ESII Tool Unveiled!

Yesterday, at the GreenBiz Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, the ESII (Ecosystem Services Identification & Services) Tool was introduced to the world.

The ESII (pronounced “Easy”) Tool is the result of a collaboration between Dow Chemical and The Nature Conservancy. They’ve been working on it since 2011. Our involvement has been in the past year. It’s a project we are very excited and proud to be a part of.

The ESII Tool has the ability to transform the way businesses view the environment. That sounds like a lot of hyperbole, but for the first time ever, there is a comprehensive tool that allows businesses to identify and measure the benefits of nature on the land that they own. Not only does it give businesses the opportunity to see what is currently there, but it gives them a planning tool to play around with alternative scenarios. 

To find out more and to download the free iPad app, go to esiitool.com.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the ESII Tool!

https://twitter.com/molnar_jen/status/702663529103405056

Mapping at the Port!

We have long admired the mapping team at the Port of Portland for their sophisticated and innovative use of mapping technologies. Finally, we get to work together! They’ve brought us in on a smorgasbord service engagement to involve:

• cloud resources
• architectural design strategy and implementation
• best practices coaching and collaboration using Agile methods
• designing and developing OS mapping plugins
• creating application programming interfaces (APIs) to their powerful backend systems
• developing metadata access resources
• lots of other cool stuff

More details to come.

Gartrell Group Awarded On Call Services Contract with Metro

Cool! We are very pleased to be re-engaging with the talented team at Oregon Metro to provide ongoing support for their use of location intelligence and geographic information systems to support the important work of regional planning. Metro is preparing to embark on a number of significant initiatives involving geospatial technology and our crew is pleased to be able to support their efforts. We’ll be building upon, updating, and extending a number of the systems we helped to put in place several years ago during our last multi-year engagement. More details to follow.