Our Team

ATLAS Technology is a software development unit with a team of technical software engineers, software testers, support and client service managers. Most of our personnel have had more than 10 years experience within forest software development and support and have tertiary qualifications in computer science, mathematics, and/or forest management science.

Bob Forgan - Manager

Bob has 16 years’ experience in business and information technology (IT) with the past 13 years working as a consultant in the public and private sector, across many different industries. He has had many senior leadership roles, building, leading and managing teams for business design, new business initiatives and software development projects, including mentoring and coaching of team members.

Bob has expertise in all aspects of software development including experience in strategic planning, business case development, programme/project management, business analysis, financial and risk analysis, process re-design and mapping, development and improvement of methodologies and standards, and identifying and evaluating technology solutions. He lead a two year project to design, development, implement a complex and technical solution using geospatial, non-spatial and mobile technologies. The solution won two ComputerWorld Awards for innovation and overall excellence, as well as an international ESRI award.

Bob is a certified PRINCE2 Practitioner and member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). He also has a BSc(Computer Science)/BCA(Business Administration) from Victoria University.

Christian Pilaar - Team Leader

Christian is a senior software engineer at ATLAS, specialised in database design and GIS applications. He leads the development team for ATLAS GeoMaster which is the most widely used forest management system throughout New Zealand and Australia.

Christian has been responsible for the development of many other database applications over many years. These include the Scion PSP system which is a national database used by forestry companies throughout New Zealand to monitor forest growth and response to silvicultural activities, he designed the Woodwide system which synthesises international trade data from many sources, and he has also delved into the world of satellite imagery where he compared landuse classifiactions derived from satellite images with existing maps of natural and plantation forest cover.

Christian has a BSc (Mathematics) and BA (Computer Science) both gained at Victoria University of Wellington.

Andrew Gordon - Team Leader

Andy has worked in forestry since 1979 initially under the New Zealand Forest Service, then with the Ministry of Forestry, now with ATLAS Technology.

Andy’s main areas of expertise are forest mensuration and management systems. At ATLAS Technology he is a senior software engineer, with special expertise in architecture and analysis. His recent projects include working as the architect and team leader for the development of a forest market-supply system with optimal planning capability. Andy applied his forestry and mathematics expertise as the domain expert for the design and development of the ATLAS Cruiser Forest Assessment system.

His major research and development achievements include; designing the ‘Cruiser’ forest assessment system, including new methods of stem description, consulting to Boise Cascade in a due diligence inventory of Eucalyptus plantations in southern Brazil, assisting with inventory design, implementation and software processes for analysis, developing local volume and taper equations for use in the inventory, developing a new form of 3-point volume and taper equation for Pinus radiata for the New Zealand Forest & Farm Plantation Management Cooperative, constructing a new Pinus caribaea growth model for Fiji Pine Limited, deriving a detailed and flexible system for predicting stem breakage on felling, designing a pre-harvest inventory assessment system for prediction of log yield, developing an integrated system for capture and analysis of pruning pre-assessment and quality control data, introducing specialised pre-harvest inventory techniques to Department of Forests and Wildlife, Hawaii, developing log scaling software for portable data recorders, customising stand inventory software for forest resource evaluation in Malawi, developed volume and taper equations for Pinus caribaea in Fiji and for Cordia alliodora in the Republic of Vanuatu.

Andy has a BA, Dip. Soc. Sci (Maths and Statistics), and N.Z.C.S. (Forestry).

Joel Gordon - Team Leader

Joel has fifteen years experience working in IT in the forestry industry for SCION, joining from University in a software development role. Joel has a deep practical understanding of modern development practices and techniques, has special expertise at problem solving, and a professional interest in object oriented analysis and design, configuration management and object persistence.

His major achievements include; developing and maintaining a large stand based modelling system, ‘STANDPAK’, that has gained dominant market penetration in the New Zealand forestry industry, developing data capture system for permanent sample plotting. Joel is currently performing the systems architect role for the large, forest assessment, system, ’Cruiser’, after playing key roles in its development, including; assisting with designing the complex scientific growth modelling components, establishing development processes including build management, version control, workspace management etc., resolving the most complex development problems.

Joel has a BSc (Computer Science and Biology) (Waikato)

Bronwyn Douglas - Office Manager

Bronwyn moved to New Zealand in 2003 after working in support and admin roles for Walt Disney Properties in the UK and for Lakes District Health Board. Her responsibilities over the last 5 years have included;

Reports and project management, event and exhibition design and implementation, content management for intranet sites.

