Sabre Systems gets Census geographical data work

Sabre Systems Inc. won an eight-and-a-half-year, $60 million-plus task order from the Census Bureau to provide IT services to modernize and expand the agency's geographical data processing system, the company said today.

The work was awarded under the Commerce Department's Commerce Information Technology Solutions Next Generation contract, known as Commits NexGen. It is a governmentwide acquisition contract that offers a range of information technology solutions from a pool of small businesses to all federal government agencies.

Under the task order, Sabre Systems will design, program, operate and maintain the Census Bureau's computer infrastructure that supports its Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing system. The Master Address File contains a list of about 115 million residences and 60 million businesses and other structures in the United States.

The Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing part of the system is a digital database that identifies the location and name of streets, rivers, railroads and other geographic features, and geospatially defines their relationships to each other and to addresses on the Master Address File. The two databases are maintained by the Census Bureau's Geography Division.

Sabre Systems also will provide new requirements for the bureau's American Community Survey, its Demographic Area Address Listing program and the 2010 Census testing program. The bureau's American Community Survey is a new nationwide survey that will replace the long paper form that citizens have had to complete for previous censuses.

Michael Baker Jr. Inc., the engineering division of Michael Baker Corp. of Moon Township, Pa., is the subcontractor on the task order.

Based in Alexandria, Va., Sabre Systems is an IT and professional engineering services company. It counts the Commerce, Homeland Security, Justice and State departments, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Army and Navy among its federal government clients.