Earl E. Devaney is an Expert on Tracking Government Spending 

  Redlands, California-December 1, 2009-Earl E. Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, will speak at 5:30 p.m. on December 9, 2009, at ESRI, 350 New York Street, in Redlands. Devaney's talk is part of an ongoing educational and cultural series of speeches, performances, and programs that ESRI and the University of Redlands Town & Gown organization are cosponsoring.

The Recovery Board is the watchdog organization charged with overseeing spending under the $787 billion Stimulus Bill program. Appointed by President Barack Obama in February 2009 to head the Recovery Board, Devaney took leave from the Department of the Interior, where he has served as inspector general since 1999. In announcing Devaney's appointment, the president said, "Earl has doggedly pursued waste, fraud, and mismanagement. He has the reputation of being one of the best [inspectors general] that we have in this town . . . I can't think of a more tenacious and efficient guardian of the hard-earned tax dollars the American people have entrusted us to wisely invest." Devaney previously held the post of director of the Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics, and Training at the Environmental Protection Agency and worked 20 years as a special agent for the Secret Service, where he was recognized as an international expert in white collar crime.

The Recovery Board manages Recovery.gov, an official U.S. government Web site that gives the public access to data on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 spending and provides a way to report fraud, waste, or mismanagement of funds and projects. The Web site uses interactive maps as visual guides for finding detailed spending information covering all 50 states.

Future Town & Gown events include Dr. Larry Burgess, local historian and director of the A.K. Smiley Public Library in Redlands, who will speak at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 13, 2009, on the history of Christmas celebrations in California. Both December events are free to the public and will be held in ESRI's new, state-of-the-art auditorium and followed by a short reception for the speaker and attendees. To register and ensure seating, visit www.esri.com/culturalseries on the Internet or call 909-748-8011.

About University of Redlands Town & Gown
The Town & Gown organization strives to promote a positive relationship between the university ("gown") and the Inland Empire area ("town"), provides scholarships to qualified area students, and showcases the cultural and entertainment activities on campus. Town & Gown membership, which costs $30 annually per household, provides access to specific events as well as a variety of other arts and cultural events on campus. To join, contact the university's Alumni Relations office at 909-748-8011.

 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/news.