Utility Recognized for Application of Geospatial Technology Based on ESRI's ArcGIS Desktop Platform

Seattle, Washington— April 1, 2008 - Gainesville Regional Utilities took home the 2008 GITA Excellence Award at the Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference held March 9–12, 2008, in Seattle, Washington. The award, given by the Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA), recognizes dedication, insight, and a high degree of initiative in the outstanding application of geospatial technology. The utility's award-winning enterprise is built and maintained using geographic information system (GIS) technology from worldwide GIS software leader ESRI as well as ESRI business partners.

"ESRI technology gives us the advantage of spatial perspective," said Kevin Brown, a GIS project manager for Gainesville Regional Utilities. "We can start with a location and then aggregate business data from corporate systems such as billed consumption, load capacity, and growth trends that combine census data with historical and projected growth."

Gainesville depends on ESRI's ArcGIS Desktop throughout the company to manage electric, gas, water, wastewater, reclaimed water, and telecommunications among more than 200 direct and indirect system users. ArcGIS Desktop helps Gainesville analysts, supervisors, and managers discover patterns, relationships, and trends in data that are not readily apparent in databases, spreadsheets, or statistical packages. Beyond showing utility facilities as symbolized points and lines on a map, field-workers and customer care workers have the power to quickly update, manage, and integrate data. With the tools to model and automate operational processes, Gainesville reports a substantial savings of cost and resources.

" ArcGIS Desktop provides a platform of spatial information to serve nearly all major elements of the utility business," said Bill Meehan, director of utility solutions at ESRI. "It is a delight when a utility such as Gainesville reaps the benefits of the successful application of the geographic approach."

For more information on GITA conferences and awards, visit www.gita.org.

About ESRI

Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit www.esri.com.

Press Information:

Jessica Wyland
ESRI
Tel.: 909-793-2853, extension 1-3345
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