Maui Electric Company, Ltd.

Maui Electric Company Earns Top Honors for Innovative Use of GIS Technology

San Diego, California— Maui Electric Company (MECO) stood out from more than 300,000 organizations worldwide that use geographic information system (GIS) software to make a difference in the world. ESRI will present the organization with a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the 27th Annual ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California, June 20.

“ESRI recognizes the passion of our very special users with our Special Achievement in GIS award,” says Jack Dangermond, ESRI president. “The effectiveness of these people to infuse our technology into their real world contexts creates meaning for our efforts. For this we are grateful.”

GIS is a software tool for exploring geographic relationships to better understand how the world works and how it is evolving, connecting, and changing. Virtually unlimited amounts of information can be linked to a geographic location, allowing users to see regions, counties, neighborhoods, and the people who live in them with clarity to solve real- world problems from tracking delivery vehicles to modeling global atmospheric circulation. Government agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations rely on the software to analyze their communities and make better decisions for their well-being.

MECO provides electrical services to all of Maui County, approximately 120,000 people on three populated islands. GIS technology enables the agency to geospatially locate and catalog equipment in its transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure, which helps the organization inventory and model all equipment. The GIS has helped MECO reduce response time to customer requests and provide up-to-date information to communities. In addition to improving the services and communication to the community, the technology helps MECO plan for future system improvements by offering tools to map and perform spatial analysis on the current system.

Other organizations being honored at the 2007 ESRI International User Conference include Society for Conservations GIS, Kenya; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service; The Lyse Energi, Norway; San Francisco Public Utilities Commission; Ball State University and Afterimage GIS; and the Kentucky Department of Public Health.

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 www.esri.com.

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Nikki Snowhite, ESRI
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