UTICA — Linda Rockwood is all smiles. The owner of Mohawk Valley GIS just returned from an awards ceremony where her company beat out 16 other applicants to receive a 2015 “New York State Geospatial Applications Awards Competition.” The award criteria included the quality of the digital application, return on investment, and the value to the user.

“In 2009, we created an interactive, digital map displaying over 10,000 miles of snowmobile trails in New York state,” explains Rockwood. “It was a massive project to assemble the data and design the website. Additional features include iOS and Android trail apps that work without requiring [cell] reception, GPS overlay maps for Garmin receivers, and regional track and waypoint files for all brands of recreation-grade receivers. I’m most proud of the route-planner [web] tool and the in-app, turn-by-turn directions along the trail network. The design also incorporates by location over 400 businesses that support snowmobiling, snowmobile clubs and clubhouses, trail IDs, intersections, town and county boundaries, covered bridges, parking areas, and web cams.”

GIS stands for geographic information systems. “The term describes a system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographic information,” explains Rockwood. “The industry is about 50 years old, but until Google maps came along a decade ago, it was limited to trained specialists with particular skills. Google maps now gives everybody access to finding locations without any training and updates the imagery frequently. GIS is an amazing tool that has had a tremendous impact on the economy and people’s lives.”

Location-based tools and technologies provided by the geospatial-services industry are so common today that most people take them for granted. GIS is used for site selection, fleet management, target marketing, emergency response, farming, trip planning, energy exploration, industry zoning, asset plotting, law enforcement, national security, and strategic planning, just to name some. According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the industry employs more than 600,000 people and generates $100 million in revenue. BCG says the economic impact of the industry drives more than $3 trillion in national GDP revenue and cost savings. In 2013, recently, Research, and Markets, a source for international market and research reports, forecast a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the industry of approximately 11 percent between 2012 and 2016. In September of this year, Global Mobile Mapping System Market-Trends and Reports projected an industry increase of more than 16 percent CAGR over the next five years. Mordor estimates the mobile-mapping systems market will reach $250 million by 2020.

“The astonishing growth of GIS is being driven by the … [ubiquity] of mobile devices,” stresses Rockwood citing her own snowmobile app. “As of this August, our snowmobile website had attracted nearly 170,000 visitors with approximately 20,000 downloads of our trail apps. Last year, the trail apps were used a total of 282,710 times. Snowmobiling is big business in New York. Back in 2011-2012, it contributed $850 million to the state’s economy [according to a study by the New York State Snowmobile Association]. I’m sure that figure is higher today.”

Tourism and recreation

Mohawk Valley GIS has leveraged its experience with snowmobile mapping and created interactive trail maps of the Adirondacks, the Cazenovia area, Lewis County, and the states of Vermont and Massachusetts. “Tourism and recreation is one of our three specialties,” notes Rockwood. “Our success has attracted attention from all over the U.S. and Canada, because of the program’s accuracy, ease of use, and regular updates. We even incorporate a bread-crumb tracking system so that users can back-track for a safe return trip.”

Rockwood sells the apps and annual updates and works with 100 New York snowmobiling clubs to promote the products. She also generates a revenue stream from businesses that advertise on the site. Recently, Mohawk Valley GIS helped a number of convenience-store chains, including Byrne Dairy, Cumberland Farms, Express Mart, Fastrac, Mirabito, Nice N Easy, Pit Stop, Schmitt Sales, and Stewart’s, determine which store locations to promote to snowmobilers based on their proximity to the state’s snowmobile-trail network.

Government work & new niches

While tourism and recreation is a major focus of the company, Mohawk Valley GIS also specializes in serving municipalities. “Government has substantial assets they need to track,” states Rockwood. “They have a lot of infrastructure and buildings in multiple locations. GIS is the only [practical] way of accomplishing this. We create digital maps for them and still, on occasion, produce paper maps. The municipalities also need to do a lot of coordinating with county and state government, and GIS makes the coordination possible. A third focus of the company is responsive website development. We are particularly skilled at creating custom mobile-apps for smart phones.”

Not one to sit still, Rockwood is pursuing two new niches, which she expects to bring on line in the next year. “We are currently working with a hardware vendor to develop a fleet-tracking, management system,” she affirms. “The potential in the transportation field is huge. We are also generating new offerings for municipalities to allow their residents to access information easily and quickly.”

Mohawk Valley GIS is located at 114 Genesee St. in downtown Utica’s Bagg Square. The staff of four competes successfully with large engineering firms, big marketing companies, and a variety of technology firms. “We have exceptional talent,” contends Rockwood. “That’s how we compete. Dave Vail is our software developer, John Marino is the GIS analyst, and Cathy Light handles the sales. Dave and John started as interns, and I knew Cathy professionally. It’s challenging to find just the right employees, because I am looking for a combination of talent and personality: technical competence, a well-rounded liberal-arts background, inquisitiveness, self-motivation, great communication skills, passion, and someone who sees the big picture. I also need employees who are comfortable with change because, the GIS environment is always … [in flux].”

Rockwood’s technology career began with 12 years of experience at Eastman Kodak and W.R. Grace working as a systems designer and analyst. “My ‘wow’ moment came while attending a BOCES workshop on careers,” recalls Rockwood. “That’s when I first learned about GIS. The family moved from Rochester to New Hampshire, where I set up a tech-consulting business. I went back to school to study geography and GIS. In 2003, the family moved to the Mohawk Valley, and soon after I filed a d/b/a for Mohawk Valley GIS. Once the kids went off to college, I decided the time was right to grow the business.” Rockwood filed for an LLC 18 months ago.

At age 55, Mohawk Valley GIS’s owner is not slowing down any time soon. “The potential of geospatial technology is limitless,” avers Rockwood. “I have so many ideas and see so many possibilities it keeps me up at night. The Mohawk Valley is experiencing an economic boom, and we’re going to be part of it. Think of the potential just in the developing drone industry … I can’t help it; I love my work.”