The award recognizes the unique and significant contributions of organizations that have used geospatial technology in the innovative development of a technology, service, or application. The award was presented during GITA’s Annual Conference 29, held April 23-26, 2006, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla.

 In 2005, the Gas Asset Management department of PSE&G designed, built, and deployed a gas facility GIS solution to address existing gaps in facility information availability, asset management planning, and maintenance functions within the organization. The project strategy was to limit customization of the core GIS software and manually digitize only the critical records to minimize conversion costs. The deliverable of a gas GIS with associated customer, leak, damage, and cathodic protection data was met, including everything from the maintenance interface to the work management system.

 To meet the deliverable and timeline, the project team correlated the digitized wall map data—gas mains, valves, and regulators—with the supporting and related tabular information using geospatial data processing and proximity-driven automated and semi­automated conversion tools. To do this, the team established and documented the connectivity rules and attribute-driven relationships between digitized and geocoded features and then created the custom routines to push data attributes and snap connected objects.

"PSE&G's gas GIS project presented unique challenges. I am proud of the way the diverse project team of consultants, IT personnel, and business representatives worked together to accomplish a very difficult task given the formidable timeline and scope of effort and am happy to accept the Innovator Award on their behalf," said Alice MacPhee, project manager—Gas Asset Information & System Policy.

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The mission of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) is to provide excellence in education, information exchange and applied research on the use and benefits of geospatial information and technology in business, utility and government applications worldwide. Visit GITA on the Web at www.gita.org.