Q1 2009

Before Decarto Consulting was formed, I spent January and February of 2009 building mountain bike trails in the Caribbean.  This work was done under the direction Bill Goulding, now with Sustainable Trails, who has taught me a lot, and been inspirational in getting Decarto Consulting off the ground.  The work in the Caribbean included trail layout, trail design, and training on various sizes of excavators and a SWECO trail dozer.    I was lucky enough to work with Steve Thomas of Terra Firma Trails, who was kind and patient enough to give me instruction on these machines, and a real pleasure to work with.

Q2 2009

Upon my return  to Kingston, Ontario I immediately approached the Kingston Economic Development Corporation (KEDCO) for help with my incorporation.  I was accepted as a client of the Queen’s University Business Law Clinic, who provided pro-bono legal services and, and on April 6^th created the entity now known as Decarto Consulting Ltd. 

Shortly after incorporation, the company applied for startup funding from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation.  Decarto presented a solid business plan and clear vision, and the CYBF awarded us with their highest payout, giving us the finances needed to purchase the hardware, software and equipment to get Decarto off the ground.  The latter part of the quarter was spent developing the infrastructure behind Decarto Consulting:  Our brand, marketing materials, web server, and our custom Google Earth based mapping applications.

In June, Decarto attended the Ontario Trails Council (OTC) Conference  in Belleville, and presented with Sustainable Trails on the topic of GIS assisted trail planning and mapping.  We met with many of the regional trail advocates, including representatives from the International Mountain Bike Association  (IMBA Canada), the Ontario Trans Canada Trail, the Ministry of Natural Resources / Land Information Ontario, and even head of Tourism Development for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

This quarter also marked the beginning of what promises to be a major shift in the trail industry.  I am proud to sit on the Trillium Trail Network Education Advisory Committee, a board composed of private and public sector representatives who are working diligently to raise the standards, levels of education and quality of work in the trail industry in Ontario and beyond.

Decarto Consulting was also lucky enough to work with the Ontario Maze, under Hofarm Ltd.  We were contracted to conceptualize and implement a unique corn maze design that would draw visitors from Ontario and beyond.  The 2009 design departed from the usual single-path labyrinth to a true maze design which consisted of a branching puzzle of pathways.  Decarto came up with the idea of using the province of Ontario as the theme for the aptly named Ontario Maze.  A scale map of the province was cut into the corn, with major cities and interconnecting highways placed appropriately and to scale.  The maze was carefully designed with three sections in mind to offer visitors a variety of challenge lengths.  Reports had visitors spending between 30 and 90 minutes in the maze, searching for the appropriate cities and enjoying the accompanying games and interpretive materials designed by Ontario Maze.  The design was a great success, and through their web presence and the word -of-mouth advertising about the exciting new maze design, business was up an estimated 20% from previous years, and due to demand and good weather, the Ontario Maze stayed open well beyond their expected end-of-season closure date.  Jasmin Hofer of Energrow Inc.  / Ontario Maze  had this to say about Decarto Consulting:

“Damian was responsible for the implementing the design of our Corn Maze for this year themed "Exploring Ontario." He suggested a very timely theme that made a lot of local appeal. By mapping out and implementing the maze pattern - the scaled version of Ontario - along with specific towns and cities, Damian produced a very accurate and exciting maze. Damian is a very dependable and easy to work with individual. I highly recommend DeCarto for any GIS, cartography, or trail design/ building projects.” - August 14, 2009

Q3 2009

The third quarter, and bulk of the summer months were spent working closely with Sustainable Trails Ltd.  I spent many days building trails in the Heber Down property at the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority as well as performing trail construction in Crother’s Woods, in the Don Valley in the City of Toronto.  My weekends were spent working with the fine folks at J&J Cycle, and my moments of free time, though few and far between, were spent enjoying time with my supportive friends and family.

The trail construction work at Heber Down was used as a prototype for a new product being developed by Decarto Consulting.  We have been working on a Google-Earth based online, virtual tour of the trail construction project at Heber down, showing off both the trail construction work and the finished product.

More mapping support was done for Sustainable Trails on Christian Island, where a trail project was being undertaken by the Beausoleil First Nation.

This quarter also marked the start of a Trail Head mapping project with the City of Toronto.  An ongoing project (as of the published date of this document), trail head maps and signage are currently being produced for the Crothers Woods Natural Environment Trails.  Users of Crothers Woods should keep an eye out for these new maps in 2010!

Q4 2009

This was perhaps the busiest and most exciting quarter of the year.  Through our connections at the Cataraqui Cemetery in Kingston, Decarto was poised to break into the cemetery mapping industry in a big way.  Attending the Ontario Association of Cemetery and Funeral Professionals (OACFP) conference on October, Decarto presented two exciting new Google Earth-based mapping prototypes:  An online tour of the historic sites at the Cataraqui Cemetery, and a mapping interface co-developed with Stone Orchard Software.  We were excited to present both of these new technologies to members of the cemetery community, and are currently working closely with Stone Orchard Software, Lees and Associates, Mountain View Cemetery (the City of Vancouver) and the Cataraqui Cemetery to push ahead with the development of industry-leading mapping products.

Aside from the exciting developments in the cemetery sector, November and December were spent working with Sustainable Trails to perform a baseline inventory of the informal trail systems throughout the City of Toronto.  This was one of the largest urban trail mapping projects of its kind in the country, with almost 200km of informal, socially built trails and many thousands of hazards, stunts and other point features sought out and logged in almost 10,000 acres of green space.  We spent weeks traversing Etobicoke Creek, the Humber Valley, and the East and West tributaries of the Don Valley, working tirelessly to log the trails and hazards in these public spaces. Decarto Consulting then quickly processed this massive GPS dataset, producing topologically-correct GIS trail data, and a series of maps to be used as information and management tools by staff at the City of Toronto.

2009 has been a learning experience for me, and was ultimately a resounding success for the first year of operations for Decarto Consulting. I'm excited to see what 2010 will bring and look forward to further developing the partnerships and projects that started out with such a bang in our first year. Thanks for reading!