing a coherent GIS curricula targeting adult learners in the Bay Area. Accordingly, I am working with several potential instructors to create courses in GIS for inclusion in our Spring 1997 catalog. In addition, we ran two information session in June which attracted about forty students per two-hour session. Our goal at Extension is to create a program allowing adult learners to move through a sequence of well-defined courses with specific learning objectives, and develop good problem-solving skills at the analytical and technical level. In these classes, we will stress the importance of drawing valid conclusions from data processed through a GIS system. Our program will emphasize enterprise-wide systems integration, applications development using an object-oriented approach, GIS and SQL in a distributed database environment, and the impact of inter-and-intranets on building and maintaining a GIS