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| 10/21/14 – Geotech Makes Debut at CEMS Conference | For the first time, Geotech attended the Colorado Environmental Management Society Fall Conference. This year it was held at the Coors Field Conference Center in Denver, CO, and the theme of this year’s show was “Navigating Complex Site Cleanup: Technical, Regulatory and Public Relations Challenges. All talks and exhibit booths were focused on environmental cleanup issues and regulatory requirements. Some of Geotech’s clients and prospects that gave talks at this year’s show were: Tim Kelley and Eric Gesser, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, “OPS Redevelopment Fund and New Site Closure Requirements”; David S. Lipson, ARCADIS, “The Vapor Intrusion Challenge: You Got Your Chocolate in My Peanut Butter!”; and John Sohl, Columbia Technologies, “Building Your Case for NAPL, Mobility, and Recovery Using a High Resolution Approach”. Mike Rich represented Geotech as a vendor at this very unique venue, which took place on the Club Level of the ball field. It was a very long one day event, but it was very interesting and well attended, and the inclusion of breakfast, lunch, refreshments, and a Happy Hour reception truly made the time fly! |
| 10/20/14 – 30th Annual AEHS East Coast Conference | Once again this year, the Association of Environmental Health and Safety (AEHS) sponsored their Annual Conference on Soils, Sediments, Water, and Energy at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dave Rich attended this year’s show and shared a booth with the Remediation Partners (a group of environmental-related companies). Dave also gave a talk this year titled, “Geology Rising – Making Better Site Conceptual Models”. This talk was co-authored by Dave Rich, Geotech Computer Systems, Jim Cummings, USEPA, and Joe Quinnan, ARCADIS. The abstract and slide show for this talk can be found on Geotech’s website, at geotech.com/resources.html. |
| 10/9/14 – Geotech Attends EnviroFest | This Fall, Mike Rich represented Geotech with a tabletop exhibit at the annual RMAEP EnviroFest . This year’s show was held at the Mountaineering Museum in Golden, CO. It was a four hour event in which environmental professionals had the opportunity to network, learn, share ideas, dialogue with environmental, engineering, and consulting firms, government agencies, academic institutions, and job seekers, and of course eat and drink. This year’s theme was SMART energy. Networking time was interspersed between presentations and a Panel Discussion. Some of the talks were given by Katelyn Roberts, Coloradoans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED); William Mahoney, National Center of Atmospheric Research; and Jenny Bredt, Renewable Energy Systems Americas, Inc. Some of the other exhibitors at this show were: Geotech Environmental Equipment, ACZ Laboratories, Altus Environmental, and many others. |
| 9/21/14 – Geotech Completes FUSRAP Facility Project | Geotech Computer Systems has been supporting the Cabrera Services team, a company with world-class expertise in radiological and environmental remediation, with a data management project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) New York District at their Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) project at Maywood, NJ. The facility has an on-site New Jersey-certified radiological laboratory, which has been using an in-house developed laboratory information management system (LIMS) and environmental data management system (EDMS). In order to improve performance and capacity, Cabrera contracted Geotech to convert the two systems from Access back-ends to SQL Server back-ends. The existing LIMS system was retained, updated, and converted to a SQL Server back-end. The data in the EDMS was transferred to Geotech’s Enviro Data software, which will be used for sample label creation, import of electronic data deliverables, and data reporting. The two systems are being made available to Cabrera on-site and offsite staff, and other offsite users including USACE remote staff. Training was provided to the Cabrera staff at the Maywood site in September. The project is expected to be completed in November 2014. |
| 8/27/14 – Dave Rich Attends URTeC | This month, Dave Rich was the free guest of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC), at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, CO. This was a two-day event, with more than 4500 attendees, many exhibitors and a plethora of good presentations, a few of which were, “Characterizing Shale Plays – The Importance of Recognizing What You Don’t Know”, “Forecasting Well Production Data in Unconventional Resources”, and “Cha-Ching: It’s All About the Markets”. |
| 8/25/14 – Another Texas Tradeshow | Mike Rich traveled to Texas again this year, to attend the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA’s) annual show,Wastecon, held this year in Grapevine, TX. This was a 3-day show, held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center. There were over 1,000 booths at this year’s show, and also many technical programs, training courses, certification exams, product vendors, and networking events. Wastecon is considered to be the premier solid waste industry event taking place each year. This was Geotech Computer Systems first year at Wastecon and we shared a booth with Geotech Environmental Equipment. Every year SWANA hosts a Young Professionals (YPs) Networking Mentoring Event at this show, where young professionals can expand their professional networks, make new friends, and share their ideas and goals in an enjoyable social environment. Mike attended this event, and many others this year, and found all of them to be very beneficial. |
| 7/29/14 – Geotech Attends 19th Annual ITEC Conference | Mike Rich represented Geotech this year at the Inter-Tribal Environmental Council (ITEC) Conference held at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, in Catoosa, OK, just outside of Tulsa. ITEC provides this opportunity for Tribal representatives and other environmental professionals to obtain a first hand view of various products and training materials that are necessary to enhance environmental programs. This conference was a two-day event, and all of the tribes in Region VI were invited. A limited number of exhibitor booths were available, and Geotech did have a booth at this show. |
| 6/19/14 – 6th Annual Fields Days is Another Success | As they do every year, Geotech Environmental Equipment held their Field Days again this month. The event features many talks, such as “Characterizing Groundwater Flow Velocity and Preferential Flow Zones”, “Deploying Water Quality & Level Sensors Downwell with Remote Telemetry”, and Geotech Computer System’s talk, “Managing Environmental Data for Conceptual Site Models”. There are also many exhibitors, lots of equipment demos, hands-on training on GEE instruments, networking opportunities, excellent Bar-B-Q, and lots of other food and drink. And all free of charge to GEE’s clients and invited industry guests. |
| 5/22/14 – Unique Meeting Venue Prompts Lively Conversations | RMAEP and Society of Women Environmental Professionals (SWEP) co- hosted a Progressive Networking Dinner at Piccolo’s Denver Restaurant in May. This was a very unique and interesting venue because instead of having the usual speaker in the front of the room, attendees started out at one table, eating one course of the meal, and then changed tables throughout the course of the evening, eating additional courses of the dinner, allowing everyone the opportunity to speak to, and meet, many former acquaintances and lots of new business associates. The Mexican and Italian food was enjoyed by all, and many business cards were exchanged. |
| 5/15/14 – RMAEP Lunch Meeting | This year’s Spring Rocky Mountain Association of Environmental Professional’s Luncheon Meeting was held at Lodo’s Bar and Grill in downtown Denver. The featured presentation this year was titled “Naturally Occurring Radioactive Matierials”, NORM. Dave Rich, Geotech’s President, and Mike Rich, Geotech’s Sales Director, attended the presentation and the delicious luncheon, and met many existing clients, and made many new business relationships. |
| 5/6/14 Mike Attends TCEQ Show | May began with Mike Rich, Geotech’s Sales Director, attending the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Conference in Austin, TX. The show was held at the Austin Convention Center, and there were nearly 2,000 exhibit booths at this year’s show. Geotech shared a booth with our good friends and business associates, Geotech Environmental Equipment. The show ran for two days and featured many interesting presentations, such as “Land Application of Wastewater Treatment Plant Sludge and Domestic Sewage”, and “Introduction to Incremental Sampling Methodology”. The Texas Environmental Excellence Awards Banquet takes place at this show, and it honors the state’s most outstanding environmental projects with a video vignette of each winning project. |
| 5/4/14 – Geotech Attends NGWA Groundwater Summit | May was a very busy month this year, for Geotech to meet new prospective clients. The month started off with Dave Rich attending the 10th Annual NGWA Groundwater Summit. The theme of the show this year was “Moving Research to Solutions”. There were many presentations given at this show, such as “Hydraulic Conductivity and Permeability of Sediments in Irrigation Canals”, “The State of Water Resources Around the World and Future Challenges in the U.S.”, “Groundwater Remediation in Karst Terranes: State of the Practice”, and Dave’s talk, “Data Management for the New and Expected Petroleum Baseline Sampling Rules.” Geotech Computer Systems again shared a booth at this show with Geotech Environmental Equipment, and at the end of the last day of the show, GEE bused attendees to their office in Denver, and gave them a tour of their facility, which included a very nice happy hour. A very pleasant way to end a very successful show. |
| 4/8/14 – Western Mining Conference & Exhibition | The 116th National Western Mining Conference & Exhibition was held in Denver, CO this year. Presentations at this show addressed the future of gold mining, the impact of new environmental and safety regulations, resource nationalism, new mine development and mine expansions in Colorado. 110 vendors had booths at this year’s show, and Geotech shared one of these booths with our good friends and business partners, Geotech Environmental Equipment. Some of the other exhibitors this year were Geosyntec Consultants, Inc., Matrix Design Group, Tetra Tech, ACZ Laboratories, Inc., some of whom have been Enviro software users for many years. |
| 3/17/14 – West Coast Travel | In mid-March, Dave and Mike both traveled to the West Coast for Geotech. Dave flew to Seattle, WA to train an Indian Nation there that is a new user of the Enviro software. This Tribe has developed Water Quality and Nutrient Management databases in Access, and they are looking to import these databases into Enviro Data, and print out the graphic results in Enviro Spase. We look forward to getting their data into their new environmental database. While Dave was in Seattle doing training, Mike was in San Diego attending the 24th Annual International Conference on Soil, Water, Energy, and Air. At this show, Geotech shared a booth with Remediation Partners, which was represented by our longtime business associate, Richard Cartwright. There were 43 vendor booths this year and many good talks, such as, “Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory and Technical Update”, “Innovative Remedial Technologies”, “Petroleum Hydrocarbon Vapor Intrusion I”, and “The Future of Human Health Risk Assessment: What to Expect By 2020”. |
