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King County GIS Center

King County GIS Center

Statement of Qualifications

KCGIS Center Annual Report thumbnail imageExecutive Summary

The King County GIS (KCGIS) Center is pleased to submit this statement of our qualifications to provide geographic information systems (GIS) services. The KCGIS Center commitment is to help our customers put GIS to work to meet their priority business goals. Whether we are working for a city or a county, a utility, transit agency, or a special district, a business or private citizen, we deliver GIS based solutions that provide business value to our clients.

Introduction

The King County GIS Center is the single most extensive and capable GIS operation in the Pacific Northwest. Our unique blend of enterprise GIS resources, end-user experience, and highly capable client services helps us deliver exceptional value to our customers. The KCGIS Center team is comprised of more than two dozen highly qualified GIS professionals with a wide array of technical competencies to ensure the GIS services and products we offer meet customer’s needs and are delivered in a timely manner. The breadth of the GIS services we provide and the depth of the technical resources available for our customers make the KCGIS Center a unique service provider:

  • We operate and maintain core enterprise GIS resources (data warehouse, database administration, application development, etc.) for more than 4,800 internal King County GIS users and for the public at large.
  • We provide matrixed GIS staffing services to meet customers’ in-house GIS staffing needs.
  • We provide custom on-demand GIS client services and operate an extensive technical GIS training program.

Most King County GIS resources and services are available to outside agencies and many are also used indirectly by
King County businesses and residents.

Staff Resources

The King County GIS Center is currently staffed with 28 FTE positions, plus system administration service provided via King County IT. All but one of these positions is a GIS professional. Our management team is comprised of working managers who maintain involvement in projects where their specialized experience is needed to ensure the best possible value for our clients.

Innovation

KCGIS Center staff members are all experts within their GIS specialties, but they are also innovators. We approach each customer with an open mind, try to learn their unique business environment and individual project needs, and then develop the best GIS based business solution in collaboration with them. Our goal is to apply the best GIS technology and products to provide value for our customers. KCGIS staff members are encouraged to propose innovative business solutions to help meet this goal.

Facilities and Technology Resources

King County GIS Center offices in downtown Seattle are located in a LEED-certified building with modern technological facilities and capabilities. King County government’s fiber-optic backbone wide-area network is tied to the internet via three redundant and independently-serviced 100-megabit connections. The KCGIS Center is equipped with the latest computing resources and GIS software. The data storage space available on KCGIS Center servers exceeds 100 terabytes. Data security is provided by the King County Information Technology Backup Service, which will begin sending backups to Amazon Web Service cloud storage in mid-2015. A complete ‘Business Continuity’ remote hotsite with redundant hardware, software, and GIS data will become operational in late 2015.

The KCGIS Center utilizes the full Esri/ArcGIS suite of software. The KCGIS Center maintains a multitude of Esri software licenses, including the latest versions of ArcGIS (10.x), ArcGIS Server (10.x), and ArcGIS extensions. This wide variety of GIS software enables the KCGIS Center to perform any GIS task imaginable, and to serve a diverse client base.

King Street Center also houses our GIS Training Center, a state of the art facility with a 16 student capacity.

Projects

We have almost 20 years of experience helping customers meet their needs for GIS solutions to their business problems. Our projects range from database and application development, to GIS needs assessment and implementation planning and support, mapping and GIS analysis, matrixed GIS staff services, GIS training in our facility or at client sites, and our unique GIS Services Express® program.

For more information about the KCGIS Center, see our web site at: www.kingcounty.gov/gis. Let’s talk about your business needs and how the King County GIS Center can help you put GIS to work.

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