Prime Time for Lowe Engineers

Just over a year ago, Bill Daniel received a phone message from a friend congratulating him and Lowe Engineers (Booth 1431) for winning a piece of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) Janus Geography Initiative—the Janus Aeronautical Features Program.

The call was a pivotal moment for the company, said Daniel, co-managing partner of the 60-year-old Atlanta firm as well an adjunct professor in geomatics at Georgia Tech.

Lowe Engineers had worked on airfield mapping and surveying contracts for NGA and its predecessors for almost 25 years, but always as a subcontractor, usually for Harris Corporation or SAIC.

“Janus is a big deal for us,” Daniel said. “We are a prime contractor, along with two other small companies (T-Kartor and Continental Mapping).”

How big? The 10-year contract has a maximum value of $320M for the three companies to survey and map airfields, including a Lowe specialty: charting vertical obstructions that can be hazardous during takeoff and landing.

Following the Janus award, Lowe Engineers joined USGIF and reserved a booth at GEOINT 2019 to display the work of its Geospatial Services team.

“We have mapped more airfields than any other small business in the world,” Daniel said, adding that he looks forward to networking with the company’s partners, including NGA.