Nicholas Colas Geographics
Syracuse, New York

Summary of Qualifications

Nicholas Colas has been a user of geographic information systems (GIS) since 1981 when as a graduate student he acquired expertise in the use of one of the first GIS's- a mainframe, IBM punch card-based system known as the Map Analysis Package (MAP).

While working as a professional planner for the City of Los Angeles Mr. Colas utilized a PC-based software product called LandTrak to delineate the boundaries of the City's thirty-five designated development centers and select candidate sites for more than sixty new public schools. He also assisted in establishing guidelines for the use of GIS in community plan revision projects.

GIS has been an important major component of Mr. Colas's own business which he established in 1988. Recent consulting projects have included:

• Installing the ArcView desktop GIS and loading spatial data for a suburban town in Upstate New York; Training Town staff in the use of ArcView

• Establishing a GIS database for the Nature Conservancy which includes numerous data maps of the Rome Sand Plains in Rome, New York

• Using GIS to analyze in detail the enrollment at a campus of a large public university

• Conducting a demonstration project in the use of GIS for marketing and determining regulatory compliance for a savings bank headquartered in New York State

• Providing GIS and other professional planning assistance in the preparation of a revised comprehensive land use plan and a revised zoning ordinance for a suburban town in Central New York

• Developing an Internet-based map distribution system for Cayuga County, New York

• Training marketing and economic development staff of Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation in the use of desktop GIS software for analysis of business geographics

• Assisting ENSR, an engineering firm in DeWitt, New York prepare viewshed/visibility maps of areas in the vicinity of a proposed development project

Since 1991 Mr. Colas has been demonstrating GIS and lecturing on the subject as a part-time instructor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). He has also supervised student use of GIS software products including MapGrafix, MAPII, MacGIS, ARC/INFO, and ArcView.

In 1996 Mr. Colas, working in association with the School of Continuing Education at SUNY-ESF, was the first in New York State to offer a course in the use of ArcView GIS. He is an ESRI-authorized instructor of "Introduction to ArcView".

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