About Us

Spatial Focus is a well respected, independent GIS consulting and services company specializing in address management and database development. Our team has many years of experience implementing and managing GIS programs and projects. We take great pride in our work and are dedicated to helping organizations succeed.

Spatial Focus was organized in 1998 with a focus on offering a new standard for vendor-independant technical and consulting services in geographic information of all kinds. Over the years, we have worked with many clients on many types of GIS projects; but, it is our knowledge, skills and expertise in the area of street addressing and address data management for which we are most recognized.

Our core philosophy is to work with each client to provide cost-effective solutions that connect geographic information with business data and the organizational structure. These connections provide the spatial focus and records integration crucial to effective deployment, maintenance and expansion of information systems.

Collectively, the Spatial Focus team has over 100 years of experience in the field of geospatial data architecture, geographic information systems, addressing, planning, and data management. We are pleased to introduce you to our leadership team.



Partners

Martha McCart Wells, GISP, Principal


Martha McCart Wells is an experienced GIS Manager and a founder of Spatial Focus, Inc. She brings over 40 years of experience in local government planning and zoning, organizational issues, budgeting, project management, real estate development, transportation planning, and coastal zone management to serve clients of Spatial Focus, Inc. Ms. McCart Wells is co-chair of URISA's Address Standard Working Group, which developed a comprehensive street addressing data standard for the Federal Geographic Data Committee. She has authored numerous presentations and publications on addressing, GIS management and urban planning issues and has been a technical trainer and taught at University undergraduate and graduate levels (University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University and Georgia Tech) in the planning/zoning field.


Sara Yurman, GISP, Principal


Sara Yurman is an experienced GIS Manager and a founder of Spatial Focus, Inc. She has over fourteen years of experience in both organizational and technical aspects of geographic information, encompassing government at the local, regional, and state levels. Ms. Yurman was Project Leader for the Fairfax County and SAGIS Address Implementation Plans, and was the primary technical consultant to the Republic of Malawi on the automation of the Land Title Registry. She has designed comprehensive GIS databases for Hall County, GA, Gaston County, NC, and developed a web-based quality control application that provides for detailed checking of cadastral, planimetric and orthophotographic maps. Her activities have included team-building and change management, as well as implementations of raster and vector GIS, GPS data integration, system development, and database design. Before the founding of Spatial Focus, Inc., Ms. Yurman was a consultant for American Cadastre, Inc. (AmCad), a GIS consulting firm. She served AmCad's domestic market in both managerial and technical assignments.


Matthew Yurman, Principal


Matthew Yurman is a principal at Spatial Focus, handling IT infrastruction, building management and other operational aspects of the firm. During his tenure at the firm he has assisted clients with selection and configuration of systems based on project needs, working both remotely and on-site. Prior to working at Spatial Focus, he was a systems administrator for the PWR Group and at the Linux General Store.



Our Team

Ms. Colleen Sharpe, GISP, Senior Consultant


Ms. Sharpe has over 25 years of local government experience implementing and managing enterprise GIS and over 15 years experience with ArcGIS.

Ms. Sharpe has experience in infrastructure review and server based applications as well as integration review. Ms. Sharpe also has extensive knowledge in land management systems development, workflow/process review, custom map services, spatial analysis and problem solving. Recently Ms. Sharpe was retained as a consultant to City of Raleigh Public Utilities Department to; provide overall GIS guidance, develop ArcGIS online maps and applications for data collection and project tracking, develop workflows and data integration between business systems and GIS, prepare GIS needs assessment and coordinate annual fire hydrant inspection and mapping process.

Prior to joining Spatial Focus Ms. Sharpe was the Geographic Information Services Manager for the City of Raleigh, NC where she managed and coordinated the city’s enterprise GIS program, including maintenance and upgrade of GIS software and hardware; development and maintenance of applications and databases; GIS policy development and support of GIS users.

Ms. Sharpe also taught the Addressing Workshop and has presented numerous papers on various GIS topics.

Ken Denson, GIS and Data Quality Specialist


Ken Denson has ten years of GIS experience working at Spatial Focus designing FGDC standards compliant addressing databases as well as organizing and cleaning client data based on strict data quality guidelines.