About Us

Manchester Geomatics Ltd (MGL) was established in July 2000, located at the University of Manchester. The company was set up based on the commercial application of research originally undertaken by the Manchester Regional Research Laboratory in the School of Geography at the University of Manchester.

We have since grown wings and moved to Beehive Mill in the historic conservation area, part of the Ancoats regeneration zone, just east of Manchester City Centre. We are now a fully independent company and retain close links with Manchester University.

MGL's core team is made up of highly qualified and enthusiastic system/software engineers, geodata and geographic information strategy specialists with substantial experience.

MGL Team

Dr. Robert Barr OBE | Chairman | r.barr@peartrees.com

  • Director of the Manchester Regional Research Laboratory and Senior Lecturer in Geographical Information Systems, School of Geography, University of Manchester
  • Chairman (2001) of the Association for Geographic Information
  • Member of the Social Exclusion Unit's Policy Action Team 18 'Better Information' and Chair of the Geographical Referencing Working Group
  • Member of the United Kingdom Standard Geographic Base Project Board and Quality Assurance Team
  • Regular contributor to GIS Europe and GI News in addition to numerous academic publications
  • Almost 30 years experience in the automated handling of geographic information
  • International experience including presenting invited keynote lecture at the US Department of Justice Crime Mapping Research Conference 1999 and Harkness Fellowship, University of California Santa Barbara 1992-93
  • Responsible for the GIS module on the University of Manchester Henry Fielding Centre's MA in Criminal Intelligence Analysis

Interests

  • Social Information Systems (Ph.D.1992)
  • Strategic re-use of service information
  • Visualisation of social and spatial information, analysis and presentation of information
  • Geo-data policy
  • Spatial Privacy
  • Spatial analysis of social and related data

David Butler | Consultant Director | David_Butler@manchestergeomatics.com

  • Sociologist and town planner by training
  • 30 years experience in local government
  • Over 20 years as head of a research and information team in Manchester City Council, managing all aspects of a busy group, including recruitment, training, resource management and client negotiations
  • In-depth knowledge of the measurement and analysis of social change and related information sources. A veteran of 4 population censuses
  • Long experience of working with users to extract strategic information from systems which collect data about service delivery
  • Wide range experience of multi-agency working

Interests

  • Analysis and interpretation of social patterns and social change and the implications for policy
  • Community-oriented research - assisting groups to assemble their own views, through the collection, analysis and presentation of information
  • Community profiles which synthesise qualitative and quantitative information

Edgar Scrase | Consultant Director | ed_scrase@manchestergeomatics.com

  • Manages a busy team of GIS developers and GI analysts
  • Eight years experience delivering spatial & temporal information over the Internet using .NET, Silverlight & SVG using interactive data driven spatially enabled web applications
  • Standardisation, cleansing and matching of address based & related spatial information and associated cross-referencing
  • Designing and optimising databases in MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle
  • Expertise with GIS, particularly MapInfo and ArcGIS

Interests

  • Improving decision making by modelling and mapping changes in spatial information
  • Visualising multidimensional data
  • Biking

Dr. Fay Davies | Managing Director | fay_davies@manchestergeomatics.com

  • 14 years experience working in spatial and remote sensing, both in the UK and overseas
  • Previous roles include:
    • Consultant for phase I of the Joined up Geography Test Bed Project, Manchester Geomatics Ltd
    • Product Management, technical marketing (GPS/GIS software), Trimble Navigation NZ Ltd
    • Remote sensing/GIS/LIDAR data analyst, National Centre for Environmental Data and Surveillance (NCEDS), Environment Agency
    • Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Newcastle upon Tyne (climate change environmental archaeology)
  • In depth knowledge of GIS systems; spatial data capture and analysis; remote sensing and Global Positioning Systems

Interests

  • Joined-up Geography
  • Applied GIS
  • Strategic data management
  • Location-based services

Barry Porter | Finance Director | BarryPorter2003@yahoo.co.uk

  • 15 years experience managing company finances in various PLCs
  • 12 years experience operating as senior internal auditor in a quoted company
  • 5 years working in practice
  • 4 years experience running own consultancy business

Interests

  • Assisting small companies to grow and ensuring that the financial systems and procedures are kept to the appropriate standards
  • Fishing

Steve Senior | Technical Director| SSenior@manchestergeomatics.com

  • Nine years experience developing software solutions for public and private sector.
  • Expertise with C++, .NET (C#, ASP) & Java languages.
  • Architectural design and implementation of complex bespoke GIS web applications.
  • Integration of open-source mapping interfaces (including Google/Windows Live/Openspace map API's).
  • Design, development and implementation of mobile web applications.

Interests

  • Skydiving, snowboarding, and other gravity related activities

Desmond Fitzgerald | Senior Applications Developer | Desmond.Fitzgerald@manchestergeomatics.com

  • Seven years experience researching, designing and developing software across a wide range of industrial and academic projects. Most recently developing spatial data analysis applications
  • Successful past projects include traditional applications, web applications, web services, middleware, database systems, DSP components and system test solutions
  • Expertise in .NET and Java platforms

Interests

  • Data management & data integration
  • Digital signal processing
  • Audio programming languages, particularly SuperCollider
  • Electronic & acoustic music composition and performance