EET&D: ESRI has certainly had a remarkable history over the past forty years. During that time the geospatial market has changed in many ways – especially with regard to the level of public awareness, which is at an all-time high. That’s something that can be attributed in part to your company and even to you personally. Why do you think that happened?

Dangermond: We started the company as a consulting firm specializing in land use and environmental analysis projects with its early mission focused on organizing and analyzing geographic information. We’re very fortunate to have enjoyed steady growth and choose consciously to avoid debt, venture capital or public funding. After about 11 years of doing project work we began to sell our software, which encapsulated in large part our methodology of integrating geographic information to help in decision-making. The expansion of GIS and its applications is a result of many different factors including a growing interest and need for an information and science-based approach. This continues today.

In more recent times there has been a growing awareness that geography matters in so much of what we do. Today, business and government see the tangible benefits of this and are adopting GIS technology much like they did accounting and ERP software several decades ago. It’s not just about having cool project maps; it’s about making companies more efficient and effective with respect to their customers, assets, the environment, and the communities they serve.

EET&D: Would you say that your goals and objectives have changed along the way, or is your original blueprint for the company still intact?

Dangermond: We have stayed closed to our original idea of building tools and methods that bring more rational decision making to the world. We have done this through the GIS technology platform, which is now in over 300,000 organizations. We have not been distracted by other business activities and are very aggressive in our software engineering development efforts. We invest nearly 20% of our revenue in advancing our products. Our approach is to listen closely to what our users want in the product and embrace the newest technology and evolve our platform as a result. This continuous development has sometimes resulted in truly breakthrough GIS technologies. Looking back over the years, however, I believe it’s the continued focus on our users – including their problems and their criticisms – that has been among our key success factors.

EET&D: As someone who has had the opportunity to develop a truly global perspective on geospatial market drivers, issues and trends, I’m sure our readers would like to know how you see the industry evolving over the next 3-5 years, especially given the rather dour economic outlook at this point. Can you perhaps give us a few data points from your personal crystal ball?

Dangermond: We know that the world’s resources are limited. We also know we are placing more and more strain on our environment. Our infrastructures are aging. On top of our economic crisis, these problems are literally challenging our sustainability. One of the reasons GIS is growing so rapidly is that it responds to the need to see our world holistically and provides valuable information to help make geographic decisions about how best to respond to rising demands and diminishing resources. GIS can help guide us.

One of my very first projects was finding the right path to route a new transmission line. We needed to understand the optimal way to meet the added demands for electricity and, in this case, to minimize the impact on the environment. GIS was used to overlay all the factors – social, environmental, economic, landowners, etc. – and pick the optimum route. The computer graphics we used were not as good as what we have today, but the quantitative and visual framework allowed everyone to appreciate the solution – the company, citizens, and regulatory authorities. Today, we need more guidance than ever. We believe that our technology and the smart people who use it are changing the world by solving problems using analytical approaches that result in better decisions and management.

EET&D: The current economic situation being what it is, and with nearly everyone in a state of concern about the future at practically every level, I’d like to jump right into your proposal for creating a National GIS database – or GIS for the Nation, as you call it. It certainly seems like a novel and creative concept, but maybe you could start with the salient points of what you have in mind.

Dangermond: GIS for the Nation has to do with server-based, Web-enabled GIS portals for sharing information. This will create an up-to-date comprehensive view of our nation using GIS. Our new president wants and needs this kind of system. His desire for everyone to see where the stimulus money is going, knowing that it’s going to the most important things and will be managed with full transparency and accountability, would be directly addressed with such a system.

Geographic data including parcels, wildlife habitats, land features, a base map, topographic information, imagery, and elevation models would all be part of this system. Public and private users could add and share their own data as a means of collaborating and designing our future. The idea is that it be multi-participant and available to both public and private applications. This program would deliver benefits at all levels of government and business that would result in better decision-making, more collaboration and better use of our resources. Also, the level of communication would increase dramatically.

Some have called such a system a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) that provides highways for serving and sharing large amounts of geographic imagery and information. Such a system is already emerging and being useful in many settings from sustainable development to climate change to emergency response. As you know, a principal focus of the current stimulus package is to develop infrastructure. GIS already plays a valuable role in designing modern infrastructure from building roads to implementing energy smart grids. A national system would simply expand our common geographic knowledge and be immensely useful to a wide range of people and organizations as we face infrastructure development in the months and years ahead.

EET&D: How would you characterize the role of utilities in this effort towards creating a National GIS database?

Dangermond: There are four areas of measurable change that have recently occurred in the utility sector, resulting in a transformation of GIS for utilities. These areas are: 1) Wider use of GIS to support their business; 2) Integration with other enterprise systems; 3) GIS participation in organizational workflows; and finally, 4) A greater need to use internal and external information sources in day-to-day operations. All of this has positioned an increasing number of utilities as a rich and expanding source of quality GIS data that can help create the foundation for such a system.

EET&D: Let’s briefly address these items one at a time, starting with how utility GIS proliferation helps utilities support their business. Also, I suspect that ‘integration with other enterprise systems’ – your second point – is probably related to that answer, so it would probably make sense to discuss both of these together.

Dangermond: Yes, I think that’s a valid perspective, but I want to let Bill take that one on, since systems integration is one of his strong suits.

