Spatial Focus, Inc. is an independent consulting firm, specializing in planning, design, implementation and technical services in the field of geographic information systems.
Focus
Spatial Focus, Inc. was formed to offer a new standard for vendor-independent technical and consulting services in geographic information of all kinds. Any enterprise, public or private, connects to its resources using geographic information. Addresses name places, and land records describe areas. Census and electoral geographies, postal zones, sales territories and delivery routes are all geographic information. Management of that information is the key to leveraging resources with spatial focus. Organized in 1998 as an Alabama corporation, Spatial Focus, Inc. specializes in integrating geographic information throughout public and private enterprises, giving them spatial focus.
Philosophy
Spatial Focus, Inc. specializes in cost-effective solutions that connect geographic information with business data and the organizational structure. These connections provide the spatial records integration crucial to effective deployment, maintenance and expansion of information systems.
This approach produces solutions that are:
Cost-effective
Integrated with business records and decision-making
Capable of maximizing a return on information investment,
both past and future
Spatial Focus, Inc., is proud of its leadership team. Collectively, we have over 70 years of experience in the field of geo data architecture, geographic information systems, planning, and data management.
Mr. Jones is President of Spatial Focus, Inc. and one of its founders. Previously, Mr. Jones was Vice-President of American Cadastre (AmCad), a GIS consulting firm. In that capacity Mr. Jones directed operations for nine years, expanding AmCad into the international arena.
Prior to assuming his position with American Cadastre, Mr. Jones held the position of Vice President Sales and Project Management for AT&T Digital Record Systems (DRS), the GIS arm of AT&T. He was a member of the management team that initiated and developed AT&T-DRS, and led that effort as team member and Vice-President for 5 years. Mr. Jones' service at AT&T-DRS was the culmination of his various engineering and management positions with AT&T over a 34 year period.
Mr. Jones has more than thirty years experience relating to land-based facilities distribution, design and records. His involvement with the automation of land-based records began in the mid 1970's. Mr. Jones' engineering, management and sales background in the Cartographic, Outside Plant Engineering and Land Information Systems arena coupled with his knowledge of integration, networking and applications (utility and government) provides him with comprehensive insight into the complex political, organizational and technical issues required to plan, develop and implement a successful land information system.
Mr. Jones has been directly associated with the development of many GIS/LIS projects. His international experience includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Ghana, as well as most European countries.
Mr. Jones has served as guest speaker and/or panelist at numerous industry- related conferences and seminars as well as a GIS advisor to the State of Georgia through the Department of Community Affairs.
Ms. McCart Wells is an experienced GIS Manager and a founder of Spatial Focus, Inc. She brings over 35 years of experience in local government planning and zoning, organizational issues, budgeting, project management, real estate development, transportation planning, and coastal zone management to serve clients of Spatial Focus, Inc.
Ms. McCart Wells has managed numerous projects with Spatial Focus, Inc., including the development and implementation of a Master Address Repository for Washington, DC, addressing implementation studies for Boulder County, CO, and Raleigh, NC, development of an enterprise GIS system with Florence County, SC, quality control for orthophotography, planimetric and topographic maps for several counties, and development of a Strategic Plan and Master Address Repository with Cambridge, MA, and strategic plans for Addressing for Cabarrus County, NC, and the Town of Weymouth, MA. Ms. McCart Wells was Project Leader for an evaluation of automation needs for the Republic of Malawi. She also participated as a GISCorps (URISA International) volunteer with the World Bank on a proposed project in Peru. She was recently a member of a World Bank Appraisal Mission in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. She participated in a project with the Urban Institute to help define a Land Information System for economic development in the Republic of Serbia.
Ms. McCart Wells was Director of International Projects for American Cadastre, Inc. She worked on GIS needs analysis and specifications to support the title registration system in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and on a land records modernization study for the Republic of Ghana. She was project manager for several projects in the United States, including Needs Analysis, System Design and Implementation Plans for GIS in Fayette County, GA, Henry County, GA, and Hall County, GA, and on an addressing system for the City of Birmingham, AL. She also performed an organizational study for PAGIS (Pulaski Area GIS), Little Rock, AR.
Ms. McCart Wells served as consultant in Russia in the USAID funded development of a title registration and real estate information system for the cities of St. Petersburg, Pskov, and Tver. Other international experience includes the Coastal Zone Management Program Saipan, Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands, and Armenia (ICMA/USAID).
She served as GIS Manager, Gwinnett County, GA, where she was responsible for development of an $8 million system, serving all operating departments (4 years). She was also responsible for the development of the address geo-file for computer aided dispatching for Gwinnett County. She served as Principal Planner, Gwinnett County, GA, and was responsible for transportation modeling, land use planning and capital improvements budgeting for three years.
