Geospatial Solutions Group to Provide Innovative GIS Products and Services

James W. Sewall Company is pleased to announce the formation of Geospatial Solutions (GS), a new GIS-oriented technology group that will develop and deliver innovative products and services to Sewall clients in government and industry. To lead the GS team and bring to market new offerings, Sewall has hired technology executive David Levine as Vice President, and GIS product development professional Bill Sharp as Product Manager.

As Vice President, Mr. Levine brings to the team over fifteen years’ experience in the technology industry, with the focus on high-performance and open-systems distributed computing. He founded Emergent Game Technologies, a leading provider of video game development tools, rendering engines and networking software for consoles, PC and online games.

Mr. Levine served the geospatial sector as Executive Director of the National Technology Transfer Center, where he was responsible for commercializing public sector inventions from such institutions as NASA and the EPA, and is supporting an effort of the West Virginia University Research Corporation to spin out Datacaster, an invention that enables the Geospatial Web, into the private sector.

Mr. Levine also has provided management and technology consulting services for organizations such as the World Bank, the Coca-Cola Company and the Times Mirror Corporation (now the Tribune). A graduate of Yale University, Mr. Levine has published and presented extensively. He wrote Live Java: Dataspace to Cyberspace (Harcourt Brace/AP Professional 1996), contributed a chapter to Grid 2: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure (The Elsevier Series in Grid Computing, 2003), and presented a paper at the First International Conference of the World Wide Web at CERN Particle Physics Lab in 1994.

As Product Manager, Bill Sharp has over 20 years’ industry experience with a broad range of geospatial marketing and business development, software project and product management, applications engineering, and technical consulting. At ERDAS, Inc., he managed software development and testing, product marketing, and staff training, supervising the development and release of ERDAS Virtual GIS software.

At Research Systems, Inc. (now ITT), he managed full life-cycle software product development and release, advancing the market position of ENVI software by adapting interface and functionality to meet client needs.

As an international technical consultant and advisor in Brazil, he directed several geospatial projects, including a satellite mapping project for the World Bank, and the development of a web-based automatic vehicle location (AVL) service. Most recently, Mr. Sharp has been Global Business Development Manager, GeoSAR Services, at Fugro EarthData, Inc., establishing a business partner network for Latin America. He has a BS in Geology and Geophysics from the University of Connecticut.

The new Geospatial Solutions group combines the capabilities of Sewall’s software engineering, natural resource land mapping, GIS analysis and cadastral conversion and maintenance teams. To best serve our clients, Sewall has organized GS into a Systems Team, managed by Gary Mullaney; Project Team, managed by Mary McDonald; Production Team, managed by Aaron Weston; and Product Team, managed by Bill Sharp.
As Director of Systems, Mr. Mullaney will supervise software engineering, web services, database administration and systems integration.

With 26 years’ experience at MeadWestvaco, he was the key developer and project leader for the company’s first web-based GIS and related online applications. At Sewall, he has developed information systems for a variety of natural resources, municipal and engineering clients.

Mary McDonald, LPF, will lead the teams of GS technical consultants that manage the direct engagements with Sewall clients. With 22 years’ GIS experience at Sewall, Ms McDonald has managed most of the company’s natural resource GIS and mapping projects, supervising GIS compilation and database development and training and supervising project staff.

As Production Manager, Aaron Weston will manage the development, conversion, and maintenance of geospatial data for the GS team.

A certified mapping specialist, Mr. Weston supervises Sewall technical staff on a wide range of GIS projects for municipal and private-sector clients, overseeing digital map compilation, database cross-referencing, parcel updates, and quality control.

Founded in 1880, Sewall is an integrated team of geospatial, engineering and natural resource consultants that partners with clients to create practical, sustainable solutions. The company’s diverse portfolio is based on 100 years' experience in surveying and engineering; 60 years' in aerial mapping; and 20 years' in GIS and software application development. In the last 10 years, Sewall’s offerings have expanded to include web services, software as a service, and a secure geoportal for the collection, distribution, and resale of data.

[via]