Meehan: Utilities have historically segmented their work and their information systems have tended to follow these segmented processes. Today, utilities need to have access to information from a variety of sources presented in simple to understand ways. Our industry now demands accurate and current information. We can’t be checking in the field every time we need to change out a switch because we have discrepancies in our many systems. Integration allows utilities to discover things they could not see alone in a single system. That’s what makes GIS so exciting for utilities; it provides them with new knowledge so they can make better decisions.

EET&D: I have some ideas about what you mean by ‘GIS participation in organizational workflows’, but rather than guess, how would you characterize the levels and types of participation?

Dangermond: We have worked hard with our customers to understand their workflows and evolved our spatial technology to enhance those workflows. A very simple example is how a utility handles street light outages. Several users have implemented a system that allows customers to go online to report a streetlight out by pointing at a map showing where the damaged light is in relation to where they are. Sometimes this is accompanied with a phone call. This saves the investigative costs and fundamentally changes the workflow for everyone.

Customers and the utility discover exactly which light it is. The utility then creates the work order, integrates the work order with other work the repair crew is doing, optimizes the work route, notifies the supply chain and accounting systems, and keeps track of street light repair to report to the regulators. The GIS plays a pivotal role in that workflow.

EET&D: And finally, most utility people would agree that there is indeed ‘a greater need to use internal and external information sources in day-to-day operations‘. What, in particular do you have in mind for how a National GIS might play into that scenario and vice-versa?

Dangermond: The most obvious need is during times of great national stress. This could be a natural disaster, a financial crisis or a terrorist action. During these times we need ready access to information to deploy first responders, to identify where jobs are being lost or where to deploy relief materials. Information is needed to plan and prepare for these events in creative ways so when these crises hit, we will be ready. Bill, is there anything you’d like to add to that?

Meehan: Utilities and governments spend enormous time and energy building information. Yet they may not have either the resources or the knowledge to maintain the data. An electric utility, for example, needs to know about vegetated wetland delineation near its transmission right of way, yet they really have no way of knowing when its characteristics have changed.  Having ready access to the National GIS where information is gathered from the people who created the data would provide timely and easy access to that kind of information.

EET&D: Most Americans – and indeed people around the world – have been closely following the Obama administration’s economic Stimulus Plan. Now that it has been signed into law, how will a National GIS provide help or support this massive and potentially far-reaching plan?

Dangermond: A National GIS is uniquely capable of providing unity to the Stimulus Plan. As a cornerstone program, it will enable leaders to achieve the greatest results for each taxpayer dollar spent. With initiatives such as Imagery for the Nation, The National Map, and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, federal agencies including USGS, Census Bureau, NOAA, DHS, and DOI have already formed the foundation for a National GIS. Moreover, a National GIS will immediately create high tech jobs and engage hundreds of private firms while supporting infrastructure improvements and energy initiatives.

EET&D: What is the present role of GIS, and how would that change as a result of having a National GIS if such a database were to be created?

Dangermond: GIS is already deeply entrenched in both the business and societal dimensions of everyday life. It is used extensively in planning and managing infrastructure, disaster response and economic development as well as increasing efficiency; advancing science, conserving nature and the environment; improving human health; and enhancing security – just to name a few of the most prominent ones.

The creation of a National GIS would change everything from how we reason about national issues to how we organize, communicate and share information. It would also encourage and enable working, acting and reacting to business challenges in a systematic and scientific way. Moreover, a National GIS would provide a uniform foundation for developing more holistic, analytical and quantitative approaches to problem-solving resulting in visual solution sets that can be easily understood and interpreted by a much broader set of users.

EET&D: That all sounds quite interesting, but can you offer some specific examples of how and where it might be used?

Meehan: The potential applications are endless, but traditional GIS applications such as land parcels, wildlife habitats, topographic data, satellite and photogrammetric imagery and elevation data would probably be among the first to derive benefits almost immediately. Just having all of those kinds of information in one place would yield huge economies of scale and efficiency at substantially all levels of the public and private sectors. And building a National GIS would immediately stimulate economic activity, very quickly creating more than 24,000 high-tech and support jobs. It would also provide an invaluable information resource for getting stimulus infrastructure projects up and running much faster than might otherwise be possible.

EET&D: Job creation is, of course, a very important issue these days. Could you be more specific about the kinds of jobs you see coming out of this effort?

Meehan: Yes. We think that besides 500 senior-level GIS positions, something on the order of 2,500 geospatial analysts and 5,000 data collection and mapping technicians would be needed. We would also see the creation of some 16,000 support positions as the initiative moves forward.

EET&D: So what is needed to put such a capability in place?

Dangermond: Clearly, the implementation of such an ambitious undertaking will require much more than just data and technology. Vision and leadership on several levels will be paramount to success as will the need for getting the right people into the right places early in the process. From a cost standpoint, we’re looking at less than $1.5 billion, which by today’s standards, is actually a fairly modest figure.

EET&D: How long would you expect it to take to put a National GIS in place?

Dangermond: That really depends in part on how we approach the task from an organizational leadership standpoint. The Secretary of the Interior – the lead agency for geospatial is currently leading this initiative, but another alternative would be the creation of a national GIS trust fund. It would be inappropriate to try to put a timeline out there until that path is determined since it would almost certainly be wrong.

EET&D: Any final comments on how this might all play out from this point forward?

Dangermond: Clearly we’re at a crossroads on multiple levels at this point in our history. We’ll need to bring together every technological tool at our disposal if we’re going to turn the corner and return to prosperity sooner rather than later. A National GIS is clearly one of those technological tools that has the potential to expedite that process and significantly improve the outcomes.