Charles S. (Chuck) Crocker is a fine representative of all of
the outstanding qualities one would look for in an employee. He is very
exacting when setting goals and objectives and he prepares, processes
and schedules the personnel, materials and equipment required to
optimize goals achievement. Chuck maintains a very diplomatic yet
effective dialogue in his daily project management.
When
Chuck first came to work for the city of Tuscaloosa in the Planning
Department, it was apparent that he had a talent for planning,
organizing and leading major projects. However, Chuck is equally
talented in creativity, employee relations, and the delegation of tasks
to get a project completed on schedule and within budget. Chuck's
rapport with all city employees is excellent.
Chuck's creativity is one of his greatest assets. He is constantly
looking for new methods and ways to enhance existing computer systems in
order to provide the maximum benefit to the users.
Chuck, as the Project Director, is presently working closely with the
Finance Department and five other departments to design and implement
the Public Improvement System Application (PISA). The PISA project will
use the predetermined departmental workflow to take public improvement
assessments through the various departments to completion.
Beginning in November 1994, Chuck worked on the Public Safety Computer
System’s street mapping and related databases, with assistance from key
personnel in Public Safety, particularly the Fire Department.
Using digital mapping obtained from the Tuscaloosa County Tax Assessor
as a guide, they digitized and entered data for each street segment
located within the City and its Police Jurisdiction. When this
base mapping was complete, they then built the business name database
using data extracted from the existing Public Safety software.
Finally, geographic zones were constructed for each police beat, fire
station, fire response zone and EMS response zone in the City. The
major portion of this work was complete by mid April 1995, allowing the
new System to be brought on line. Additional verification and
checks of this data took approximately one month. The databases
have been at a maintenance stage since May of 1995. Anyone who has
ever dealt with such a complicated and critical implementation will
appreciate the time in which it was completed.
The
geographic area of this project covered approximately 330 square miles,
included over 10,000 individual street segments, contained over 3,100
geographic boundaries for definition of law, fire and EMS response
zones, and involved the conversion of over 7,000 business and named
place location records between the old and new Public Safety software.
This project was completed with no major problems or delays and allowed
the new Public Safety System to be brought on line within the desired
time frame. The resulting data has since been expanded for use by
various city departments.
In
the spring of 1996, the City of Tuscaloosa began a concerted effort to
obtain accurate base mapping and to establish a Geographic Information
System (GIS). The City used an aerial photography and mapping firm to
provide base mapping for the GIS Project and Chuck has worked closely
with the staff of the Engineering Department to coordinate this work as
well as provide support for the software, hardware and peripherals
associated with the project.
The
GIS Project area covers 253 square miles and the resulting map data
includes over 35 gigabytes of digital photography, and over 1.6
gigabytes of vector mapping. This mapping includes all transportation
features, hydrological features, building footprints, and elevation
contours at two-foot intervals.
In addition to all of his other responsibilities,
Chuck was not too busy to agree to help GMIS Headquarters develop new
database files and several new programs using Microsoft Access. He is
always willing to help GMIS whenever possible, as he did at the 1997
Annual Conference by volunteering to teach an Access class. President
Jane Sparks presented Chuck with a Special President’s Award to thank
him for his dedication to GMIS.
Doug
Taylor, Director
Information Systems Department
City of
Tuscaloosa
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