Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of our national parks. With the help of volunteers and partners, we safeguard these special places and share their stories with more than 318 million visitors every year. The National Park Service preserves unimpaired natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.

NPS geospatial capabilities and responsibilities are evolving to a next-generation implementation which includes expanding the use of cloud services, addressing network connectivity issues at parks, and improving data management and security measures. These evolving technologies allow the NPS to tackle new challenges and threats, such as land use change, urbanization pressures and invasive species. The GIS Program was in need of ergonomic and efficient workflow with products to help them record data out in the field, and be able to transfer to a desktop setting.

With the help of RAM® Mounts and Samsung, the NPS team was able to leverage several Samsung devices and compatible GDS® Tech™ line of products by RAM®. NPS was supplied with Samsung Galaxy Tab Active3s, Tab Active2s, Tab Active Pros and XCover Pros wrapped with RAM® Skin™ protective sleeves and equipped with GDS® Ergo™ accessories such as a shoulder strap, kickstand and hand strap. These products allowed the NPS team to keep their devices protected, and secured safely on their person in order to use GPS mapping and GIS software out in field with ease of use. After finishing data collection, they could transfer the devices to a RAM® charging dock in their service vehicle, boat, or ATV until arriving back at the office. Once connected to the NPS network, they ran Samsung DeX, mirroring the Tab Actives to external monitors for a desktop experience—propped up with the GDS® Hand-Stand™. In addition, data could be instantly consolidated into the tablet by connecting various instruments to the GDS® Hub™, all at the same time. This new efficient workflow allowed the NPS team to embrace the increasingly browser-based geospatial environment significantly cutting data processing time and equipment cost.