Commission receives special GIS achievement award

HAND-SELECTED FROM 100,000 USERS WORLDWIDE

The Cape Cod Commission is among 175 organizations selected to receive Esri’s Special Achievement in GIS Award.

Founded in 1969, Esri pioneered the development and use of GIS map-based applications. It now boasts 350,000 clients worldwide, 3,000 employees, 10 U.S. offices and 1,800-plus partners.

Recipients of the Special Achievement in GIS award are submitted by Esri staff from thousands of organizations worldwide, then personally reviewed and selected by Esri president and founder Jack Dangermond. Of 100,000 possible recipients, the Commission’s GIS work was among 175 selected for this honor in 2014.

“I congratulate you and your colleagues on a job well done,” Dangermond wrote in the notification email to Commission Executive Director Paul Niedzwiecki.

The Commission’s investment in GIS capabilities is an integral part of its history over the past 24 year. In the past five years, it increasingly serves as the foundation for combining complex data to simplify decision-making around complex policy development.

“I’m proud of the work we do in GIS. It’s about visualizing the planning challenges we face every day in a way that makes them real, accessible and solvable,” Niedzwieki said. “I’ve always said that the Commission has one of the best GIS departments anywhere. ”

The Commission’s GIS Department supports the planning and regulatory work of the agency and provides technical assistance to Cape Cod’s 15 fifteen towns and other Barnstable County departments. Assistance ranges from GIS data collection, storage, analysis, and publication through specific applications. It also a service center for regional GIS data and digital maps with hundreds of theme-based layers that can be used by town GIS departments and their consultants, nonprofit agencies, and businesses.

The Commission’s GIS efforts were also recognized for the migration of data to the Local Government Information Model, which will further open data and functionality for use by the Commission, towns and the public.

Examples of GIS applications developed by the Commission can be found at http://www.capecodcommission.org/departments/technicalservices/GIS