AUSTIN, Texas — An international conference of geographic information system (GIS) technology users recently honored the General Land Office (GLO)for its innovative use of technology to make maps. 

The GIS team at the General Land Office won  the Special Achievement Award for Exceptional Application of Geospatial Technology at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego. The award acknowledges vision, leadership, hard work and innovative use of Esri's GIS technology. 

GIS experts at the General Land Office use Esri's system to map the locations of sensitive coastal environments, oil and gas wells on public lands or even to help Texans peer into the past at Texas Hidden History, http://www.glo.texas.gov/texas-hidden-history/index.php, a website that allows Texans to pull back layers of time on a map of their hometown to see what was there before. The GLO’s GIS team also helped build the recently-released Texas Coasts app (txcoasts.com), which helps beachgoers find their perfect beach. 

"The SAG Awards identify the organizations and people who are using the power of geography to make our world a better place," says Esri president Jack Dangermond. "At Esri, we are always deeply inspired by the passion and innovation of our users. They deserve recognition for their invaluable contributions to their communities and the continued evolution of geographic science.” 

The Texas General Land Office has been making maps to manage the state's public lands since 1837. 

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 350,000 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. 

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