| 3/4/14 – Enviro Data Client Adds Second Office | Dave Rich provided a WebEx training today, for the Kansas office of a longtime Enviro Data client. The New Hampshire office of this client has been an Enviro software user for many years. This client has 140 offices across the U.S., and their many consulting engineers and scientists provide services to their clients such as environmental site assessments and investigations, Brownfields and site redevelopment, regulatory compliance, and solid waste planning and design, to name a few. Geotech looks forward to adding many more offices of this corporation to the Enviro software family of users in the near future. |
| 2/27/14 – Geotech Exhibits at Remediation Workshop | Mike Rich exhibited at the Lakewood, CO Remediation Workshop this month. Some of the talks given this day were, “Fork in the Road – how treatability studies put your remediation project on track”, “Sulfate-enhanced Technology for In-Situ Remediation” “Happy Bugs = Happy Clients – Optimizing bioremediation”. Each workshop was attended by 50 – 100 environmental engineers, geologists, and hydro-geologists who were managers of their remediation projects. It was a very well-attended and educational show. |
| 2/26/14– Training and Trade Show | In February, Dave Rich travelled to Indianapolis, IN for two days: the first day he met with one of our Enviro Data clients, a multidisciplinary, environmental investigation and remediation firm, to train their folks on our software, and the second day he attended the Midwestern States Environmental Consultants Association (MSECA) trade show, to give a talk titled, “Managing Environmental Data for Conceptual Site Models”. Both the training and the show were quite successful. |
| 1/26/14 – Enviro Data Training | The Santa Clara Indian Nation, in New Mexico, has been successfully using the Enviro software for over five years now. During this time, the software users have been learning about, and using more of the features every year. Russ Wendell, Geotech’s lead software developer, has been traveling to New Mexico every year to do a week-long training session every year for Santa Clara. This year’s training focused on showing the users how to set up new bottle label reports, set up Sample Events and Field Samples, and how to use the analytic methods table and new soil PRG regulatory limits. Another happy client! |
| 1/22/14 – CGWA Holiday Event | Mike Rich, Geotech’s Sales Director, attended the Colorado Ground-Water Association (CGWA) Holiday Event this year. The festivities were held at Blake Street Tavern, and included a happy hour and scrumptious dinner. The featured speaker this year was Climatologist, Nolan Doesken, who discussed the 2013 flood and how it relates to Colorado history. A lively discussion followed this talk. |
| 1/17/14 – Geotech Provides Training | In mid-January, Geotech provided 2 - 2 hr. Enviro software training sessions, over the course of two days, to a client of ours that has over 140 offices in the US, and is an employee-owned firm of consulting engineers and scientists. We trained our clients in the Kansas and New England offices. The training went well, and we are talking to other offices of this corporation about implementing additional licenses of Enviro Data. |
| 1/12/14 – Dave Takes a Road Trip | Geotech was asked to do some Enviro Data training for a long-time refining company client of ours in New Mexico, so Dave Rich, Geotech’s President, decided to take a road trip to our neighboring state. Dave’s two days of training went quite well, and he returned back to Denver via Gunnison, CO where he visited with a long-time environmental consulting company client of ours. He paid a visit to several other prospective clients before he returned home from his successful and enjoyable trip. |
| 12/29/13 - Geotech Participates in Many Trade Shows and Professional Meetings |
Mike, Geotech’s Sales Director, attended the
RMAEP (Rocky Mountain Assoc. of Env. Professionals) annual trade
show, Envirofest, this quarter. Geotech had a sponsor table
again this year. The event was held at the new History
Colorado building, and some of the speaker topics were: Key Elements
of the Voluntary Cleanup Program; Summit Lake Park Wetlands; and
Recent Changes to Oil and Gas Regulations through the eyes of
Industry and Local Government. Envirofest is an opportunity
for environmental professionals to learn and network with
environmental and engineering organizations and consulting firms,
government agencies, and academic institutions. Tours of the
Colorado History Exhibits were also given during the evening. Geotech once again attended the Annual
International Conference on Soils, Sediments, Water and Energy,
presented by the AEHS Foundation, and hosted at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. This show is traditionally held in
October, a beautiful time of year to be visiting New England. Dave,
Geotech’s President, gave a talk this year titled "Gathering,
Managing, and Displaying Soil Data Using Automated Tools", and
shared a booth with others in the Remediation Partners organization.
There were many Workshops, Platform Sessions and Poster Sessions
throughout the 4-day trade show, and many current and potential
clients said hello to Dave at the Geotech booth. In November, Mike attended the RMAEP November
meeting, which was held at the Test America Laboratories in Arvada,
CO. The topic for this evening was "Colorado Flood Response
and Recovery Panel", and some of the speakers included Julie Cozad,
Deputy Operations Manager/Land Planning Manager at Tetra Tech, and
Martha Rudolph, Director of Environmental Programs for the State of
Colorado and former Executive Director of CDPHE. Many
different perspectives were presented at this meeting, including
community members directly affected by the floods, land use
professionals, regulatory challenges, and industry response.
It was a thought-provoking evening. Also in November, Dave attended the 20th Annual
IPEC (International Petroleum Environmental Conference) Trade Show,
sponsored by the University of Tulsa, and held in San Antonio, TX
this year. Dave gave a talk titled "Data Management for the
New and Expected Baseline Sampling Rules", and also had a booth at
this year’s show. The theme of this year’s show was
"Environmental Issues and Solutions in Exploration, Production,
Refining and Distribution of Petroleum". Some of the
highlights of the show were: Environmental Issues in US Shale Plays,
Horizontal Drilling and Remediation Wells, Fracking and
Environmental Issues, and Produced Water Treatment and Management
Strategies. In his few spare moments at this show, Dave was
able to enjoy the warm Fall weather in Texas, and visit with his
sister who lives in Austin and teaches at the University of Texas,
Austin. December 3 – 5, Mike attended the annual NGWA
Groundwater Expo in Nashville, TN. This year, Geotech shared a
booth with our good friends and business associates at Geotech
Environmental Equipment. This is a very large show, with well
over 1,000 booths, vendors and attendees. Throughout the show
there were many Technical Sessions, Presentations, Lectures, Tours,
and Short Courses going on simultaneously, with topics such as
Groundwater Sampling and Environmental Monitoring and Drilling
Fundamentals for Hydrogeologists. Being in Nashville, "Music
City", there were of course many country music groups to be enjoyed,
such as Sweethearts of the Rodeo and The Bellamy Brothers. New
at this trade show, Geotech had a magnum of Sequum Cabernet
Sauvignon wine for auction at the booth. This wine is made in
Napa Valley, CA, by a Geotech client who uses the Enviro software to
manage soil data for vineyard development and maintenance. "The
software you can taste!" If you are interested in learning
more about this wine, contact
mrich@geotech.com, or call Geotech Toll Free at 877-740-1999. Rounding out 2013, Dave and Mike attended the
RMAEP Holiday Party on December 12, at Lodo’s Bar & Grill in
downtown Denver. The
theme of this event was Casino Night, and Mike actually won FREE
attendance at the next two RMAEP events!
Many Geotech friends and business associates attended this
Holiday Party, and of course, the food and atmosphere were very
festive. A good time
was had by all. |
| 12/11/13 - Updated Validation Tool |
Geotech is preparing a new release of Enviro Data, tentatively
called Version 2012 D. One of the changes is a big upgrade to the
Validation tool. While the calculations are pretty much the same as
we have had for years, the user interface has been rewritten to make
it easier to use, and provide more flexibility in selecting and
configuring calculations. It will also include many new report
formats, most of which are based on suggestions by our chemist
clients. Here is one example:  |
| 12/9/13 - New Quick List feature |
While Enviro Data is the best project database
around, we are also seeing our users apply Enviro Data to much
larger data sets, in some cases approaching 10 million records,
using SQL Server or Oracle. The time required to retrieve a large
number of records was impacting their workflow. For example, using
the existing List feature to display 283,000 records took over 30
minutes. So we added a new feature called Quick List, as shown in
the following figure:
It uses a different data retrieval approach,
and is much faster. When we ran a Quick List, it took 4 seconds for
the first records to appear, and 54 seconds to display them all.
If you are building large databases, this
feature is for you. We are now implementing this new technology
approach to speed up other output options as well. |
| 11/25/13 - Updated Validation Tool |
Based on feedback from several users, Geotech
is updating the user interface for the Validation tool that is part
of the Enviro Data Editor. One of the updated screens is shown in
the following picture. It shows the interface for the user to select
the tests to be run, and the reports to be generated.
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| 11/19/13 - New Clients This Quarter | Geotech is happy to announce that we added four new clients to our growing list of Enviro software users this quarter. The first client is a very large environmental company, with offices around the world. The Lakewood, CO office purchased the Enviro software to use on a project for the Colorado Dept. of Public Health. This project was using a competing environmental database management software package, which did not work, and so our client replaced it with the Enviro software. Our second new client this quarter is a company of consulting scientists and engineers, with six offices in Montana and Idaho. This client also switched from the same large environmental database management system, which failed, to Enviro Data. Based in Minnesota, our third new client this month is an environmental services company focused on site investigations, munitions cleanup, hazardous waste management, and industrial cleaning and emergency spill response. The final new Enviro software user this quarter is a small environmental consulting company headquarted in Alabama, and the software is being used to assist a Tribal Nation in managing their environmental data. We welcome all our new users. |
| 11/2/13 - Geotech Thanks Long Time Enviro Data Users | Geotech ran some statistics on its client user-base recently, and confirmed that we have over 30 clients that have been using the Enviro software, and Geotech’s services, for five to sixteen years. These satisfied customers include: U.S. Government Agencies; small, medium and large environmental companies; State Public Health environmental agencies; laboratories; county governments; Canadian airports; Canadian pulp and paper mills; large oil & gas E&P companies; Indian tribal nations; an Argentinian environmental company; and oil & gas refineries, to name a few. Geotech also has many clients that have started using the Enviro software within the last one to five years. We are very grateful to all of our loyal users, and hope to continue serving their environmental database management needs for many more years to come. Thank you for your continued business! |
| 11/2/13 - Awesome Tech Support |
Since 1986, Geotech has been providing top
notch databases and services to the environmental industry.
