Intergraph Celebrates 40 Years & Inauguration Success

The year 2009 is very special to software company Intergraph Corp., as they are celebrating the sucessful use of their CAD software by District of Columbia dispatchers during President Barack Obama’s inauguration, and the company’s 40th year of operation. The company began in 1969 as a contractor to NASA for real-time missile guidance software, an advanced application at that time in computing history. It’s now privately-owned with 3,500 employees, and operates two divisions focused on the process, power and marine industry, and also the security, government and infrastructure sectors. The company says its public safety applications protect one in 12 people around the world, including the District of Columbia, which used Intergraph’s CAD to coordinate police, fire and EMS operations during Obama’s inauguration.

Thanks to Intergraph for these images of the District of Columbia’s Unified Communications Center.

(© Brett Drury Architectural Photography)

The UCC cost $116 million and was opened in Sept. 2006 in southeast Washington (DC). It brings the police, fire and EMS dispatching operations under one roof in 127,000 square-feet. Besides a dispatch floor, the building houses offices, training space, kitchen, 311 call center and emergency operations center. About 425 employees work at the building.

the red-brick and limestone building includes a quote engraved into the façade: “We can, we will safeguard our great city and our people.”

The ceiling of the dispatch floor towers over the dispatchers working at ergonomic consoles. The floor is visible through the second-level windows. Video projectors (left) can be switched to show various video channels on wall screens (right).

Close-up of the Intergraph CAD application on two screens, and the map display on a third screen.

Another view of the Intergraph CAD and ergonomic console. Beyond the dispatcher on the wall are the incoming telephone status displays.