Mayor Kos ANNOUNCES
HIRING OF GIS
DIRECTOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICOPEE - Mayor Kos today announced the hiring of Michelle Santerre, as the Geographic Information System (GIS) Director.

"I am pleased to announce the hiring of a GIS Director for the City of Chicopee," said Mayor Kos. "We first started implementing GIS in my first administration. This is a long overdue position and we are glad to bring Michelle aboard."

Santerre is a 2004 graduate from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She has worked for Tighe and Bond, an engineering and environmental consulting firm since 2005, serving first as a GIS Technician and then as a GIS Analyst.

GIS affords enhanced and efficient ways for municipal staff to find answers to questions, track municipal assets, plan for development, and carry out analysis based on spatial relationships and data.

"GIS provides valuable data from public works to public safety," said Kos, "This position helps us take the next step in utilizing technology to the fullest extent possible."

Developing the City's GIS System will also assist city staff in better understanding how the city is developing and where resources can best be invested to capture further growth.

Santerre first will work on updating Assessor data that has not been updated since 2008. The City received a grant then for the first implementation with the obligation to maintain the data thereafter, which has not been done to date. Zoning maps, which are currently maintained on paper only at City Hall, will be scanned, digitized, and uploaded into the GIS system.