Due to the startling way Gotlib vanished in broad daylight without any trace, it was a key case that lead the United States Congress to create the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984 to coordinate departments involved in missing persons cases. The center credits the Gotlib case with increasing national awareness of missing and abducted children and revolutionizing how missing-child cases are handled. One new technique that came out of the investigation was the use of billboards and other tactics to generate widespread awareness of a missing person, which was considered foolish by conventional wisdom at the time.[2]