Expanded Missoula County GIS system earns recognition from ESRI

Happy GIS Day, Missoula County.

We might overlook it in our rush to the holidays and/or the Griz-Cat game, but every third Wednesday of November the nation celebrates the exhilarating world of geographic information systems.

County commissioners will mark this one Wednesday when they receive a special GIS achievement award at their weekly public meeting, for their part in opening the county’s doors to that world.

"The award was given in part because there was some really good work done in Missoula County to modernize the Internet-based mapping system," explained Bryant Ralston of Missoula, an accounting executive for the high-tech company Esri http://www.esri.com/ .

One fruit of those efforts: For the first time, voters in the election a couple of weeks ago could click on a map on the election office website to find out where to vote and what precinct, Senate and House districts they were voting in.

"A cartographic wonder," said Ralston, whose company helped implement the system.

By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_1ae9c076-f200-11df-b2d4-001cc4c002e0.html