With a strong emphasis on client satisfaction, Geotech has been said
by some to have the best support in the industry. Whether
you’re just starting with the Enviro Data system, needing a way to
organize historical data, or just need a little consulting, Geotech
is always here to help. See what clients are saying about Geotech: "Everything is going well with Enviro Data.
At this point, things are running smoothly; I’d like to let you know
that Geotech tech support is very helpful when I have problems.
They respond to my requests for help quickly and I find them to be
good teachers." Database Administrator, environmental
company "The one issue I had a few weeks back, Geotech
tech support promptly resolved for us." Project Geologist,
environmental company "The program is working fine for us and we’ve
been very happy with the tech support that we get from Geotech when
day-to-day questions come up." Project Scientist, large
consulting company |
| 10/30/13 - Praise for Enviro Data from China | In 2012, Geotech was contacted by a very bright graduate student at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhiyu Li. He was looking for a dissertation topic for his thesis, so Dave Rich, Geotech’s President, and Chris Watson, one of Geotech’s consultants, spent quite a bit of time talking to Zhiyu, and decided that he could help us with the recent modifications to Enviro Spase, and use this as the topic of his thesis. Working closely with Chris, Zhiyu helped modify and test Enviro Spase, and identified and corrected some minor bugs. A year and a half later, Zhiyu has completed his thesis, and will be defending it this June. It was a pleasure to work with Zhiyu, and we found him to be very talented, diligent, and easy to work with. Zhiyu also worked with Enviro Data as part of this project. His comment about Enviro Data was, “…Enviro Data is the most sophisticated, powerful and professional software based on Microsoft Access I have ever seen.” |
| 10/17/13 - FREE case of Sequum wine with Enviro Data purchase |
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| 10/12/13 - Ten New Clients |
Geotech is proud to announce that we added ten
new clients to the list of satisfied Enviro Data users in the fourth
quarter of 2013. We began the Fall by selling the Enviro
software to an employee-owned corporation, founded in 1946, with
over 200 employees, and offices in six states. Our second new
client of the quarter owns one of the highest-grade silver mines in
Canada, and is using Enviro Data to manage data from their
production. Our third client is an Indian Nation in the
Northwest U.S., using the software to remediate soil and water on
some of their tribal land. The next purchase was by an
environmental consulting firm in the Rocky Mountain region that
provides services such as geologic and hydrologic studies,
management of water resources, environmental compliance and many
others. Our fifth new Enviro Data corporate user is a gold
producer largely based in Nevada. Next on the list of new
Enviro software users is a Texas-based corporation with seven
offices in the US and two offices in Europe, and they’re using the
software to perform analyses that demonstrate the long-term safety
of mining, oil and gas, and radioactive waste operations. This
quarter we also added a Florida County Stormwater Management group,
whose major goal is to resolve current runoff control issues and
prevent new ones from occurring. Our eighth new client this
quarter is an independent consulting firm that offers services in
hydrology and geochemistry, primarily to the mining sector.
Our next new client to purchase Enviro Data is the Kansas office of
a large employee-owned firm of consulting engineers and scientists.
Their New Hampshire office purchased the software several years ago.
And our last new client of the quarter was founded in 1994, has over
175 employees, and is an industry leader in engineering and
remediation services for radioactive, hazardous, toxic, and MEC/UXO
sites. We are pleased to welcome all our new clients to the
long and growing list of satisfied Enviro software users! |
| 10/10/13 - The database you can taste |
|
| 9/21/13 - Geotech Attends Fall AEHS Conference |
Dr. Dave, Geotech’s President, will be
representing Geotech at the University of Massachusetts AEHS
(Association for Environmental Health and Sciences Foundation)
conference again this year. He will be giving a talk
titled,"Using Technology Tools to Increase Remediation Project
Efficiency". We invite you to attend Dave’s presentation, and
bring all your environmental questions with you. Geotech is part of the Remediation Partners (a
group of environmentally related companies) and will be sharing a
booth at this conference with several of the companies in this
group: Defiant Technologies, GZA GeoEnvironmental, C3 Environmental,
Terra Systems, and MECX. Our booth number at the conference
this year is B1, and we encourage you to come and learn more about
all of our environmental technology tools. Hope to see you
there! |
| 9/6/13 - Warning about SQL 2012 |
We all live on the Microsoft software
treadmill. The latest issue we have been working with is the
transition from Microsoft SQL Server 2008 to 2012. In this change,
Microsoft has significantly changed how triggers and identity fields
work, among other things. And, unfortunately, the Microsoft wizards
for upsizing an Access database and converting a SQL database from
2008 to 2012 don’t work very well, or at least haven’t worked well
for us. What this means for Enviro Data users is that if you are
thinking about converting from Access to SQL Server 2012, or SQL
Server 2008 to 2012, the conversion will take more planning than it
took to convert to SQL 2008. Please contact Geotech if you are
considering either of these upgrades. |
| 7/18/13 - Dave Rich to present at IPEC |
"Data Management for the New and Expected
Baseline Sampling Rules" will be the title of the talk that Dave
Rich will be giving at this year’s 20th International Petroleum
Environmental Conference (IPEC), November 12 -14, in San Antonio,
TX. In February, 2013, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation
Commission (COGCC) published Rules 609 and 318A. These rules
made Colorado the first state in the country to require pre- and
post-drilling sampling of water sources near new oil and gas wells
permitted after May 1, 2013. A number of oil and gas operators
predict that requirements similar to these will be implemented by
other states in the near future. Dave’s talk will discuss the
new Colorado rules and the data management requirements for the
sampling. Geotech will also have a booth at this trade show.
If you have any questions about Rules 609 and 318A, please visit
Geotech at the IPEC show, or contact Geotech at
drich@geotech.com. |
| 7/3/13 - Windows 8 Shortcuts |
As soon as you become familiar with a software
program, a new and improved version is released. Microsoft Windows
is a prime example of this. It seems that with popular software like
Windows, the vendor, in this case Microsoft, releases new versions
every three or four years. It may be irritating to learn so many new
features of a program, so frequently, but there is help; help
through shortcuts that may make life a little easier. The mere
thought of learning to navigate through Windows 8 can seem tedious
(see below). Some helpful shortcuts to keep in mind while using this
program involve the Windows key, plus a second key. Keyboard
shortcuts include (but are not limited to), minimizing, maximizing,
opening new and restoring windows, as well as opening menu options.
Windows 8 along with other new technologies use "Tiles" or "Apps,"
also known as applications.
An "App" is a piece of software that can run on a computer,
the Internet, mobile phones and other electronic devices.
Here are a few useful shortcuts:
Using the Windows key + Q you are able to access the Apps
search screen, which can be helpful and timesaving.
Another search option includes the Windows key + W, which
brings up an option to search the settings. Using the Windows key +
F brings up a new menu to search for files, documents and so forth.
While working with properties you can use the Windows key + X to
open the tools menu, advanced system options, command prompts, file
explorer, the task manager as well as the control panel. The Windows
key + E opens the computer, accessing the hard drive, removable
storage and other network locations. The Windows key + M will
minimize all windows. To restore minimized windows simply use the
Windows key + Shift + M. By pressing the Windows key and typing, you
can search your computer. In order to lock the computer, merely use
the Windows key + L. With the ever- changing software being released
these days, it seems as though there is much to learn; however,
shortcuts help a great deal with time management and productivity. |
| 6/27/13 - Updated ERPIMS and ERIS Formats |
Geotech recently updated two of our supported
Department of Defense formats. One is the ERPIMS format for the U.S.
Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC, formerly AFCEE).
Enviro Data can now export ERPIMS version 6.0 files.
Likewise, the Enviro Data export for the Environmental Restoration
Information System (ERIS) from the U.S. Army Environmental Command,
has been updated to version 3.0. |
| 6/13/13 - .net update |
As you may have heard, the decision by ESRI to
end support for VBA in the 10.2 release has been reversed, and the
VBA runtime is still included. Geotech has rewritten Enviro Spase
from VBA to VB.net in anticipation of this change. We are finishing
final testing and documentation for this revised software, but as
long as ESRI continues to support VBA, there isn’t a pressing reason
for most people to switch. Geotech will keep you posted on the
status of this issue. |
| 5/17/14 - New Clients |
The second quarter of 2013 has been a busy one
for the Geotech staff.
Besides the myriad of other things that you’ve read about above,
that fill our work days, the Geotech sales staff landed four large
new clients this quarter.
The first was an electric utility in the Northwest, which
actually purchased their software last quarter, but added
maintenance and training to their purchase this quarter.
We next added a large Nevada gold company to our software
users list, with their purchase of licenses, maintenance and a week
of training. Our next
new client was a geoconsulting and environmental remediation
services company headquartered in Texas.
And lastly, a California county that performs stormwater
management services purchased our software, maintenance and
training. We look
forward to getting them all successfully up and running in the near
future, and for many years to come. |
| 5/15/13 - ACE-IT Approves Enviro Data 2012 |
Two Army Corps of Engineers districts now have
the Enviro software for their data management and GIS needs, and
have been using the 2010 version, both in their own and in
cooperation with their contractors. Geotech recently received word
that the Corps IT department has now approved our 2012 version as
well. Our Corps users will now be upgrading to the latest version,
and other districts can adopt the software without needing to go
through the approval process. Thanks to the Omaha District for their
help in getting this done. |
| 4/22/14 – Mike Rich Attends Field Days |
Sales Director Mike Rich attended another great
Field Days show hosted by the well-known Geotech Environmental
Equipment in north Denver.
Visiting with other venders and attendees, Mike spent two
days helping people find better solutions for their environmental
needs. Mike gave a
talk: “Managing, Reporting, and Displaying Baseline Data and Similar
Data Types”, which helped people understand the best ways to handle
environmental data depending on their project type.
