Montana Census & Economic Information Center Wins Award for Innovation with Mapping Technology

The Montana Census & Economic Information Center (CEIC) received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California. This award acknowledges GIS Coordinator Leslie Zolman’s substantial work establishing an interactive map site for CEIC using Esri’s ArcGIS Online product.

As part of the Montana Department of Commerce, CEIC receives over a thousand requests for data and maps each year – many of which are from similar datasets but cover different geographic areas. When Esri released the Beta version of ArcGIS Online in January 2012, Zolman saw an opportunity to leverage the platform to make census and economic information available at any scale and location within Montana.

By creating a library of maps, the public can now interact with the published data via the CEIC website and customize maps for their own needs. Patterns within and between datasets can be investigated, saved, and shared by users. Adding to Zolman’s achievement is her development of the site without additional hardware, funding or staff.

"The SAG Awards identify the organizations and people that are using the power of geography to improve our world and drive change," said Esri president Jack Dangermond. "At Esri, we are always deeply inspired by the passion and innovation of our users. They deserve recognition for both solving their communities’ greatest challenges and for their invaluable contributions to the continued evolution of geographic science."

Organizations from around the world honored at the Esri UC span industries including agriculture, cartography, climate change, defense and intelligence, economic development, education, government, health and human services, telecommunications, and utilities.

For more information about the 2013 Special Achievement in GIS Award winners, including project information and photos, please visit esri.com/sag. To view and interact with CEIC’s ArcGIS Online map library, please visit ceic.mt.gov/Maps/InteractiveMapsIndex.aspx.

About Esri

Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, 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 us at esri.com/news.

Copyright © 2013 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, the Esri globe logo, esri.com and @Esri are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners.