Mr. Furr has worked in the field of cartography for over thirty-two years. He spent the first thirteen years at the USGS in Denver before accepting his current position as Manager of Cartography with the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Wayne is also the secretary of the Oklahoma Board on Geographic Names. As secretary, he answers numerous questions about Oklahoma’s vast expanse of geographic names, keeps the records of the Oklahoma-BGN, and make recommendations to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. He is a member of the Oklahoma State GIS Council’s Technical Subcommittee, where he promotes official geographic-name usage among other members of the Council. He was a Principal Investigator for the Phase II compilation of Oklahoma names for the Geographic Names Information System. Current projects include: (1) compiling a record of all geologic maps for Oklahoma with entry into the USGS National Geologic Map Database and (2) researching the origins and histories of Oklahoma names for future publication.

In 1973, Wayne received an Associates Degree from Red Rocks Community College, Golden, Colorado, where he studied drafting and surveying; a Bachelors Degree in Geography, summa cum laude (1989) with additional graduate work from the University of Oklahoma. He has taught cartography at the University of Oklahoma and is presently on the Geography Department’s Board of Visitors. He is the Executive Secretary of the Council of Geographic Names Authorities, former Chairman of the Consortium of Oklahoma Geographers, an Executive Council Member of the American Name Society, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi, and the Golden Key National Honor Society.

His interest in the Digital Gazetteer Information Exchange Workshop is that of geographic-name information sharing, especially in the area of standardization. He feels that standardization comes through education about the official geographic names, including the principles, policies, and procedures that apply to their application for placement on maps and in publications.