{"id":727052,"date":"2025-01-12T19:59:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T03:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&p=727052"},"modified":"2025-01-12T14:34:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T22:34:57","slug":"connecting-the-dots-between-gis-and-public-service","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/connecting-the-dots-between-gis-and-public-service","title":{"rendered":"Connecting the Dots Between GIS and Public Service"},"author":5752,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10372,401,931],"tags":[1741,164992,241,1321,454351],"arcnews_issues":[491292],"class_list":["post-727052","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gis-hero","category-government","category-spatial-analysis","tag-ai","tag-city-government","tag-gis","tag-innovation","tag-public-service","arcnews_issues-winter-2025","arcnews_sections-gis-people"],"acf":{"short_description":"GIS Hero Jim Alberque has spent 25 years in local government using GIS to help make cities better for their residents.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Jim Alberque remembers the moment he connected the dots. It was around 4:00 a.m. and there was a blizzard coming to Boston, Massachusetts. As an employee of the city\u2019s IT department, he was sitting in the emergency operations center behind department directors as they traded updates on the weather situation the city was facing.\r\n\r\nAt the time, Alberque was passionate about GIS work, but not equally passionate about public service\u2014it just happened to be how he was putting his GIS acumen to good use. At the end of the blizzard-related updates, the mayor\u2019s chief of staff said something that\u2019s stuck with Alberque ever since: There\u2019s a mom who\u2019s going to wake up in 30 minutes, and she\u2019s going to need to decide whether her kid is going to school based on road conditions. And if her kid doesn\u2019t go to school, the mom might lose her job."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":728842,"image_position":"right","orientation":"vertical","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"This human impact that public service has on an individual\u2014and how GIS can help\u2014is what stoked Alberque\u2019s enthusiasm for being a public servant.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat inspires me,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re close to the levers and buttons that affect people\u2019s lives.\u201d\r\n\r\nNow the GIS and emerging technology manager for the City of Raleigh, North Carolina\u2019s IT department, Alberque has spent 25 years in local government using GIS to help make cities better for their residents. He and his team have embraced GIS-enabled digital twin technology to generate useful data for the city, run scenarios for future planning, and tell compelling stories about the city\u2019s data. That\u2019s in addition to integrating GIS into operations citywide, including using ArcGIS Dashboards and data from ArcGIS GeoEvent Server and ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World for emergency response. Alberque and his team also use ArcGIS Indoors to manage facilities. The City of Raleigh received the Enterprise GIS Award during the 2024 Esri User Conference (Esri UC).\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are very few things that technically you can\u2019t do,\u201d he said of GIS. Alberque added that the key is having the needed skills and curiosity to get the technology to do what you want it to do."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Passion for GIS and Public Service<\/h2>\r\nAlberque grew up in central Massachusetts and moved to the Boston area in his late teens. He didn\u2019t really know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and he lacked \u201ca little bit of focus,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nIt wasn\u2019t until Alberque attended Framingham State University, west of Boston, that he discovered that the science of geography came naturally to him. He graduated with a degree in the subject. Still, it took his dad introducing him to a friend at an engineering firm who was leading a new GIS department, for Alberque to find his calling.\r\n\r\nOnce hired as an intern, Alberque said he quickly realized that GIS was something that he could be passionate about and had an aptitude for, and that it made him excited to go to work every day. Ever since, his career has been punctuated by technology releases and what he could do with them, whether it was ArcView or ARC\/INFO (the first release of ArcGIS); ArcIMS; or, now, ArcGIS Enterprise.\r\n\r\nHe credits the flow of his career path, and his growing use of GIS in innovative ways, to the many teams he\u2019s worked with. First, there was the job where he learned the technical underpinnings of GIS\u2014as a GIS analyst for Central Transportation Planning Staff in Boston\u2019s Metropolitan Planning Office. Then there were the jobs that instilled in him a passion for public service, at Boston\u2019s Redevelopment Authority (now the Boston Planning Agency) and the city\u2019s IT department.