Mike met many wonderful new people and helped them understand
the benefits of a centralized data management system. |
| 4/5/13 - Download a Free Environmental Computing Glossary |
Geotech is happy to provide a free resource to our friends. This is a 44
page glossary of environmental and computer industry terms. It has
evolved over the last few years in various forms, and has recently been
updated. You can download this useful tool from
www.geotech.com/downloads/glossary.pdf.
 |
| 3/27/13 - Geotech Attends Spring AEHS Conference | At the end of March, Geotech again attended the AEHS Annual International Conference on Soil, Water, Energy, and Air in sunny San Diego, California. Mike Rich represented Geotech and he shared a booth with Richard Cartwright of MECX. Geotech and MECX are members of The Remediation Partners, a consortium of companies that work together to find solutions for a wide variety of environmental and remediation needs. Mike and the Remediation Partners met many new companies and people and provided many avenues for people to pursue as they look for solutions to their specific environmental problems. From data management to remediation, Remediation Partners is your one stop shop for your environmental needs. Many new partnerships were born and Geotech looks forward to working with all these new companies in the future. |
| 3/15/13 - COGCC Rule 609 - Colorado Setting a Precedent | In February the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) published Rule 609 making Colorado the first state in the country to require pre- and post-drilling sampling of water sources near new oil and gas wells. With this new rule in place, producing companies and their consultants must do baseline studies prior to, during and after drilling takes place to ensure water sources are of the highest quality. Since about 2007, Geotech Computer Systems has been helping clients use our Enviro Data software to report data to COGCC. With the implementation of the new state database for uploading the results, Geotech has cooperated with COGCC to update the transfer of data to their database using their new XML format. With this change, now you can obtain your data from your laboratory in the comprehensive Enviro Data format, perform your in-house quality control, reporting, and mapping, and then upload the data to COGCC, properly handling data details like Facility IDs and Sample IDs generated by the state. Contact Mike Rich, mrich@geotech.com for additional details. |
| 2/29/13 - New Geotech Clients | Geotech is pleased to have added six new clients to our Enviro Software family in the first quarter of 2013. The first is a consulting company with offices in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Founded in 1946, this company specializes in Geotechnical Engineering, Environmental and Groundwater Science, Inspection and Testing Services, and many other disciplines. The second new client is an environmental and engineering consulting firm located in Colorado, that deals with business segments such as Brownfield Redevelopments, Land Development, Minerals Exploration, Mining, Oil & Gas, etc. Our third client this quarter is a minerals corporation headquarted in Canada and specializing in the exploration and development of uranium properties in the U.S., primarily in Wyoming and New Mexico. Fourth on our new client list is another Canadian company, established in 1973, that provides environmental services such as enhanced bioremediation, groundwater cutoff, In Situ chemical oxidation, and many others. With offices in Canada and Denver, our fifth new client is the environmental arm of a large silver producing company in Canada. This environmental group provides scientific and engineering services to mining, chemical, gas and government clients. They also provide water treatment and closure services at mining sites. Our final new client of the quarter is the Yakama Nation, a Native American group consisting of nearly 10,000 members, living in Washington State. We are happy that all of these clients have chosen the Enviro software to help them meet their environmental database management needs. |
| 2/21/13 - Enviro Data 2012 Released |
Geotech has been working for the last several
months on a major new version of our Enviro Data software. With a fresh
new look, Enviro Data 2012 allows you to more easily manage your
databases, perform common tasks, import data in difficult formats, and
generate just the output you need. The version got the name 2012 early
in its development, and we didn't change it even though it's being
released now. (It took longer because of all the useful stuff we wanted
to put in it.)
Here are just a few of the new features: Redesigned interface makes the software easier to
use for new users, while providing the full functionality of the
software to experienced users. A new database tracking feature helps you keep
track of your Enviro databases in Access, SQL Server, and Oracle. Now
you can open a database with just a couple of mouse clicks, without
having to navigate to the desired folder and file. Many new and updated import and export formats,
including SEDD, ADR, WQX, Scribe, ERPIMS, EQuIS, ADaPT, COGCC,
EnviroInsite, RockWorks, NJ Hazsite, and NYSDEC, among others. New import options, including an updated
“Uncrosstabber” to help dissect and import Excel tables. You can also
define your own imports of multiple related files. New data review tool for projects that don’t need
Enviro Data’s full CLP-based validation. Support for biological data for both individual and
population census data. Enhanced Bulk Data tool for managing time sequence
data like level loggers and multi-parameter probes, downhole data, and
2- and 3-D survey data. Expanded Field Tool capability that now lets you
create your field documents such as container labels and chains of
custody in the field based on actual field conditions. Stations can now have aliases, similar to
Parameters. Enhanced Crosstab Wizard export with integrated
statistics. More regulatory limit options, including bolding,
underlining, and super- and sub-scripts. Regression curve option for graph reports. Significantly enhanced performance for retrieving
large data sets. We have now completed the development, in-house
testing, and external testing, and are now releasing it to all users. |
| 1/27/13 - Data Management Help |
One of the smartest things you can do for your business is to call on
Geotech when you need data management help. We have trained,
experienced staff to help you when: You have too much work to do and not enough staff to do it. You lose key data management personnel, have project deadlines, and no time to hire and train new people. When you want to save money. Hiring Geotech staff on an as-needed basis is far less expensive than hiring a full-time employee. Geotech provides a variety of data management services such as: Data entry and importing Database setup Quality control Reporting Mapping Geotech has helped a wide variety of clients with their data management needs just in 2012: We have an ongoing project with a downhole push company to help them load their push and traditional lab data and generate various kinds of outputs. A large environmental company in Chicago had us load 25 years of data, nearly three million records of data, from two historical databases and 300 lab deliverable files. We provided a spatial information company with analyses and reports on phosphate mine samples in China. A multi-office environmental consulting firm retained Geotech to make project specific reports for their client projects. Geotech created a project-specific field data entry tool for Oak Ridge Laboratory. A uranium company hired Geotech to add statistics calculation capabilities to the Crosstab Wizard. We did a large data loading project for a refinery in the western US. And for our Indian tribe clients, we performed data loading, validation modifications, and custom software development for their staff. So please give us a call the next time you need help managing your data. We are here to help you! |
| 1/10/13 - Free Environmental Statistical Software |
 Performing statistics on
environmental data can present special challenges. One of the largest of
these is that the data distribution may not be “normal” or Gaussian,
that is, it does not conform to the expected bell-shaped curve. In this
case, the normal descriptive statistics such as mean, median, mode and
standard deviation don’t present an accurate picture of the data. In
particular, it can be hard to identify trends in the data. For this it
is necessary to use “robust” statistics, running tests like
Mann-Kendall, Seasonal Kendall, and Kruskall-Wallace to identify
possible trends. A few years back, the Air Force had a contractor write software to perform these tests. It is called MAROS (Monitoring and Remediation Optimization Systems), and can be downloaded from www.gsi-net.com/en/software/free-software/maros.html. The software runs within Microsoft Access. The program has both statistical analysis and display capabilities, as shown in the following screen shot. While there are a number of commercial statistics programs that provide this type of capability, MAROS has the advantage of being free. |
| 12/16/12 - New Dealer in Mexico | Geotech has been working for some time with folks in Argentina on a Spanish friendly version of Enviro Data. Since their implementation is going so well, we thought we might be able to provide some benefit to other Spanish speaking areas as well. Geotech has been strategically working with a partner in Mexico who has become a reseller of the Enviro System there. With this addition to our team, we can now help even more people with their data management and display needs. Geotech hopes to expand further into Mexico in hopes of bringing more efficient data management and display to companies there. Our contact there is Miquel Marquina with Ecosphere, +52 55 5272 1633, mmarquina@attglobal.net, who also happens to be a Geotech Environmental Equipment dealer as well. Miguel is your one stop shop for all your environmental hardware and software needs in Mexico. |
| 12/13/12 - Enviro Spase 2012 also coming soon - .net conversion |
Enviro Spase was written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Over
time ESRI is discontinuing support for VBA. In ArcGIS 10.0, VBA was
removed from the core program and became an extension. In 10.1, the
current version, the VBA runtime is supported, but not the VBA editor,
and seems likely that the next version will not support VBA at all. In order to keep Enviro Spase running despite these changes, we are in the process of rewriting the software in Visual Studio VB.net. The conversion is going well. Several wizards have been converted, and the rest should be done in a couple of months. The following figure shows ArcMap with the original Enviro Spase toolbar with all the wizards, and the new .net toolbar below it with the three wizards that had been completed and tested as of Dec. 1.  |
| 11/28/12 - Geotech Lands Gold Mining Client | Geotech is pleased to announce the sale of its Enviro Data software and services to one of West Africa’s most aggressive gold exploration companies in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. This is Geotech’s first sale to an international gold mining company. Our client focuses on developing under-explored gold belts and acquisition of potential new projects, while at the same time respecting the value of the cultural heritage and working with the local community to provide employment and build long-term relationships. As with many of our international clients, Geotech is providing Enviro software training to this client via Skype and WebEx, which is an excellent and cost-effective way to train overseas. We are pleased to welcome this new client to our growing list of satisfied Enviro software users. |
| 11/11/12 - Good news about the Enviro Software, Windows 8, and Office 2013 |
We’re all in a vicious circle. This circle is powered by big software
vendors, with Microsoft at the top of the pile, followed by others like
ESRI, and we’re all running to keep up. While most folks struggle to
keep current with the most recent version, Geotech and other sofware
authors are tasked with an even more dificult task: not only keep
current with the most recent version, but develop and produce code that
works will all the recent changes. It can be especially hard when the
