The Gazette -
College Park
11/11/2004 - Pg. A-27

by Tiesha Higgins

Photo - Allison Pasek



Dynamix dispatches analysts, for months at a time, to locations throughout the nation, armed with handheld global positioning devices to find the precise address of a coordinate.

"You could almost park your car blindfolded to the level of accuracy" in geospatial mapping, said Jack George, chief scientist at Dynamix and creator of the Tiger mapping system that Mapquest runs on.

"In addition to being able to use [geospatial information systems] for personal navigation, we can also use it to improve routing for emergency vehicles," said Stacy Blanchard, a GIS analyst at Dynamix. A decade ago, emergency dispatchers located distressed callers on a paper map. But with GIS, callers are located faster and more accurately through the digitized system.

Trucking companies such as UPS, which is a big investor in the technology, can avoid the financial drain of routing empty trucks from place to place and coordinate their routes more cost-effectively.

GIS-related contracts account for 15 percent to 20 percent of the company's work, while 65 percent is in providing systems support to companies. The remainder comes from providing temporary systems staffing.

"The plan is bring them to an even keel," said Marcus Price, president and CEO of Dynamix.

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