For a glimpse of a state-of-the-art 911 Communications Center, take a drive to Troy, Missouri, the county seat of Lincoln County. Lincoln County boasts a population of 41,000 and a staggering 35% population increase from 1990 to 2000. Lincoln County's 911 Communications Center is a central dispatch PSAP with four dispatchstations, fully equipped with 911 dispatch and digital mapping technology. The staff consists of 24 dispatchers including a dispatch supervisor, a database manager and a 911 director. The center dispatches three ambulance services, twelve fire departments, and eight law enforcement entities.

Several years of planning, implementing, and coordinating is required before a 911 center can "go live." Monte Cottle, Lincoln County's 911 Communications Director, could write a "How To" book about building a 911 center. When Monte was hired in early 1995, he first arranged to have the county mapped and addressed. Addressing and mapping a county is one of the most extensive and important projects in the process of implementing a 911 center. It is at the core of providing the dispatcher with accurate location information, which is then passed to the emergency teams so that they can respond quickly and efficiently with little or no time lost. When Monte researched mapping and addressing vendors, he met Keith Cunningham of Spatial Data Research. "It wasn't an issue of money that was the deciding factor in determining who was going to do the job. It came down to knowledge, experience and expertise, and Keith Cunningham of SDR had it all."

Before becoming Lincoln County's 911 Director, Monte worked as a software quality assurance specialist in the field of GPS technology. His work involved upgrading cruise missiles for guidance, so when Keith started to talk about GIS/GPS technology, Monte knew he had the right person for the job.

In April 1995, SDR began the first phase of creating a geographic information system (GIS) for Lincoln County E9-1-1. Monte supervised road naming while SDR began the mapping. SDR worked closely with Monte throughout the project, training him to eventually go solo. It was teamwork right from the start.

In 1995, differential GPS was newly available, and SDR used the Sokkia Spectrum dGPS system. Field-collected GPS data were processed against a base station and loaded into MicroStation with a conversion tool written by SDR. It was a far cry from the real-time system and digital imagery SDR uses today, but just as accurate positionally. For several years Lincoln County successfully maintained the addressing and MSAG before they upgraded their system to ArcView with SDR's ASIA, Atlas and Tao software extensions.

"Keith worked right along side myself and the local post office carriers during the field work phase which consisted of checking each road and landmark for accurate identification. They [SDR] went above and beyond the call of duty diligently preparing address cards," he said. "They don't nickel and dime you. They do more. They are always very helpful."

In July 1996, when the addressing and mapping project was complete, Monte hired Donna Simpson as database manager. Maintenance of the database is ongoing, and Donna takes her job seriously. In Lincoln County, only 54% of year 2000 census respondents reported having lived in the same house five years ago. With this kind of resident turnover, Donna's job is even more critical. Every morning she retrieves the list of emergency calls received the previous day and compares the telephone and address information from each call with the data in her on-site database. This on-site database was compiled during the mapping and addressing phase. If she finds any errors or changes she makes adjustments, then synchronizes those changes with the MSAG, which is housed by their serving telephone company in Long Beach, California. Donna has a reputation for maintaining a 100% database accuracy rate.

"If it wasn't for Monte I couldn't have done it," Donna said. And Monte echoed, "I couldn't have done it without her."

One of the projects Monte works on these days is producing map books using Atlas, an automated map book production tool for ArcView developed by SDR.

Monte generates new county-wide map books every six months, and the production process is time-consuming. All emergency service providers receive 911 map books, which they carry in their vehicles. Dispatchers can direct emergency service providers to specific pages in the map book, which is especially useful where a new road has been added in the county but no commercial map indicates it exists. Monte's job requires editing and updating the mapped county in Atlas so that it provides an exact reference for those teams."It's a lengthy process," he says, "but it's necessary and with Atlas it's possible."

Monte was also influential in the creation of the SDR's Go2It software. When Monte went looking for a computer aided dispatch system for the center cost was an issue. He discovered CAD systems are very costly, so he presented SDR with the idea of developing an alternative and SDR stepped up to the challenge. Monte is thrilled with the mapping and address query system SDR developed. Lincoln County 911 Communications Center operates Go2It for considerably less cost then the mapping component in other CAD systems Monte researched.

From beginning to end each phase has had its purpose and value and Lincoln County has benefited from the teamwork and the process needed to implement E9-1-1 in their county. As a result of this project a close relationship has developed between Monte and SDR. Monte can't say enough about the help Keith and Susan and the rest of the SDR team provided him and Lincoln County.

"They've been excellent to work with and consistent in all they've done", he said. "I felt like I've known them all my life. They're like friends to me rather then just business associates. If I did one thing right when I started working for the county it was hiring Spatial Data Research to implement Enhanced 911 for Lincoln County."