platforms we run on keep changing under our feet. Part of Geotech’s quality assurance program is to test our software with new versions as they are delivered. Within the last two weeks Microsoft has released new versions of both its operating system, Windows 8, and its productivity suite, Office 2013. So we set out to test our software on both. We started by upgrading one of our test computers from Windows 7 to Windows 8, both 64-bit. The upgrade went surprisingly well, and we were able to keep our data, software settings, and applications. If we were starting with Windows XP, we would have needed to reformat. We were then faced with the much-discussed Start Screen, which appears when you start your computer. If you don’t like it, you can click on the Desktop tile, and you will be taken to another screen, almost the same as the Windows 7 desktop, except without a Start button. Here’s a tip for the Start Screen - just start typing. It will provide a list of applications that match what you have typed, which you can click on to start. Always being interested in trying something new, we decided to go with the flow and put some Enviro Data icons on the Start Screen. It turned out to be pretty easy. Windows 8 took the existing icons that were on our desktop in Windows 7, and automatically put them on the new desktop in Windows 8. All we had to do from there was go to the icons on the Desktop and pin them to the Start Screen. When we tried to add icons for new applications it took a bit more effort, but once we figured out that all the icons on the Start Screen are contained in a Start folder, we could paste new icons there and then pin them as well. The result was what we wanted, as is shown in the following figure:  When we clicked on them we got what we expected. Windows switched to the Desktop, Access opened, and Enviro Data opened. So far so good, as shown in the following figure:  But when we started testing we ran into a few problems. It turned out that we still had the problematic 64-bit version of Office 2010 on this computer. But not to worry, we wanted to switch to Office 2013 anyway. So we uninstalled Office 2010 64-bit, installed Office 2013 32-bit, and Enviro Data worked like a charm. The testing of Enviro Spase went even better. Once we got the icon set up, we clicked on it, and ArcGIS started right up, and the Enviro Spase wizards ran just fine. So we can say with confidence that we have overcome the gerbil wheel. At least for now. |
| 10/23/12 - Walden Associates becomes Enviro Data consultant and reseller |
 Walden Associates, based in New
York, performs environmental engineering and GIS consulting services for
governments and the commercial sector. Over time Walden, like most
consulting companies, began to seek out a tool for managing the large
volumes of data produced by the projects it worked on. Drawing upon the
computer and technical strengths of the firm, Walden began to utilize
Environmental Database Management Systems (EDMS) in its own work, and
then converted that expertise into a valuable service for new clients by
assisting them with implementing EDMS’s of their own. In doing so,
Walden has become familiar with a number of data management products,
most recently by becoming an Enviro Data and Enviro Spase consultant and
reseller.  Christian
Mostert, Walden’s Chief Operating Officer, had this to say, “Our mission
at Walden is to provide our clients with the best solution that fits
their needs, capabilities, and budget. In our experience Enviro Data
and Enviro Spase provide a whole new level of functionality and ease of
use for our clients. Often when new data management tools are
implemented, it is extremely important to get early successes in order
to gain momentum and user buy-in. With Enviro Data and Enviro Spase,
those successes occur at the very beginning with the ease of
implementing the software and setting up the databases, and they
continue when clients begin to load and interact with their data. Now
companies without a large budget or IT staff can have a comprehensive
data management system. We feel this fits in well with Walden’s goal
to provide high quality solutions that best fit our clients’ unique
needs.” |
| 10/6/12 - Enviro Data 2012 Coming soon |
We’re often told by our clients that Enviro Data is easier to use,
especially after they have used competing products. But there’s always
room for improvement, and the new Enviro Data 2012 release, due out
soon, will have a number of changes to make it even easier to use. For example, people who are new to the software may be put off by the many options and features that the software provides. Experienced users like all these capabilities, but the new version will make it easier to get started, and then grow into the software. Many of the menu forms in the software will give you the ability to show more or less features, depending on your needs. For example, here is the Main Menu form as it opens for a new user:  Then as they become more familiar with the software, they may turn on more capabilities:  Note: These screens are based on a prototype, and things may change before the final release. One new time saver that we added, is a way to manage all your databases from one screen. Information such as a list of all your databases by site name, date last modified, amount of data, your back-end storage for that database and others, make it easy to get from one database to another. This can be extremely helpful for folks such as our consulting company clients that have to manage many, sometimes hundreds of databases at any given time. This “database of databases” will help them manage and keep track of all their projects. This can be seen to the right of the above screen. From there, they can pick a database from the list and open it, in the Editor, Viewer, or both. |
| 9/30/12 - Geotech Attends tribal conference in Region 10 | Geotech’s sales director Mike Rich recently visited Coos Bay Oregon, where the ITEP 2012 show was held by the Coquille Indian Tribe. Geotech has been working with tribes around the country helping them more efficiently manage their data as well as submit their results to USEPA. Geotech works with tribes in Regions 2, 6, and 8, and hope to continue expanding into other regions to help the tribes in the North and Southwest know more about Geotech and the benefits of our data management software and services. For more information on tribal data management or WQX, contact Mike Rich at: mrich@geotech.com. |
| 9/14/12 – Enviro Data’s Remote Field Tool Enhanced |
 Probably
the biggest feature in 2010E is the Remote Field Tool. As clients
started to use the Field Tool sample planning feature, they expressed a
need to be able to modify the field event in the field, and then prepare
and print the field documents, including container labels and chains of
custody, in the field. And then they needed to be able to reconcile
changes in the field with the main database once they returned to the
office. Now they can do that. They can do as much work as they want
setting up the sample event prior to going into the field, and then
export the event to a file that they can bring out on their laptop. Then a remote version of the field tool lets them work with the event in the field, including adding new stations, changing stations and QC for the event, and changing methods and parameters. Then they print the field documents, and then sync their changes when the return to the office. |
| 8/23/12 - Successful WQX upload | Geotech has been working with a tribe in New Mexico helping them with their data uploads through the WQX portal. WQX is the data submittal tool for the EPA STORET data repository used by tribes, states, and others. While there have been many hurdles in this process - mapping of data fields with the EPA and the tribe, satisfying all the EPA requirements, especially characteristic (parameter definitions), and so on, we were able to successfully get locations, samples and results to upload to WQX. While this may not seem like much now, it is paving the road for other tribes to more easily manage and submit their data to the EPA to satisfy their grant requirements. |
| 8/7/12 - Biological Data Update | Starting with the new Enviro Data 2010E, you can now store various kinds of biological data in Enviro Data. New data fields for taxonomy, life stage, gender, and tissue type make it easy to import and store data for individual specimens and population census data. And a new table for related samples makes it easy to manage complex relationships between samples, such as multiple steps of dissection, compositing, and so on. And all of this works with the existing system for storing chemical results and related data. If you need to manage biological data, ask Geotech to show you this new functionality. |
| 8/5/13 – Geotech participates in Envirofest | Again this year, Geotech will be attending the Rocky Mountain Association of Environmental Professionals (RMAEP) Envirofest, at the History Colorado museum, on October 3, 2013. This show is an opportunity for environmental professionals to learn and network with other environmental and engineering organizations, consulting firms, government agencies, and universities. There will be numerous speakers on such topics as: regulatory and compliance issues, environmental and natural resources, and incorporating the environment into your business planning. Mike Rich will be representing Geotech at this event. We look forward to seeing you there. |
| 8/1/13 - Enviro Data in the Cloud |
 The
current Enviro Data architecture has been serving Geotech’s clients for
almost 20 years. The Access front-end allows us to efficiently build
great functionality, while providing a product that users can modify as
necessary for their specific needs. The flexibility of storing the data
in Access, SQL Server, and Oracle lets the software scale from small to
large projects. We anticipate that this architecture will continue to
provide good service for the foreseeable future; however some of our
clients have expressed a need for: 1) a different architecture that does
not require Enviro Data and Access to run on their desktop, and 2) for
the software and data to be made available on the web. This type of a
model is often called Software As A Service or SAAS. Geotech is
responding to this by developing a version of Enviro Data that runs in
the “cloud.” As we develop this functionality, we are soliciting
feedback from potential Enviro Data cloud users about how they might use
a system like this, and what value it would provide. We would love to
hear from you about how cloud-based functionality might benefit your
organization. We would be happy to provide you with a demonstration of
Enviro Data running in the Cloud. Contact Mike Rich,
mrich@geotech.com or call
877-740-1999 Toll-Free for additional details. |
| 9/30/12 - Corps of Engineers Selects Enviro Software | After a competitive procurement, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District, selected the Enviro software for their data management and mapping needs. Omaha joins the New Jersey and Boston offices of the Corps as Enviro Data clients. The Omaha District purchased several licenses of the full Concurrent Use software, several Concurrent Use Viewers, and Enviro Spase. Factors that led to the selection included Enviro Data’s ease of learning and use, its scalability from small projects in Access to larger projects in SQL Server or Oracle, and its open-source delivery model. Other capabilities important to the Corps included handling of ADR and SEDD file formats, and interfaces with other programs, including GINT, Surfer, and ArcGIS. Geotech is looking forward to getting their folks up and running with the software. |
| 7/31/12 - Prospective Clients |
Once again this month, Geotech presented several
software demos for interested clients: the first was a small,
woman-owned environmental consulting firm, established in 2004, with
expertise in marine and freshwater water quality concerns, in Rhode
Island. This company felt
that the Enviro software could greatly help them manage and display
their data in the areas of watershed nutrient loading studies,
limnological investigations, nutrient flux studies, construction site
oversight and monitoring as well as QAPP and field plan preparation.
The second company was an environmental, planning and engineering
consulting firm, founded in 1981.
This company has a 26-member management team, and offices in NY,
Maryland, Washington DC, and New Jersey.
The third demo of the month was presented to a geoscience
consulting firm, founded in 2000, specializing in cost-effective
characterization and remediation of environmentally impaired sites.
