Steve Gottlieb’s Alpha Group Center Award for Creativity and Excellence

Lance Eber

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a check for $2000 and a corporate plaque to Lance Eber of the Merced, California Police Department, the 2023 California Crime and Intelligence Analysis Association (CCIAA) recipient of the Steve Gottlieb/Alpha Group Center Award for Creativity and Excellence. Lance is the sole crime analyst for the Merced, California, Police Department, and he was tasked with the responsibility of pushing out data to satisfy the informational cravings of nearly 100 officers, detectives and administrators on a 24/7/365-day basis. That’s not an easy thing to do when you’re…a party of one…with a limited budget…with limited technological resources…and you work a Monday through Friday 7 AM to 4 PM schedule.

Lance’s solution to the problem led to his development of the “Crime Analysis Data Center.” It was created by using ArcGIS online and its Hub Site feature to host multiple dashboards that provided Daily Incident information along with information related to Gang Members, Cases, and Arrests; Sex Registrants; Detective Assignments; two years of arrests; two years of tickets; annual tickets; annual collisions; tattoo search capabilities and Field Interview information.

As a result of Lance’s creation of the Crime Analysis Data Center, any member of the agency can now access data 24/7/365 from not only their desktop and in-vehicle computers, but from their mobile devices as well.

Given that the Alpha Group Center Award for Creativity and Excellence is meant to honor a CCIAA member who developed a strategy or intervention that either abated a crime problem or, in this case, “enhanced the efficiency or effectiveness of a public safety organization,” and also given that Chief of Police Craig Gundlach’s nomination of Lance substantiates that his creation of the Crime Analysis Data Center has “truly benefitted our department,” both the CCIAA Awards Committee and I congratulate Lance Eber on his achievement and extend to him our best wishes for his continued success! Great job, my friend! 🏆

Alpha Group Center Award for Creativity and Excellence Recipients

Steve Gottlieb is the owner and Executive Director of The Alpha Group Center for Crime and Intelligence and Analysis Training. With his background as a sworn police officer, deputy sheriff and Bureau Commander for three California law enforcement agencies and his many years of experience as a crime analyst himself, Steve has been an iconic influence in the field of crime and intelligence analysis. Through the presentation of his numerous classes and lectures over the last 20+ years, Steve has provided crime analysis training to thousands of analysts both domestically and internationally, and by doing so has greatly influenced the advancement of our profession throughout the world.

Steve values the analytical role and understands the importance of creativity in the analysis process. To invigorate this process and to recognize analysts who have gone above and beyond, Steve has generously provided a process to publicly acknowledge outstanding contributions to the field of crime and intelligence analysis. Steve Gottlieb’s Alpha Group Center Award for Creativity and Excellence is an annual award that encourages and recognizes International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA) and California Crime and Intelligence Analysts (CCIA) members’ development and implementation of original, creative and unique ideas, plans or programs that successfully curtailed or eliminated a crime problem or quality of life issue, enhanced the efficiency or effectiveness of a public safety organization or who, by some imaginative means, made a significant, and preferably replicable, contribution to the field of crime/intelligence analysis. In recognition of their individual efforts, the recipients shown below have each received a personal award of $2,000 for their contributions to our profession.