Westat SAS Alliance Partner
Westat became a SAS Alliance Partner in June 2006. The SAS Alliance Partner program allows organizations who are leaders in their fields and who have a strong commitment to using SAS software to partner with the SAS Institute to provide SAS-based solutions to their client's business needs. As a Silver-level partner in the SAS Alliance Partner Consulting Program, Westat will have unprecedented access to SAS software, training, and technical support. Being accepted into the SAS Alliance Partner program is a firm recognition that Westat has sound SAS technical expertise and a commitment to using SAS software in project work.
Westat uses SAS software as a core capability to provide government and private industry clients with analysis and characterization of survey data. Westat staff use SAS to manage, store, and analyze client data; as well as to produce tabulations, reports, graphs, and summary statistics.
Because SAS is so widely used at Westat, the organization has built a solid infrastructure to support its deployment and use. Westat's SAS support infrastructure provides resources that are aimed at educating staff, strengthening their SAS skills, providing SAS technical support, and keeping the staff on the cutting edge of SAS programming techniques. The success of Westat's support infrastructure for SAS users is evident in the consistently high quality of work that about 400 programmers, analysts, and statisticians perform for Westat clients using SAS software.
Westat enjoys a high level of recognition in the SAS programming world. Westat staff have presented an unprecedented 155 SAS technical papers at SAS conferences over the last 10 years. Significant numbers of Westat personnel routinely attend regional and national SAS conferences. Westat staff have served as North East SAS Users Group (NESUG), South East SAS Users Group (SESUG), and SAS Users Group International (SUGI) conference section chairs. One staff member was the chairperson for the SUGI 29 conference held in Montreal, which drew over 3,000 attendees. Westat staff are active in providing technical solutions to SAS questions posted on the SAS-L listserver, which is read by hundreds of SAS users each day. One staff member is the author of three books on SAS software, published by the SAS Institute. Westat has served as a beta site for SAS products and versions of SAS. All of this is evidence that Westat's approach to building a solid SAS support infrastructure benefits not only its clients but also the greater SAS programming community as well.