The last demo of the month was for a company specializing in
environmental remediation and compliance, radiological waste management,
renewable energy services and engineering design and construction
management services to government agencies and select commercial
industries. We look forward
to welcoming all of these companies into the satisfied family of Enviro
software users soon. |
| 7/23/12 - July Maintenance Renewals |
Founded in 1979, and based in Montana, our first maintenance renewal this month is another longtime Geotech client, doing business with Geotech since 1999. This company designs, builds, owns and operates waste water treatment systems, among many other geotechnical and hydrogeologic projects. Our second renewal of the month comes from a New Hampshire client that has been using Enviro Data since 2009. This company recently joined forces with a much larger environmental consulting firm, that is pleased to also now be using the Enviro Data software for their database management needs. Also renewing this month is a client with ten offices in the US, who provides integrated environmental consulting, engineering and program management services for remediation and redevelopment projects. With an office in Denver, this client has been using the Enviro Data software since 2004. |
| 7/15/12 - Enviro Data News: 64-bit warning |
Users upgrading their computers or software should pay attention to this warning about Microsoft 64 Office. Most new computers now come with the 64-bit version of Windows 7. Microsoft provides Office 2010 in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Unfortunately, the 64-bit version looks like it will be Microsoft's next Vista debacle. Many features that work fine in Office 32-bit don't work in 64-bit, and this impacts some features in Enviro Data, as well as applications that run within Office from many other vendors, including many add-ins for Access, Excel, Word, etc. The worst problem that we encountered in our testing Enviro Data in 64-bit Access was that all the dialog boxes failed to open and saving files stopped working. We have been able to code around these, with some effort. However, as of now the ComCtrl32.ocx library, which we use for the TreeView, is not provided by Microsoft in a 64-bit compatible version, although there may be a way to overcome that. As of now the internal map in Enviro Data, which uses GeoObjects from Blue Marble to display the map, also will not work in Office 64. The bottom line is that, while overall Enviro Data will work in Office 2010 64-bit, the TreeView and Map Display features currently will not work. Also for the vast majority of users, Office 64 provides no benefit over Office 32. For the most part, the two versions offer the same features, other than capacity. If you have a database over 2 GB in size, you probably have already gone to SQL Server or Oracle anyway. For these reasons, we are strongly recommending that you NOT use Office 64, even if you are using Windows 64. And Microsoft seems to be saying the same thing. You might want to look at: The key point is right at the top of this page: "The 32-bit version of Office 2010 is the recommended option for most people, because it prevents potential compatibility issues with other 32-bit applications, specifically third-party add-ins that are available only for 32-bit operating systems." |
| 7/12/12 - Enviro Data News: Related File import and export |
Many database systems have electronic deliverable formats that consist of
multiple files, and these are difficult to work with because you can't
see all the data at once, and the files must be imported in the right
order and with the right relationships between them. In the past,
Geotech has had to resort to programming to accommodate this type of
format for import or export. Our user-defined columnar import allows you
to define the format of each file type, but there was no easy way to
relate them together and import a set at one time without programming.
Now you can. The new Related File feature does this. First, define each
format and give it a name. Then select the Related File import format
option. You will see a new form that lets you select the layout for each
file, and the fields that relate them together. Then all the files can
be imported at once. |
| 7/8/12 - Special Reports and Training |
Two current Enviro Software clients requested
Geotech’s help in providing two very project-specific reports this
month. The first client is a
New Jersey company with multiple offices in North America, Europe, Asia
and Australia, and one of their areas of expertise is hazardous
materials remediation. They
asked Geotech to create a NJ HazSite EDD export specifically to fit
their project needs, and within a short period of time, this export was
completed and delivered. An agricultural GIS client of Geotech’s since 1999,
asked us to create a specialized report for his client on data analysis
on Asian phosphate mine samples.
Dr. Dave, Geotech’s President, used his PhD in Geology and his
vast knowledge of environmental issues to create this report for our
client, who came to the conclusion that the phosphate mine did pose a
risk to a nearby proposed vineyard. Both clients were well-pleased with
their final reports. USEPA Region 3, who purchased the Enviro Data
software last month, was now ready for Geotech to train their employees
this month. An eight hour
training was provided, via WebEx, to several people.
Their initial focus was on Enviro Data’s new Bulk Data tool for
their continuous monitoring data using multi-parameter probes. Geotech
added some features to help them deal with both uncalibrated and
calibrated data. Another new New Jersey client that
recently purchased our Enviro Software received their training via WebEx
this month. This client
provides a broad range of
environmental
consulting services in New Jersey and throughout the Northeast and
Mid-Atlantic. They will have
several users, and will be using the NJ HazSite and other exports. |
| 7/5//12 - New Clients in July |
Geotech was pleased to add another major client to its list of Enviro Data users this month. This company is headquarted in New Jersey, and is a full service environmental consulting, program management, engineering and remediation firm. They purchased both Enviro Data and Enviro Spase, and plan to have multiple users entering data in the software soon. Another Geotech client, in Colorado, who originally purchased our Enviro Software in 2008, is expanding their client base, and this month purchased Enviro Spase, to help them graphically display the data that they have been entering, storing and manipulating for over five years now. Geotech is happy to see our clients grow, and also happy to know that our software can help them in this growth phase of their business. |
| 6/29/12 - Chris Watson joins Geotech |
Geotech first met Chris Watson in 2008, while he was employed at New England Enviro Strategies in New Hampshire. This company was looking for a data management and GIS solution for their environmental projects and rented, and then purchased, Geotech’s Enviro software. Chris was very instrumental in getting Enviro Data and Enviro Spase set up, and very involved in the daily use of the software. He even helped Geotech improve parts of the software. We could tell early on that Chris was very astute in the environmental database management and GIS field. In the summer of 2010, Geotech was contacted by an emergency response contractor client to help them with onsite consulting for the environmental data management piece of the Michigan Oil Spill. Geotech selected the best database managers and GIS experts we knew, and sent them to Michigan for several months, and one of these folks was Chris Watson. This summer, we called on Chris again, this time to help us with technical support, data loading, and many other aspects of helping our growing Enviro software client base. We are very happy to have Chris join the Geotech team! |
| 6/18/12 - Mike Rich presents Enviro Data |
Geotech Environmental Equipment, whom many of you know from their quality
water sampling equipment, held their 4th annual Field Days in June.
Geotech Computer Systems attended and had a booth just as in years past.
What was a bit different however was that Mike Rich presented his first
short course entitled “Managing Environmental Data from the Field to the
Map.” The course covered the benefits of using a centralized data
management system, what to look for when deciding on which system is
right for your projects, and how you can improve your data quality
through better data management. Attendance was good as Mike helped
many folks understand the process of selecting the right EDMS for them.
Mike is set to give another talk in August at a Tribal Forum in Oregon
and hopes to spread the word about how the Enviro system helps save time
and money. For additional information contact
mrich@geotech.com. |
| 6/10/12 - Storing Data in the Cloud |
Many of you have probably heard the latest buzz in the computing industry about the “cloud,” which involves storing data or doing computing using somebody else’s computers on the Internet. We have started using this at Geotech, and have had good results using cloud-based services for file transfer and data storage. One tool we are using is SkyDrive from Microsoft (skydrive.live.com). Other similar tools include Google Drive (drive.google.com), Dropbox (dropbox.com), SugarSync (sugarsync.com) or Apple’s iCloud (icloud.com). To use SkyDrive you will need a Windows Live ID, which is free. You then set up your SkyDrive account, which is also free. New users get 7 gigabytes of free storage (although individual files are limited to 300 megabytes), and you can get 100 GB for $50 per year. You can then create folders, upload files, and share them with others. When you do that, you can decide whether they can view and edit the files, or only view them. There is also an app for your mobile device. The site also has limited versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that you can use to create documents, which can then be shared. Once you have put data in a SkyDrive folder, you can then share that folder, either by sending a link directly from SkyDrive by email, or by having SkyDrive provide you with a link that you can then distribute to others. Competitors have other features. For example, DropBox and SugarSync let you set up folders on multiple computers, and any files placed there (“dropped”) are automatically synchronized with the other computers. Storing data in the cloud, using SkyDrive or something else, can be a good solution for a variety of data sharing, storage, and backup needs. And, if your needs aren’t too great, it’s free. |
| 6/7/12 - EPA Region 3 Adopts Enviro Data |
Contrary to popular belief, the EPA has not standardized on any one database management software package. In fact each region chooses the best tools for their own needs. Recently EPA Region 3 (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, DC) selected Enviro Data for their chemistry and biology needs. Geotech is now in the process of training Region 3 on how to use the software, and the many benefits it will provide to their organization. Region 3 now joins Region 8 (Colorado - Geotech's home state, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, North Dakota, and South Dakota) as happy Enviro Data users, and several other regions are evaluating Geotech's software. |
| 6/1/12 - Service Work, Training, and Demos Abound in June |
A number of years ago, Geotech sold its Enviro Software to one of the
largest engineering design services firms in the world.
With an extensive network of offices across the US and in nearly
50 countries, Geotech has been working most closely with their North
Carolina and Chicago offices.
This month, Russ Wendell, Geotech’s senior software developer,
spent several days helping the Chicago office train new staff on the
process of data loading and other features of the software, via WebEx.
This corporation is now successfully managing their daily data in
Enviro Data. Oak Ridge Laboratories, a
multi-program science and technology national laboratory in Tennessee,
managed for the United States Department of Energy, has been an Enviro
Software user for many years now, and this month they added an Enviro
Data SQL license to their array of Enviro Data software.
Dave Rich, Geotech’s President, spent time consulting with them
on integrating their biological data into the software, and discussing
enhancements that could be added to the software, customizing it to
their specific needs. Geotech trained two new clients on
the Enviro Data software this month.
The first client is a multi-disciplinary engineering, scientific
and technical services firm, with projects in the engineering and
environmental arenas.
Founded in 1992, they have staff in over five US states, including
Colorado. Geotech has been
doing business with, and for, this company for well over two decades,
and are pleased to see them productively now doing this work in our
Enviro Software. The second
new client trained this month is a multidisciplinary,
environmental
investigation and remediation firm headquartered in
Indianapolis, Ind.
