"The Award of Excellence is going to two deserving organizations that have enthusiastically embraced the enterprise GIS approach." said Mr. Doherty.  "The level of cooperation to increase operational efficiencies through shared data, resources and effort is truly commendable  and is a great example of how local and regional governments can work together to accomplish their goals."

The City of Vernon, with a population of 35,944, is the largest municipality within the Regional District of North Okanagan. While the Regional District represents a broad area encompassing the rural needs of residents that live within its border.  Despite having some differing interests and concerns these two organizations worked together to reduce overhead costs and duplication of effort by developing a means to share and access their respective datasets for the betterment of all.

They chose ArcGIS Server as a common platform to organize, maintain and serve their datasets.  The advanced geodatabase replication capabilities of ArcGIS Server provides access to critical data maintained by each organization.  With the initial implementation complete, internal employees now have access to data and web mapping applications.  The Regional District chose ESRI Canada's Municipal Template to quickly develop basic ArcGIS Server web mapping functionality, while the City of Vernon chose ESRI Canada Business Partner Latitude Geographic's Geocortex Essentials solution for their ArGIS Server web mapping functionality.

The next phase will see the City of Vernon and the North Okanagan Regional District working collaboratively to deploy a new public facing web mapping application.  They are also actively exploring other opportunities to leverage the geospatial foundation with other enterprise systems and business applications.

"Implementing a common platform to access datasets allows us to share and effectively utilize each other's information for improved analysis and decision making," said Wayne Ikesaka, Information Services Manager, City of Vernon.  "We hope to leverage the collaborative environment for other service areas including emergency response, asset management, and vehicle tracking for existing ground services."

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About ESRI Canada
Established in 1984, ESRI Canada is a Canadian owned company specializing in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions. ESRI Canada distributes the world's leading GIS software solutions from ESRI Inc., Miner and Miner, and Azteca. In order to provide organizations with complete industry-specific solutions ESRI Canada has established an extensive business partner program that includes more than 125 Canadian organizations. ESRI Canada also provides professional services including consulting, training, technical support, and enterprise GIS implementation. ESRI Canada is a leader in providing world-class enterprise GIS solutions for many industries including local government, utilities, public safety and defence, business demographics, education, natural resources, and transportation. ESRI Canada has fifteen regional offices across the country, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit http://www.esricanada.com/ or call 1-800-447-9778.

Media contacts:

Leslie Keyser
Marketing Communications Manager
ESRI Canada
T: 416-441-6035 ext. 6423
E: lkeyser@esricanada.com
W: http://www.esricanada.com/

Wayne Ikesaka
Information Services Manager
City of Vernon
T:  250-550-3540
E:  WIkesaka@vernon.ca
W: http://www.vernon.ca/

Chris Mazzotta
Information Services Manager
Regional District of North Okanagan
T:  250-550-3700
E:  chris.mazzotta@rdno.ca
W: http://www.nord.ca/