City of Vernon and Regional District of North Okanagan receive award for collaborative enterprise implementation

Kamloops, B.C. – The City of Vernon and the Regional District of North Okanagan received an Award of Excellence at ESRI Canada's 2008 Regional Users Conference in Kamloops today. Myron Doherty, Pacific Regional Manager, ESRI Canada, presented the Award in recognition of collaboration and innovation in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). “The Award of Excellence is going to two deserving organizations that have enthusiastically embraced the enterprise GIS approach.” said Mr. Doherty. “The level of cooperation to increase operational efficiencies through shared data, resources and effort is truly commendable and is a great example of how local and regional governments can work together to accomplish their goals.”

The City of Vernon, with a population of 35,944, is the largest municipality within the Regional District of North Okanagan. While the Regional District represents a broad area encompassing the rural needs of residents that live within its border. Despite having some differing interests and concerns these two organizations worked together to reduce overhead costs and duplication of effort by developing a means to share and access their respective datasets for the betterment of all.