Their staff utilizes innovative strategies to help clients
overcome their property’s environmental challenges in a cost efficient
and timely manner. Geotech
is very happy to add this client to our ever-growing list of successful
Enviro Data users.
|
| 5/31/12 – Many Long-Time Clients Renew Software Maintenance |
A testament to the success and usability of the
Enviro Software is the growing number of maintenance renewals we receive
every month. This month saw five renewals, including
companies such as: the most complete energy infrastructure focused
company in the world and a major provider of government services; a
water resource and environmental consulting services company, with
offices in Tucson, Phoenix, Denver, Santiago, and Lima; a New Mexico
crude oil refinery; the St. of California Dept. of Public Health; and
Oak Ridge National Lab. Maintenance includes
technical support, with response time usually being within an hour, and
new software versions, with minor versions released monthly and major
versions annually. |
|
5/23/12 – Enviro Data Client Receives
Statistics Enhancement to Software |
This month, an Enviro Data software user requested
that we add more statistical features to our software.
Believing that this client, a near-term uranium producer, was
asking for a software enhancement that would not only benefit them, but
many Enviro software users, Geotech decided to develop this new
software. In just a few weeks Russ Wendell, Geotech’s
Senior Software Developer, had added a set of features that now allows
all users to add statistical calculations such as counts, mean, median,
mode, and standard deviation to their Crosstab Wizard Reports. Geotech
believes that listening to, and fulfilling, its clients’ software needs
is paramount to operating and running a successful software business.
Please let us know if you have a software enhancement request
that would improve the Enviro Software. |
| 5/15 – 5/18/12 – Refinery Client Receives Enviro Data Training |
In 2010, Geotech added a crude oil refinery in New
Mexico to its client list. This refinery is the only
active one in the Four Corners area, and has a throughput of
approximately 23,000 barrels per day. The product slate for this
refinery includes gasoline, diesel, propane, butane and heavy fuel oils.
They have been very busy getting the refinery operating in the
last few years, and just this month were ready to introduce Enviro Data
into their production process. Dave Rich spent two
days helping them load their data, add some new features to meet their
specific needs, and then train their staff. They were
very pleased with how well the software fits their needs, and how easy
it was to learn. They plan to continue to use it for
many years to come. |
| 5/14/12 – Geotech Demonstrates Enviro Data for the Corps of Engineers – Omaha |
After numerous discussions with several individuals
at the Omaha Corps of Engineers, Geotech’s President, Dave Rich, met
face to face with two employees in the environmental division of this
group, and showed them how the Enviro Software could improve their data
management process. The Corps has a need to move away
from their EDMS software from LDC (Laboratory Data Consultants), which
is not suiting their needs. Their focus in on providing greater
usability of the data gathered for Corps projects. The Corps is very
excited about moving their projects into Enviro Data, and Geotech is
looking forward to welcoming them into the ever-growing family of
satisfied Enviro Data users. |
| 5/11/12 - Biological Data | Geotech is always striving to improve the Enviro Data software in every aspect. One point of interest that has continually come up is biological data; whether it be tissue data, species data, or even gender data. While some clients have used Enviro Data for managing this type of data, based on client feedback we believe that there are a number of areas where the software could better handle this sort of information. Working with various clients, we are adding tables and fields to better handle taxonomy, population census data, and the complex relationships between splits and composite for tissue data. As with all features in the system, once it is completed, this set of features will be included in the latest release. Give us a call if you have questions, or if you would like to discuss issues that would benefit your project work. |
| 5/3/12 - Enviro Software Success Story - Long Time Weston User Retires |
Charlie Bouffard, a long-time Enviro Data user in the
Walnut Creek office of the international consulting company Weston
Solutions, has retired. He was an early user of the software in Weston,
in what evolved over time into a worldwide corporate implementation.
Shortly before his retirement, Charlie had this to say: "We have been using Geotech Computer Systems, Inc.
Enviro Data software for over ten years now. It has
proven invaluable to us for managing the copious amounts of
environmental data collected from multiple projects at multiple
locations. During the course of these 10+ years the
folks at Geotech have never stopped updating, improving, and adding new
features and functionality to the program. In fact
the best feature of the Enviro Data software is the people at Geotech.
They have always been there to help us solve problems and have
provided custom changes and modifications to the program to meet our
ever changing needs. If your company is looking for
an environmental data management system, I would highly recommend you
give the Enviro Data software and the Geotech Computer Systems team a
try." |
| 4/30/12 - Many Clients Renew Maintenance | Among the many clients that renewed their annual maintenance this spring, were an engineering company that specializes in transportation engineering, municipal services, civil/site engineering, and water resources engineering, with offices in Wyoming and Montana; a full service sampling and analytical lab with 14 laboratories nationwide; a national engineering, consulting and construction management firm providing integrated services to the energy, environmental, and other industries, with offices in 33 US states and the UK; and a leading global provider of environmental, health, safety, risk, and social consulting services, with offices in 39 countries and employing over 5,000 employees. Geotech greatly appreciates their continued business. |
|
4/26/12 |
Geotech provided a WebEx training this month to one of our many new clients, a Canadian environmental company that is largely owned and operated by its native Aboriginal ancestry. This company is a multi-disciplinary environmental consulting firm, providing services to the mining, forestry, agriculture, and many other fields. Their client base includes gold, diamond, copper, graphite and uranium mines, and many government municipalities. This client is proud to involve aboriginal people in environmental monitoring programs, and facilitate effective communication of environmental issues between government, industry, and aboriginal people. They are excited to start using Enviro Data in their many and varied environmental projects. |
| 4/17 – 4/18/12 - GCS expands its Services through Industry Training Courses | Dr. Dave Rich, President of Geotech Computer Systems, Inc. taught a two-day course entitled "Managing Environmental Data From the Field to the Final Report", April 17 – 18, 2012, at Geotech's office in Centennial, Colorado. The Northwest Environmental Training Center (NWETC) sponsored the course. This course followed a project through the data management process from planning sampling events, field management, managing lab and field data, selecting data for output, and final data use. Dr. Dave paid particular attention to the specific problems of managing laboratory data, as well as to issues related to managing various types of water, soil, air, and related data. A few of the skills that attendees learned were: How to plan a sample event to maximize quality and efficiency; How to work with your laboratories to get quality data in a format that can easily be managed, while minimizing cost; Handling environmental data problems like non-detects, other flagged data, multiple dilutions, results by multiple methods, leached results, and many others; and How improved output can contribute to overall project success. This course was intended for people who need to manage environmental quality data for various types of environmental projects. It is also for managers who oversee this type of work, or people who need to make financial and staffing decisions about data management projects. It is appropriate for people working on public and private sector projects such as site investigation, remediation, and monitoring; water supply, wastewater and municipal solid waste projects; and other project types involving laboratory and field data. The course was well attended, and all students walked away with a greater understanding of, and better methods to handle, the data management tasks they deal with in their respective companies every day. |
| 4/10/12 – Geotech Attends “Hydraulic Fracturing: Updates and Developments” Workshop | Mike Rich, Geotech’s Sales Director, attended a workshop this month hosted by the Colorado Hazardous Waste Management Society, titled “Hydraulic Fracturing: Updates and Developments”. The workshop focused on hydrofracture engineering, baseline sampling programs, regulatory and litigation updates, and current governmental studies related to the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. Organizations giving talks included: state oil and gas associations, law firms, large environmental corporations, and others. A few of the topics discussed were: Baseline Groundwater Sampling, Hydraulic Fracturing Litigation Update, Common Misconceptions, etc. Geotech has numerous clients that are currently involved in Hydraulic Fracturing, and have been using the Enviro Data software to manage their data from Hydraulic Fracturing for many years. |
| 3/31/12 - Clients Request Additional Project Help | Several months ago, Geotech successfully finished a data loading project for one of its large environmental consulting company clients. The client was pleased that Geotech had helped them “catch up” with importing much of their historical data, and they could handle it from there. Due to employee turnover and a backlog of other work, this client has again contacted Geotech and asked them to continue to help them with their data loading, which Geotech is happy to do. A second project we’ve been working on this month is helping one of our tribal clients meet their EPA data submittal requirements. Geotech is helping the Tribe with the difficult process of preparing and uploading their data into WQX for insertion into STORET. In both cases, Geotech responded quickly, and helped these clients accurately complete their work in a very timely fashion. |
| 3/25/12 - Maintenance Renewals Cover the Gamut this Month | Many of Geotech’s ongoing clients renewed their Enviro Software Maintenance this month, and they are a good example of the wide spectrum of the environmental industry that Geotech clients encompass. A few of this month’s renewal clients included a New Mexico Indian Tribe, a Florida County government agency, an east coast analytical laboratory, a small environmental consulting company, and a very large environmental consulting company. Geotech is pleased to know that our Enviro software and services can satisfy such a broad range of environmental clients, and will always strive to continue this flexibility in our product line. |
| 3/19/12 - Trade Show Opportunities Continue in March |
Dave Rich, Geotech’s President, attended the second of two North
American Environmental Field Conferences this year, held this month at
the Embassy Suites in Tampa, Florida. This was a four-day conference
featuring both presentations and vendor booths. Some of the topics
covered were “High-Resolution, Low-Cost 3-D Site Characterization –
Methods and Case Histories” by John Sohl of Columbia Technologies,
“Consistent Field Sampling of Shallow Wells with Minimum
Decontamination”, an outdoor display & presentation by Geotech
Environmental Equipment, Denver, CO, and “Managing Environmental Data
From the Field to the Map” presented by Geotech Computer System’s Dave
Rich. Some of the vendors in attendance at this show were Oak
Environmental, Inc., YSI, Inc., and The American Institute of
Hydrology. This conference was well-attended, and enjoyed by all, and
it was nice to be in a warm climate in March! Mike, our Sales Director, also spent some time in a warm clime this month, while attending the 15th Annual Tribal Environmental Conference in Tulsa, OK. Again this year, the conference was held at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Tulsa. All Indian Tribes from EPA Region VI are invited to this show, and many representatives attended, including many Enviro Data clients. The goal of this show is to provide information about environmental products and services to the Tribal representatives and their environmental professionals, that might enhance their Tribal environmental programs. As you may know, Geotech is pleased to be working with, and helping, many Tribal environmental professionals, through the use of our Enviro software and services. It is our great pleasure to be involved in helping them manage and display their environmental data, and hope to continue both our business and personal relationship with them for many more years. |
