James W. Sewall Company is pleased to announce that Joan N. Gardner has joined the firm’s Board of Directors.

A recognized leader in the GIS industry, Ms Gardner brings to Sewall’s Board extensive experience in strategic business planning and implementation, including 15 years in Massachusetts state and local government and 15 years in the private sector. While with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, she was a major force behind the Commonwealth’s entry into GIS, managing seminal projects that established the foundation for MassGIS, the statewide enterprise system. In 1991, she founded GIS consulting firm Applied Geographics, Inc., and in the next 13 years managed the company’s growth to a 44-person firm. She is now President of Gardner Associates and the Director of the University of Massachusetts Boston GIS Core Research Facility.

A pioneering advocate for the use of GIS in addressing health issues, her many accomplishments include utilizing GIS to study environmental factors for breast cancer for the Silent Spring Institute and managing an assessment of GIS needs for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In the last three years she has received the Stephen G. Lewis Award for Leadership in the Environmental Industry, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award for Achievement in Business, and the Environmental Business Council of New England “Outstanding New Environmental Application” award for her work with the Silent Spring Institute.

Ms Gardner has served on the U.S. Department of Commerce Environmental Technology Trade Advisory Committee and the New England Chapter of GITA as Past President. She is currently Chair of the Environmental Business Council of New England and a member of the ESRI Health Users Group, the UMass Boston Science Advisory Committee, and the Massachusetts Geographic Information Advisory Council. She is also chairing the committee for URISA’s GIS in Public Health Conference to be held in May 2007 in New Orleans.

“Drawing on my experience in local and state government, as an entrepreneur in the GIS consulting world and now in the academic arena,” Ms Gardner says, “I look forward to participating on the Sewall Board of Directors.” Sewall’s CEO James H. Page notes, “Joan’s comprehensive knowledge of the GIS industry as well as her proven leadership brings a key element to our growth strategies. We are very fortunate to have her with us, and look forward to a very productive relationship.”

With a Bachelor of Science degree in Library Science from Simmons College, Ms Gardner has pursued studies at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Radcliffe College; and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Founded in 1880, Sewall has provided comprehensive GIS consulting services and solutions to government, utility companies, and the forest industry since the 1970s. Sewall's expertise in GIS project implementation is supported by 50 years' experience in aerial photography and landbase mapping and 30 years' experience in GIS database and application development. In recent years, Sewall has assisted multiple clients with implementing web-based GIS. To obtain more information, contact: Lisa Schoonmaker, Communications Director, at (207) 827-4456 or visit the web site at www.jws.com