The early days
Gus and Ellen Nodwell have been business partners since 2008 when we started our first company, IntegraShare Solutioneering Inc. We met back in 2002 at Anadarko Petroleum, where Gus had requested a subject matter adviser to help with the GIS aspects for a project in Anadarko’s UK office – Anadarko Algeria Company. Ellen was elected by her supervisor at the time, to fill that role, and the rest is history!
Years later, after both had left Anadarko, they reunited and formed their partnership with goals of helping people improve their business, utilizing the best available technologies including solid and sensible process management that includes best practices in data governance and management. You can’t make good decisions with data that you cannot verify as “trustworthy”. This has been proven time and again.
2008 going into business together
We founded IntegraShare Solutioneering in 2008 as a software design and development business. But we decided to diversify in 2016 at the urging of some folks that suggested we focus on GIS, geospatial data, and mapping.
In 2008, Ellen had the privilege of meeting Dr. Roger Tomlinson, the Father of GIS, at a book signing. She had attended two of his seminars by then, and at the signing, had a conversation with him about whether or not he might be available to keynote at an upcoming GIS Day that she was hosting where she worked as a global GIS manager at the time. He agreed, and in January 2009, he flew into Houston, with his wife-business partner and administrator, Lila. A mentorship was born.
2009 through 2014 – the inspiration and mentorship of Dr. Roger Tomlinson
From that point on until his death in February 2014 both of the Nodwells continued to absorb his wisdom about everything in his experience that he shared over many discussions in San Diego, Ottawa, and Mexico. Amazing man. Sorely missed. Pictures of him below during a June 2013 lunch visit with The Tomlinsons and some other colleagues.
Dr. Tomlinson was a business analyst and strategist first. His emphasis was on knowing what a business was trying to achieve ahead of suggesting any technology solutions. By far, his wisdom made a huge impact in our thinking. Not enough people were able to learn his methods which he patented. His books were treasure and he worked until his death to update his book each year with his latest perspectives in applied GIS technology. In November of 2013 we helped him celebrate his 80th birthday. The next February during his annual winter stay in Mexico, when normally he revised and updated his book, he collapsed and passed away. We attended his services and said our goodbyes.
2016 IntegraShare Dimensions – founding a “start up”
We founded as a “start-up” a new woman-owned business called “IntegraShare Dimensions” to focus on helping people solve business problems that involved “place” with geospatial solutions using the Esri ArcGIS Technology Platform. We were a business partner with Esri for eight years. At the end of the time, we decided that our goals did not exactly align with the business partnership, so we exited the Esri partnership program as our focus was more on the people-side and technology adoption vs. the technology itself. We shifted our relationship back to “customer” from “partner”. We now are a customer using Esri ArcGIS as it continues to be useful in our business.
We know that everyone can use maps integrated with other applications, as this is now “old hat” – but the root cause of issues with maps usually lies with the data being used and how issues happen is what we help people sort out. People have attitudes about data no matter what type of data they are using. That is a fact.
Today we continue to evolve into advising as a consultancy
We continue to believe that using whichever mapping platform that suits business needs best unlocks the location component of their data — which comprises a large percentage of data in use today. Location in data is nearly ubiquitous. Knowing the location of something can be the difference between life and death in some situations.
We have broadened our business to include process and data integration including the technology and data governance focus, as those aspects seem to impact businesses more than individual software suites. Cybersecurity entered our radar and we now engage with that community as well.
We cater to more than one industry vertical. Projects we work are across verticals as process and governance in technology touches every business organization: small, medium, large and of any type.
We collaborate with local universities and bring on interns to work with us as we believe the only way students can assimilate into the workforce effectively is by transitioning from internships into full-time workers. We serve on advisory and stakeholder boards at colleges and in government.
We encourage people to be spatial thinkers and build a knowledge of where places are, the history of those places, and learn about their planet Earth, it’s systems, and beyond – but more critically, about the climate systems affecting us every day, and the overall environment that constitutes our planet – this fragile one on which we live within our greater planetary community.
We hope to help by promoting this awareness from an early age and promoting interest in learning about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our kids today will be our leaders tomorrow. Learning science, technology, engineering, and math as well as learning about language, the arts, history and geography develop students into well rounded intelligent adults.
We dedicate our efforts to both honor the memories of those who have passed on that cared very deeply about these aspects of life and the sustainability of the world – and to our present and future generations – our children, our grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, and members of our extended family plus the community of friends and colleagues.
Please see our individual pages to learn more about where we have been in our careers, and our capabilities and talents that we bring to our services and solutions. Contact us to learn more!