| 3/13/12 - Geotech Talks with Complementary Software Vendors Ongoing | Fostering an atmosphere of cooperation, both within and outside of our company, is vitally important to Geotech. For this reason, our staff met with two complementary software vendors this month. The first vendor, with an office here in Denver, provides Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) software to its clients. Their clients use the system to manage permit compliance and other similar activities, and some have a need for project data management that Enviro Data can solve. We are now working with an oil and gas company to implement the combined system. The second company is a well-known vendor of well log software. We are working with them, and with a client in common, to facilitate a better link between our programs. We believe that cooperating with these, and other vendors, allows us all to potentially offer a broader and more complete solution to all of our clients. Geotech looks forward to future cooperation with these vendors. |
| 3/9/12 - Customized Enviro Software Trainings to Meet Client Needs | One of the ways Geotech surpasses its competition is in the way we provide services to our clients. We do not tell our clients how, when and where we’re going to give them technical support and training, we ask them to give us the parameters that will work best for them: do they want training in their office or WebEx training; how many days of training do they need, and do they want it all at once or broken out over several days/ weeks/months; would they like straight verbal answers to their technical questions, or would they like to have a free WebEx to actually see how the answers to their questions work in our software. Two of our clients opted for WebEx trainings this month: one was a Canadian client that had three trainings spread throughout this month, and the other client, from the northwestern US, had two trainings split over two weeks. At the end of these trainings, both clients were very pleased with how their technical needs were met. |
|
3/4/12 -
Continued Enhancements to Enviro Software - Biological Data |
Geotech is always striving to improve the Enviro Data software in every aspect. One point of interest that has continually come up is biological data; whether it be tissue data, species data, or even gender data. While some clients have used Enviro Data for managing this type of data, based on client feedback we believe that there are a number of areas where the software could better handle this sort of information. Working with various clients, including Oak Ridge Laboratory in Tennessee and a Canadian consulting company, we are adding tables and fields to better handle taxonomy, population census data, and the complex relationships between splits and composite for tissue data. As with all features in the system, once it is completed, this set of features will be included in the latest release. Give us a call if you have questions, or if you would like to discuss issues that would benefit your project work. |
|
2/29/12 - Maintenance Renewals Abound |
February saw quite a few of our large environmental engineering clients eagerly renew their Enviro Software maintenance. One of the most exciting renewals this month was a company that purchased a number of licenses from us several years ago, and recently landed a large new project in Alaska, requiring them to open a branch office there, and purchase additional software licenses and refresher training from Geotech. We wish them great success with their new project! |
|
2/25/12 - Enviro Software Success Story - Success at a Uranium Mining Company |
Powertech Uranium Corp. is a near-term uranium producer, well positioned for rapid growth in the burgeoning U.S. nuclear power industry. The company's assets include two near-term production projects, indicated resources exceeding 16 million pounds, and a technical team of industry leaders. After a thorough analysis of database options, assisted by some of their consultants, they selected Enviro Data for organizing, managing and reporting their environmental data. After training and some assistance with data loading, their primary user reported: "The 2010 C version, and especially the Crosstab Wizard, is working well for me. I generated tables for every station in our database in 19 minutes 41 seconds. This is a big improvement over the months of time it used to take using Excel. Give me a few months to finish this phase of data organization and then we will need to discuss additional viewer licenses and additional training." Geotech is also adding statistics capabilities to the Crosstab Wizard at Powertech’s request. |
|
2/19/12 - Enviro Software Prospects Keep Geotech Staff Busy |
Some very interesting businesses expressed interest in the Enviro Software in February, and Geotech presented the software to all of them, either in person or through an online WebEx. One company, which is the database spin-off of a very large environmental engineering company with a presence here in the Denver area, is looking to use the Enviro Software to possibly replace or supplement their in-house and other commercial database management software that is currently not providing all the functionality they need. Our sales team showed our software to an international environmental consulting company in Vermont, looking for database management help with their water profiling needs. A third company we spoke with this month, an engineering supply company, is looking to incorporate the Enviro Software with their data collection equipment. We wrapped up the month by adding a branch of the Canadian government, solid waste regulators, to our prospect list. They are working with Geotech to help them with both their software and consulting needs. |
|
2/13/12 - New Client Trainings Continue |
Again this month, Geotech trained several of its new clients on our Enviro Software. The first training was on-site in the Colorado office of our client, but some of their Tennessee employees also attended. Geotech provided a pizza lunch for all the attendees at this training. The second and third new client trainings were held online, one for our new client in China, and the other for one of our New Jersey environmental clients. All trainings were very successful, and Geotech’s flexibility with location, number of days, number of attendees, client scheduling, and use of client data, are all greatly appreciated by Geotech’s clients. |
|
2/6/12 – Geotech debuts at NAEFC |
Dave Rich, Geotech’s President, attended the west coast North American Environmental Field Conference in San Diego, CA this month. This is the first year that Geotech has participated in this conference, which featured advances and innovations in environmental site characterization, sampling, monitoring and remediation technology. The conference ran from February 7 - 10 at the Marriott Courtyard at Liberty Station. Geotech had an exhibitor’s booth at this show, and Dave Rich also presented a workshop titled, “Managing Environmental Data from the Field to the Map”. Some of the other exhibitor’s at this year’s west coast conference were Oak Environmental, Geotech Environmental Equipment, and Columbia Technologies. |
|
1/29/12 - Custom Maintenance Program Offered to Geotech Client |
One of Geotech’s large Enviro Software users requested a customized plan, when they renewed their annual maintenance. Maintenance consists of technical support and new software versions. Our client uses the Enviro Software internally on their projects, but one of their clients, a government agency, had also purchased the software several years ago. The government client was not going to renew their maintenance, but our client is still managing data for their government client and therefore needed the government client to continue to receive the new software versions, but did not need technical support from Geotech; our client is going to provide that for their client. Since our client was purchasing the Enviro maintenance for their client, we offered to sell our client this maintenance renewal for half the usual cost. This was a great solution for all parties involved: our client, their client and Geotech. We are always willing to work with our clients to satisfy their specific needs. |
|
1/21/12 - GCS expands its Services through Industry Training Courses |
Dr. Dave Rich, President of Geotech Computer
Systems, Inc. will be teaching a two-day course entitled “Managing
Environmental Data From the Field to the Final Report”.
The Northwest Environmental Training Center (NWETC) is sponsoring
the course. This course follows a project through the
data management process from planning sampling events, field management,
managing lab and field data, selecting data for output, and final data
use. Dr. Dave will pay particular attention to the
specific problems of managing laboratory data, as well as to issues
related to managing various types of water, soil, air, and related data.
A few of the skills that attendees will learn are: How to plan a
sample event to maximize quality and efficiency; How to work with the
laboratories to get quality data in a format that can easily be managed,
while minimizing cost; Handling environmental data problems like
non-detects, other flagged data, multiple dilutions, results by multiple
methods, extracted results, and many others; and how improved output can
contribute to overall project success. This course is
intended for people who need to manage environmental quality data for
various types of environmental projects. It is also
for managers who oversee this type of work, or people who need to make
financial and staffing decisions about data management projects.
It is appropriate for people working on public and private sector
projects such as site investigation, remediation, and monitoring; water
supply, wastewater and municipal solid waste projects; and other project
types involving laboratory and field data. |
|
1/13/12 - Weston Employee Praises Enviro Data and Geotech |
Charlie Bouffard, a long-time Enviro Data
user in Weston Solutions' Walnut Creek office, has retired. He was an
early user of the software in Weston, in what evolved over time into a
worldwide corporate implementation. Shortly before his retirement,
Charlie had this to say: |
|
1/7/12 - Geotech Welcomes Two New Clients |
Our New Year began by adding two more unique clients to our Enviro Software family of users. The first client is a Canadian environmental services company that is 100% aboriginal-owned. They specialize in environmental monitoring and impact assessments, baseline data acquisition, erosion control, aquatic studies, wildlife, habitat, and vegetation assessments. This company strives to involve and train aboriginal people, including them in their company field staff, and facilitating the communication of environmental issues between government, industry, and aboriginal people. Our second client this month is a multi-disciplinary engineering firm that provides scientific and technical services on projects related to energy, engineering, environmental, risk analysis, and sustainability. They have offices in Colorado, Montana, and Tennessee. One of their specialties is analyzing environmental risks through forensics and data analysis and finding cost-effective solutions for their clients. |
For decades
Enviro Data has been used for environmental projects around the
world. From site assessment to cleanup, Enviro Data has proven to
be one of the greatest tools anyone can have when facing any Phase 2
investigation. What most folks don’t know is that Enviro Data is so
versatile, it can be used for much more than typical environmental
data. Enviro Data is used by one of our clients, Paul Skinner, in
California to track lab and field data for soil chemistry for
growing grapes. Along with weather data from the real time sensors
he installed, our client tracks disease models to determine how much
to spray the plants that day. The wine he produces, Sequum, is
phenomenal, and ranked one of the best by wine critic, Steve
Heimhoff, and while you can’t taste the data structure in every sip,
Enviro Data is a significant contributor to its excellent quality.
To learn more about the wine made with Enviro Data, visit
www.sequum.com/new/index.php. Find out how Enviro Data can be used
to solve your specific problems at www.geotech.com. Some
restrictions apply to this special offer. 
For
decades Enviro Data has been used for environmental projects around
the world. From site assessment to cleanup, Enviro Data has
proven one of the greatest tools one can have when facing any Phase
2 investigation. What most folks don’t know is that Enviro
Data is so versatile, that it can be used for so much more than
typical environmental data. Enviro Data is used by one of our
clients in California to track lab and field data for soil chemistry
to grow grapes. Along with weather data from the real time
sensors he installed, our client tracks disease models to determine
how much to spray the plants that day. The wine he makes,
Sequum, is delicious, and while you can’t taste the data structure
in every sip, Enviro Data is a significant contributor to its
excellent quality. To learn more about the wine made with Enviro
Data, visit 