City of Wauchula, Wheatland Electric Cooperative, and Central Alabama Electric Cooperative Join ESRI's Small Utility Enterprise License Agreement Program

Redlands, California—May 12, 2009—Three utilities recently joined ESRI's Small Utility Enterprise License Agreement (SU-ELA) program with plans to expand the use of geographic information system (GIS) technology. Wheatland Electric Cooperative in Kansas, the City of Wauchula in Florida, and Central Alabama Electric Cooperative are now working to increase the accuracy of network data with GIS-based digital mapping capabilities for desktop, server, and mobile devices.

ESRI designed the SU-ELA program to make GIS more affordable for small utilities in the United States with 100,000 meters/connections or fewer. Through the SU-ELA program, utilities are assured unlimited deployments of ESRI's ArcGIS platform over a three-year term. Additional program benefits include maintenance and support for products, staff training, and passes to the ESRI International User Conference.

Mark Dinkel, GIS administrator for Wheatland Electric Cooperative, said, "During the last ice storm, our crews were able to use GIS-based maps to highlight areas with poles down. They could look up construction material, order it, and have it delivered right on-site. The use of GIS significantly improved our response time during that storm. Expanded mobile GIS technology through the SU-ELA program makes it easier for our crews to locate the problem and create an outage report."

John Gibney, network administrator for the City of Wauchula, commented, "With the use of GIS, we have been able to create an accurate pole count and an up-to-date land base map to help with maintenance, customer service, and joint use tracking. The SU-ELA program also enables us to expand GIS into our water and sewer operations."

Mack Wainwright, GIS supervisor for Central Alabama Electric Cooperative, said, "We are using GIS to maintain a digital inventory and visual representation of our equipment. With unlimited deployments of ESRI software, our crews are able to make updates in the field. From a financial standpoint, the ELA saves us money over three years. Plus, we can take advantage of the additional support and training from ESRI."

At the heart of the SU-ELA program is ESRI's ArcGIS software, an open, scalable, and interoperable platform that provides a complete system to create, serve, and use geographic information. An enterprise GIS based on ArcGIS technology benefits designers, analysts, decision makers, field staff, and customers through mobile, Web server, and desktop applications.

For more information on the SU-ELA program and to listen to the SU-ELA podcast, visit www.esri.com/suela. To speak to an expert, call 800-447-9778, extension 2990.

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 us at www.esri.com.



Contact:

Jessica Wyland,
ESRI
Tel.: 909-793-2853, extension 1-3345
E-mail: Email Contact

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