In 2017, Atlantic developed a 3-year strategic plan designed to spur our innovation and growth as a company.  One of our strategies from that plan states that “Atlantic will develop a mechanism to support dedicated Research & Development activities aimed at both employee advancement and the advancement of our company in the geospatial profession”.  In January of 2018, we issued an internal RFP that was open to 100% of our employees.  We identified innovations that were critical to 3DEP, such as hydro breakline automation and improving lidar classification macros.  When we received proposals from our staff, we realized we had invited a culture change at Atlantic. That initial RFP resulted in Atlantic awarding 3,120 hours of dedicated R&D time to focus on initiatives brought forth by our staff and our management team.  Our program was so well-received by our staff that we promoted Matthew Taylor to our full-time Research and Development Manager. 

Matt joined Atlantic from the aerospace and defense industry where he worked on complex modeling and application development teams.  His most recent engagement prior to joining Atlantic was working on UX (User eXperience) of simulators.  His willingness to explore new options for routine tasks performed at Atlantic has led to the development of some remarkable technical capabilities for our company.  Matt routinely works with his own dedicated R&D team plus other geospatial professionals at Atlantic.   Some of the notable developments he has led at Atlantic include automation of hydro breaklines for 3DEP lidar, vegetative species delineation automation from lidar & multi-spectral imagery, and hydrologic modeling, which will push Atlantic’s growing analytics and post-collection data services.  Matt will continue exploring opportunities to improve quality, reduce cost, and reduce schedule for our clients.