The Nisqually Tribe’s GIS department, which is house in their natural resources section, was recently recognized at the 2012 Esri International User Conference. Here is more on the tribe’s award:
The Nisqually Indian Tribe received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the Esri International User Conference (Esri UC) in San Diego, California held July 25, 2012. This award, accepted by the tribe’s GIS program manager, Jennifer Cutler, acknowledges vision, leadership, hard work, and innovative use of Esri’s geographic information system (GIS).
Using Esri ArcGIS technology, the Nisqually Indian Tribe’s GIS program is implementing a project that will expand access to information by tribal government staff, tribal members, and the broader community through web mapping applications.
And, more on the tribe’s GIS program:
The Nisqually Indian Tribe’s GIS Program was established in 2005 to support the mission of the Natural Resources Department. This mission is to protect, restore, and enhance the utilization of the Nisqually Indian Tribe’s cultural resources and treaty rights.
As staff outside the Natural Resources Department learned of the in-house GIS capabilities, demand for services from the GIS Program quickly increased, initially with the support of the Planning Department, and eventually to most departments across the tribal government.
In response to this increased demand on the GIS Program, in late 2010, the tribe initiated a project to improve access and scope of GIS within the tribal government. The goal of the project was to assess the broad GIS data and application needs of the government beyond the specific needs of the Natural Resource Department, improve GIS data and file management, and increase GIS capacity through web services.
