City of Chattanooga and Partners Recognized at GIS Technology Provider Esri’s Annual User Conference
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (August 3, 2026) – The City of Chattanooga and regional partners received Special Achievement in GIS Awards for innovative use of mapping and analytics software, as well as leadership in the field of local government and civic engagement. Esri, the global leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, presented the awards to the City of Chattanooga at the annual user conference.
“These awards show that the City of Chattanooga is a leader in how GIS is used to improve local government,” said Brendan Cleary, GIS Systems and Database Manager at the City of Chattanooga. “We are constantly looking for solutions that provide value for all city departments.”
The City of Chattanooga received two awards; one recognized the efforts of the GIS team and the other recognized a joint effort between the City, Hamilton County, and other regional partners.
The City of Chattanooga has invested heavily in GIS across departments to create a networked information scape that enables employees to be more effective and allows residents to make more informed decisions, improving their safety and daily life. Through GIS-powered data feeds that include road closures, emergency calls, 311 service requests, rain gauges, stream gauges, train crossings, and power outages, the city is able to offer up-to-the-moment information that can be used by internal operations and public-facing platforms.
“Most cities have all of this data, but have it spread across different platforms,” said Cleary. “The information is siloed. What we’ve done through GIS is bring them all together, all of these live data feeds, to display it all in one platform. Now you can see all of the information in one place.”
You can explore the city’s GIS initiatives at data.chattanooga.gov.
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County/North Georgia Metropolitan Planning Organization was also recognized by Esri for using ArcGIS tools in recent regional planning efforts. This multi-jurisdictional organization is federally mandated to submit an updated plan on a five year basis that incorporates public feedback about transportation needs. Previously, public feedback was collected during in-person events; however, they had to find a different way to engage the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was not possible to meet in-person. Melissa Taylor, Director of Transportation Planning for the City of Chattanooga, saw this as an opportunity to improve the strategic approach of the public comment process utilizing Esri tools.
Through the Esri supported programs, the public was able to make meaningful contributions to the future of transportation in the region. Each revision of the five year plan is an opportunity for the public to discuss what has changed across the region and how they would like to guide development in the future. Modern Mobility Partners, LLC was the primary consultant for this work, Taylor noted.