Other professional positions have included local government zoning and land use planning, private real estate development, management of development projects, architectural review, zoning compliance, development of comprehensive coastal zone land use management plan, land use, zoning and building permitting functions.
Ms. McCart Wells has numerous presentations and publications on GIS management and urban planning issues and has been a technical trainer and taught at University undergraduate and graduate levels (University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University and Georgia Tech) in planning/zoning field. She is a past President, and past member of the Board of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), and has taught workshops for URISA for several years. She is the co-author, with Sara Yurman, of the URISA Addressing Workshop. She is also co-chair of the Address Standard Working Group, which is preparing a comprehensive street addressing data standard for the Federal Geographic Data Committee. She is also an instructor for the URISA Leadership Academy.
She received her BA, Geography, from San Francisco State University, and an MS in Resource and Regional Planning, from the University of Massachusetts. Her language skills include English and French.
Sara Yurman is an experienced GIS Manager and a founder of Spatial Focus, Inc. She has over 25 years of experience in both organizational and technical aspects of geographic information, encompassing government at the local, regional, and state levels. Her activities have included team-building and change management as well as implementations of raster and vector GIS, GPS data integration, system development, and database design.
Ms. Yurman has managed numerous projects with Spatial Focus, as diverse as providing quality control for the Atlanta, Georgia 911 system maps, GIS strategic plans for the both the Province of Aceh, Indonesia and the City of North Little Rock, Arkansas and establishment of street addressing throughout the Hartsfield/Jackson International Airport (Atlanta). In places where she developed the GIS strategic plans, such as the cities of North Little Rock Arkansas and Delray Beach, Florida she has worked with each of them in the subsequent years to assist with implementation. Ms. Yurman manages Spatial Focus's production facilities for quality assurance and data development projects. She also performed the Local Updates of Census Addresses for Cabarrus County, Wake County and the City of Raleigh, North Carolina, for the 2010 Census. She is currently completing work on data standardization and validation for Cobb County, GA.
As a team member, Ms. Yurman has also worked in all phases of GIS and tabular database development, providing designs and general assistance to such clients as the country of Malawi, Boulder and Park Counties in Colorado, and Cabarrus County, North Carolina. She has provided assistance with creation of web based map catalogs and interfaces, management of software migrations, and training of personnel. She has designed and managed quality assurance programs for review of street addressing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, orthophotography in Wake County, and the City of Raleigh, North Carolina, and cadastral mapping, planimetrics and topography in Hall County, Georgia, Gaston, Robeson and Cumberland Counties in North Carolina.
Before the founding of Spatial Focus, Inc. Ms. Yurman was a consultant for American Cadastre, Inc. (AmCad) , a GIS consulting firm. She served as AmCad's domestic market in both managerial and technical assignments. Ms. Yurman served as on-site interim GIS Project Manager for the Pulaski Area Geographic Information System (PAGIS), a partnership involving the City of Little Rock, Little Rock Municipal Water Works, Little Rock Wastewater Utility and Pulaski County. She developed an enterprise plan, addressing databases, and quality assurance processes for GIS data.
Prior to joining American Cadastre, she worked with a variety of clients on strategic and technical issues, advising clients on profit potential of existing geographic data within their organization. Her client list included a transportation planning firm and an ESRI business partner.
Previous work included serving as GIS Manager for the Department of Community Affairs, State of Georgia, encompassing responsibility for GIS coordination at the State level, including working with federal, state, regional and local governments. During her tenure she established a statewide lending service for global positioning systems (GPS) equipment for local government statewide, along with a GPS base station, publishing differential data online.
Ms. Yurman worked in regional government as the GIS Manager for the South Georgia Regional Development Center, where she developed a GIS that served 10 counties and over 35 units of local government. She developed the GIS system, provided training and technical support throughout the process, and provided strategic planning, budgeting, and management of the system. During this project, Ms. Yurman designed and supervised the development of a comprehensive addressing system for a County in Georgia that had not previously been addressed, in support of the E-911 system. Image processing and GPS efforts were also within her purview.
Ms. Yurman also worked for Gwinnett County, GA, as a planner, providing GIS services in the Planning Division, and preparing statistical and demographic reports for the public and other County departments. She is a trained and experienced user of ARC/INFO, Maptitude, GRASS, and other GIS and database programs.
Ms. Yurman is the author of a full-day workshop on Open Source GIS Software, and co-author of the URISA Addressing Workshop. She is co-author of the draft Street Address Data Standard, being developed by URISA for the Federal Geographic Data Committee. Along with the other members of the Address Standard Working Group (ASWG), she received URISA's Barbara Hirsch Special Service Award for work on the Street Address Data Standard. She is also an instructor for the URISA Leadership Academy.
Ms. Yurman received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts, and a Master's degree in geography from Georgia State University. Her language skills include English, basic Spanish and French.