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey had a real appetite to innovate and leverage technology in new ways,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nIt was also during that time that he began to build a relationship with Esri as an organization, specifically with employees working on 3D modeling, to seek out help with how the city could use the tools.\r\n\r\n\u201cEach one of the stops in my career, I\u2019ve been super lucky to be surrounded by smart, caring, passionate people,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nHe\u2019s since brought both the aptitude and advocacy for GIS and public service to Raleigh."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Innovating in Raleigh<\/h2>\r\nAlberque\u2019s reasons for moving were not unlike those of many others moving from bigger cities to fast-growing Raleigh: He knew people who had moved there\u2014in his case, his sister and her family. Visiting, he saw firsthand how a dollar went further for square footage compared to the cramped and historic quarters in Boston. His sister\u2019s home was brand-new, everything worked, and \u201cit seemed like a mansion to me,\u201d he said. Plus, there were the good schools and the good weather.\r\n\r\nThere was also the professional challenge. Between 2010 and 2019, Raleigh gained 260,292 new residents, growing by 23 percent, according to a Carolina Demography report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.\r\n\r\nAlberque, his wife, and their three children were among those new residents when they moved to Raleigh in 2013.\r\n\r\nThe city\u2019s growth has continued, and Alberque believes GIS can help mitigate some growing pains."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":728852,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"When he arrived, he quickly realized that \u201cRaleigh was so far ahead\u2026from a GIS perspective,\u201d he said. Raleigh fostered close collaboration between the city and Wake County, and the city invests heavily in data and technology. Alberque said he wouldn\u2019t necessarily be building something new but, rather, would be trying not to break what was already there.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are definitely doing a lot. The key there is \u2018we,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re curious, they\u2019re interested in what\u2019s next and what\u2019s happening,\u201d he said of his team members, adding that they share his passion for public service.\r\n\r\nAlberque said he also brings some competitiveness to the team. \u201cI read ArcNews, and when I read it, I think to myself, \u2018Why are they writing about them and not us?\u2019\u201d he mused.\r\n\r\nHis team has set a high standard, recently garnering attention in publications such as Axios<\/em> and GovTech<\/em> about its work to analyze urban heat islands in Raleigh by building a digital twin. The team has been working to create a micro-scale climate model that could show wind patterns in the city related to what\u2019s been built, exhibiting where there may be still, trapped air behind buildings that influences ground temperatures.\r\n\r\nAlberque\u2019s team has also been employing computer vision, using data gathered from about 200 traffic cameras and applying machine learning to detect activity that might otherwise go unnoticed. The information can help inform signal timing and design roadways.\r\n\r\nHe said he feels lucky when meeting with someone in the city who starts to ask, \u201c\u2018Can you\u2026\u2019 And I\u2019ll just stop them: \u2018The answer is yes.\u2019\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

A World Built on Spatial Analysis<\/h2>\r\nWhen Alberque thinks of a future driven by advancements in generative AI, he\u2019s keen to note that much of the foundation for large language models is built on the distance and angles between related types of data. \u201cThe whole world is about to be built on spatial analysis,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nHe\u2019s not about to cede his passion for public service to AI, though. He regularly parks about a half mile from the office so he can walk through Raleigh neighborhoods to get to work. He marvels at the mechanics of cities\u2014things like arranging seamless trash pickup for hundreds of thousands of people, for example\u2014every few days.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat stuff is fascinating to me,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nAnd it\u2019s on those walks that he\u2019s frequently thankful to work for the people of Raleigh and be part of the city\u2019s mechanics.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat public service thing? I take it pretty seriously,\u201d he said."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"Read other articles in the GIS Heroes<\/a> series.","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"\nConnecting the Dots Between GIS and Public Service | Winter 2025 | ArcNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"GIS Hero Jim Alberque has spent 25 years in local government using GIS to help make cities better for their residents.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/connecting-the-dots-between-gis-and-public-service\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Connecting the 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