Bronwyn is responsible for our accounts, document management, content editor for the ATLAS website as well as co-ordination and writing of contracts.

Bronwyn has a certificate of Business Management from Perth Technical College in Western Australia.

John Threadgill - Software Engineer

John has worked at SCION since 1982. In the earlier years John worked mostly on estate modelling and valuation. He spent 1988-1991 consulting and travelling in the UK and Europe, returning to SCION in 1991 to resume work on estate modelling, valuation, inventory and harvest planning.

John was an original member of the ATLAS Technology team. He has been a key member involved in developing many of the current products including Cruiser, Forecaster, Market Supply, Yield Table Manager and Harvest Scheduler. His current speciality and interests are in simulation and optimisation systems particularly in the area of inventory and crew and harvest scheduling systems.

John has a BSc (Mathematics) from Canterbury University

Wayne Schou - Software Engineer

Wayne joined SCION in 1996 where he has had the lead programming role in SpraySafe Manager, an aerial spraying modelling system and several other weed control projects.

Since joining ATLAS he has been involved from the beginning with the development of TFM2 and continues to maintain, support and improve its successor, ATLAS GeoMaster. In addition to these projects, Wayne is also responsible for ATLAS SilviQC, the silvicultural quality control module.

Wayne has a PhD from Waikato University in computing and mathematical sciences.

Luke Bettis - Software Engineer

Luke joined ATLAS in 2000. During his time at ATLAS Luke has been part of the ATLAS Cruiser, ATLAS Market Supply, ATLAS Forecaster and ATLAS Roading Manager development teams.

Currently Luke is developing the web based application Acres, which is a web based tool for farmers to make strategic land management decisions for their farms which shows how introducing forestry into part of their farming operation impacts on their farm's financial and environmental performance.

Luke is also a member of the ATLAS GeoMaster development team specialising in GIS applications. During his time with the GeoMaster team Luke has been instrumental in keeping GeoMaster up to date with the latest releases of ARC GIS. He has also developed a prototype of the GeoMaster web interface.

Luke has a BTech (InfoEng) from Massey University.

Brian Clement - Software Engineer

Brian joined Forest Research in 1978 as part of the Computer Centre's user support team. In 1985 he moved into an applications development role with the Harvest Planning Group, and when the merging of the HPG and LIRA formed the Logging Industry Research Organisation (LIRO), he had sole responsibility for all of LIRO's IT matters.

In 1998 his position was dis-established, and after a short period of external consulting he returned to Forest Research to join the Atlas software development team as a long-term contractor. He has a particular interest in data collection and instrumentation, and had a major role in the development of Forest Research’s automated logmaking caliper, which subsequently evolved into IFR's TimberTech.

Within ATLAS, he has been responsible for the field data collection application FieldMan, and is also involved with the development of Cruiser and Forecaster

Brian has a BE Hons (Elect) from the University of Canterbury, and an MA (Comp Sci) from Massey University.

Praneita Narayan - Software Support Forester

Praneita has worked for Fiji Hardwood Corporation prior to joining the ATLAS team. In her previous role, she was overseeing the forest certification project, which included working on various projects within plantation and harvesting operations. Praneita’s responsibilities at ATLAS include supporting ATLAS clients, managing the helpdesk, client training and testing of ATLAS software.

Praneita has a Bachelor in Forestry Science obtained from University of Canterbury and a Masters in International and Tropical Forestry from Georg-August University in Germany.

Jeremy Snook - Business Analyst

Jeremy joined ATLAS in September 2008, spending 18 months in the Software Support role before moving into a Business Analyst role. The support role provided technical experience to balance his business experience – gained from working for six years in forest resources roles with Fletcher Challenge Forests and Hancock Forest Management prior to joining the ATLAS team. He brings practical experience in forest inventory data collection and analysis, yield reconciliation, forest estate modeling, and a general appreciation of forestry operations to the ATLAS team. This brings a user-based perspective to ensure client requirements are well understood.

Jeremy has a Bachelor of Forestry Science from the NZ School of Forestry at the University of Canterbury.

Sabita Ghimire - Test Analyst

Prior to joining ATLAS as a Test Analyst, Sabita has worked for Farm Bureau Insurance Company in the United States as a Quality Analyst. She is responsible for identifying common software failures and faults, compiling and managing test data, defining the required tests and monitoring detailed testing progress and results in each test cycle. Sabita’s addition to the team is a step forward in ATLAS’s continual efforts to improving the quality of ATLAS products.

Sabita has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from University of Utah, Salt Lake City and Certification in Software Testing Course from Tekstrom, Delaware, United States.