Aaron Andrews has more than 20 years of GIS experience. He's been employed with Wessler since July of 2007 and serves as our GIS group head out of our Evansville office. He has extensive experience in GIS, ArcPro, AGOL, Dashboards, AutoCAD, global positioning systems (GPS), surveying, and multi-discipline field services.
To read part 1 "What is GIS...Really?", click here.
Every utility has more needs than budget.
Pipes to replace...lift stations to upgrade...stormwater improvements to fund.
The challenge isn’t knowing that work needs to be done, it’s knowing where to start.
Too often, decisions are reactive. A pipe breaks. A street floods. Equipment fails. Repairs are made, and the cycle continues. But emergency repairs are almost always more expensive and disruptive than planned improvements.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) help communities break that cycle.
By combining location data with asset information - such as age, material, break history, inspections, and condition - GIS allows utilities to see patterns that aren’t obvious in spreadsheets alone. It helps answer the most important question in infrastructure planning:
"Where is our risk highest?"
For example, a GIS system might reveal that:
20% of pipes account for 70% of breaks
Certain neighborhoods consistently flood during heavy rain
A single lift station drives a disproportionate amount of maintenance costs
That insight changes everything.
Instead of replacing assets based on age alone or responding to the loudest complaint, utilities can prioritize projects based on measurable risk and impact. That leads to smarter capital improvement plans, better use of customer dollars, and fewer surprises.
We help communities turn GIS from a static map into a true decision-making tool. We integrate asset data, develop risk scoring models, and create dashboards that support planning and funding discussions with councils and boards.
The result isn’t just better maps, it’s better decisions.
Because when you know exactly where your greatest risks are, you can act with purpose, not pressure.
There’s no water problem we can’t solve together™.
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