Operationalizing GIS at Scale: How Ashland County, WI Prepared for NG9‑1‑1 

Ashland County accelerated NG9-1-1 readiness by leveraging DATAMARK Managed Services to complete critical GIS modernization work without adding staff.

Client Overview 

Ashland County is located in rural Northern Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior, and serves a diverse mix of communities where GIS underpins addressing, mapping, and public safety readiness. In 2018, the County established a GIS program and began consolidating and standardizing critical datasets that had previously been maintained across multiple departments. 

Ashland County’s GIS data organization and modernization initiative was part of the State of Wisconsin’s broader, coordinated effort to align local GIS data with NENA standards and prepare counties statewide for Next Generation 9‑1‑1 (NG9‑1‑1). Through this statewide push, supported by grant funding and standardized requirements, the County undertook schema alignment, data remediation, and sustained operational improvements to ensure its data met NG9‑1‑1 expectations and timelines. 

With essentially a single-person GIS staff and a significant, complex initiative ahead, Ashland County issued a competitive RFP and selected DATAMARK Technologies as its partner to successfully accomplish its objectives. 

Challenge 

Ashland County’s GIS responsibilities span year‑round operational demands: state submissions with strict schema requirements, addressing and location maintenance, internal mapping requests, interdepartmental support, and ongoing data quality management. With limited internal staffing, time quickly became the constraint that dictated what could realistically be delivered. 

Two challenges were especially urgent: 
  • Scaling critical addressing and location data maintenance: The County historically maintained driveway entrance points but lacked comprehensive structure points. Adding structure points town‑by‑town required significant manual effort, taking roughly three months per town across eight towns, making countywide completion impractical within NG9‑1‑1 timelines. 
  • Standardizing datasets created prior to a centralized GIS program: Before the GIS program was established, key datasets were maintained by non‑GIS staff across different offices. This resulted in fragmented stewardship, inconsistent attribution, and embedded notes in critical fields. These issues complicated compliance with statewide standards and slowed future progress. 

Ashland County needed a sustainable way to maintain momentum without forcing an already‑lean team to choose between daily operational work and modernization efforts tied to statewide NG9‑1‑1 readiness. 

The Plan 

Rather than let staffing constraints dictate outcomes, Ashland County designed a phased strategy built on targeted contracting and ongoing GIS Managed Services. 

  • Phase 1: Competitive procurement for sustained GIS capacity: The County initiated a formal competitive procurement for GIS services with a customized scope aligned to NG9‑1‑1 preparation. The awarded effort focused on: 
  • Phase 2: Transition to GIS Managed Services: Following initial remediation, Ashland County shifted to a Managed Services model to support ongoing GIS responsibilities, converting project-based efforts into continuous operational support. Managed Services effectively extended the County’s internal capacity, enabling routine tasks such as addressing support and data maintenance to continue without interruption. 
  • Phase 3: Streamlined operations and reduced workflow friction: To improve efficiency, Managed Services were delivered directly within the County’s enterprise GIS environment, eliminating file handoffs and versioning delays. The engagement adopted a right‑sized communication cadence, scaling from weekly or biweekly check‑ins during active phases to monthly coordination during steady‑state operations, while remaining responsive as needs arose. 

“What took me about three months to complete for one town was finished countywide in a fraction of that time. DATAMARK Technologies opened up time in my workday and that’s a huge stress relief.”– Brittany Goudos-Weisbecker, GIS Coordinator, Ashland County, WI 

Results 

Ashland County’s Managed Services strategy produced tangible, measurable improvements without increasing headcount. 

  • Accelerated countywide data completion: High‑volume updates that would have taken years internally were completed in months. Structure point additions across the remaining towns, previously estimated at multiple years of effort at internal pace, were completed in approximately two months, keeping the County aligned with NG9‑1‑1 timelines.   
  • Improved data quality and standards alignment: GIS datasets were cleaned, standardized, and aligned with statewide and NENA‑driven requirements, providing a stronger, more authoritative data foundation for public safety and enterprise use across the County. 
  • Reclaimed time and reduced operational strain: By offloading recurring GIS tasks to DATAMARK Technologies’ Managed Services, Ashland County regained time to focus on long‑range initiatives, which is work that typically stalls in small, resource‑constrained departments but is critical to long‑term data health and compliance. 
  • A reliable extension of the County team: Consistent communication, predictable delivery, and ongoing operational support positioned DATAMARK Managed Services as a trusted extension of Ashland County’s GIS function, allowing the County to move forward with confidence during a period of major statewide transition to NG9‑1‑1. 

“The value is almost like having a part‑time, additional person in my office. To me, that’s really where Managed Services shine.” — Brittany Goudos-Weisbecker, GIS Coordinator, Ashland County, WI