The Houston Local Interest Group serves all Information Technology professionals in our Gulf Coast region: from Galveston to Conroe, Katy to Baytown. All general meetings are free, and open to IT practitioners, consultants, and vendors alike. Technically, our membership area encompasses the populous 10-county Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

It's no wonder, then, that we have an active itSMF Local Interest Group. The mission shared by all itSMF LIGs is to provide a forum for our membership to enable them to exchange views, share experiences, and participate in the continuous development of best practices and standards.

Your company may already be an itSMF organizational member. If so, you can enjoy all the benefits of membership even if you aren't a voting member. For details about itSMF USA membership, visit the Membership Information page at the national chapter's Website.

Can you participate without being a paying member? Sure you can. You can attend our free meetings, held every two to three months; you can add yourself to our mailing list to be sure to receive meeting notices and announcents; and you can register on our Forums for 7/24 collaboration with other IT Service Management professionals in Houston.

Because we are a vendor-neutral organization, your contact information will never be shared with other companies, and all LIG participants must conform to our simple Code of Ethics for the protection of all our members.

Passionate about ITSM and can spare a couple of hours per month? We may have a committee that needs you. Contact Us for information about volunteering.

And an impressive Metropolitan Statistical Area it is. We rank third in the number of Fortune 500 headquarters, behind only New York and Chicago. Of the 100 world's largest non-U.S.-based corporations, more than half have operations in Houston.

Our MSA covers 10,062 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Maryland, but larger than Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, or Vermont. The Houston MSA's Gross Area Product (GAP) in 2005 was $308.7 billion, up 5.4 percent from 2004. Only 28 nations other than the United States have a Gross Domestic Product exceeding Houston's GAP.

Our MSA had 5.18 million inhabitants in mid-2004. Were it a state, it would rank 21st, ahead of Minnesota and behind Wisconsin. Its population exceeds that of North and South Dakota, Alaska, Delaware, Vermont, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia combined, and we're home to more people than Norway, Singapore, New Zealand, or Ireland.