FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 14, 2000

AEROTERRA S.A. and EarthData Expand Strategic Alliance
Companies Establish Miami-based Firm to Provide Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Services

Buenos Aires and Washington, DC - (December 14, 2000) - Aeroterra S.A. of Buenos Aires and EarthData Holdings of Washington, DC today announced the establishment of EarthData International of Florida to provide Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services to clients throughout the United States, Argentina, and the rest of the Americas. Based in Miami, this new company caps four years of a successful strategic alliance between the two airborne mapping and GIS firms.

Eduardo Viola, formerly vice president of Aeroterra, will serve as president of the new company and will lead the development and supervision of a wide range of GIS-related projects beginning on January 2, 2001.

EarthData International of Florida will fulfill the growing needs of both Aeroterra and EarthData clients for customized GIS information and capabilities. "The immense geographic information management and decision-making capabilities made possible by GIS technology are transforming the way our clients use photogrammetric map data provided by Aeroterra and EarthData," Viola said. "With this new venture, we build on our existing mapping alliance with a stronger presence in the GIS services market. Both our companies offer airborne geographic data collection and GIS consulting services and applications today. Joining forces, however, will enable us to draw on our separate experiences to strengthen our mutual GIS focus and increase our service offerings."

Together, the companies will extend Aeroterra's GIS services to the U.S. market, expand their market in South America, and broaden the GIS tools the EarthData organization uses to meet its clients' needs. In particular, EarthData of Florida will expand on Aeroterra's web-based approach to providing GIS services. "At EarthData of Florida, we plan to offer both government and private sector clients access to up-to-date geographic data that we manage and maintain for them through a web portal," Viola said. "We are excited about expanding on our experience in this area and enabling clients to work with just the information they need."

The new company also will integrate Aeroterra into the U.S. companies that make up the EarthData group - EarthData International companies in Maryland, North Carolina, and New Mexico; EarthData Aviation; EarthData Technologies; Calgis, Inc., a wholly owned California subsidiary; and Towill, Inc., also of California. "By expanding the scope of our alliance, Aeroterra and EarthData now have 370 professionals dedicated to providing integrated geo-processing services," Viola said. EarthData International of Florida will be located in the Bank Of America Building at 701 Brickell Avenue (Suite 1490), Miami, Florida, 33131.

EarthData is an airborne data collection, mapping, and geographic information systems (GIS) services company that provides clients with customized products and services to support a wide range of land-use, resource management, and engineering activities. With its fleet of aircraft, the company collects aerial photography, uses an airborne laser sensing system (LIDAR) to produce three-dimensional terrain models, and develops or deploys other remote sensing technologies to detect thermal, moisture, or multispectral information about the earth's surface.

Aeroterra S.A. is a privately held organization that since its creation in 1973 has been a leader of the geo-processing field in the Latin American market. As an exclusive distributor of ARC/INFO and ERDAS Systems in Argentina and Uruguay, Aeroterra has an installed base of over 2,500 licenses in more than 700 sites. According to studies by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (1995) and the Government of Canada (1997/98), Aeroterra accounts for more than 80% of the GIS software market in Argentina. The company is composed by a multi-disciplinary team of about 100 people fully dedicated to tasks related to geo-processing using the most advanced tools available for providing geo-information solutions to clients throughout the world. The company has several strategic alliances with international organizations and a strategically located network of distributors.