ESRI's Small Utility ELA Program Provides Necessary GIS Technology

Redlands, California—February 11, 2009—Rio Grande Electric Cooperative improved its mapping and communication capabilities by securing better access to geographic information system (GIS) technology through ESRI's Small Utility Enterprise License Agreement (SU-ELA) program. The SU-ELA program makes it easier and more affordable for utilities in the United States with 100,000 meters/connections or fewer to get started or expand their GIS.

Rio Grande Electric Cooperative serves 11,804 meters spread throughout 18 counties in Texas and 2 in New Mexico . The utility maintains 9,416 miles of energized line, 143 miles of transmission line, and 116 miles of underground line.

"We have a large service territory and only 1.25 meters per mile," said Conrad Dalton, Rio Grande Electric's information technology manager. "We look forward to taking this next step in digital mapping. With improved maps and mobile GIS, our linemen will not have to bother with cumbersome paper maps in the field. The enhanced GIS will make our utility more efficient and should improve customer service and outage restoration times."

Through the SU-ELA program, Rio Grande Electric is assured unlimited deployments to desktop, server, and mobile devices of ESRI's ArcGIS platform. Additional program benefits include maintenance and support for products, staff training, and passes to ESRI's International User Conference.

"With all the ESRI products built in, the ELA will allow our GIS to grow along with our utility," Dalton said. "With faster access to information, we will be able to provide our members with a higher level of service. We plan to fully utilize GIS and keep expanding its capabilities."

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 about 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
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