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Trust Recipient Spotlight: Robinson Aerial Surveys, Inc.

Since its founding in 1936, Robinson Aerial Surveys, Inc. (RAS) has evolved from a contract to photograph 16,000 square miles in New York State to diverse mapping projects throughout New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania using its own photographic laboratory, digital and analytical mapping systems and CADD platforms. As a fully integrated mapping facility serving clients including school districts, major airports and subway systems, RAS leadership is always looking for ways to remain competitive and up to date with the newest technology.

“Our bread and butter is aerial mapping,” said Lynne Schmoyer, operations manager. “We are hired to perform mapping for companies to hand to engineers giving accurate details of the land today so they can design what they want for tomorrow.” Due to the expense of ever-changing technology and the desire to compete in the wind sector, RAS needed to perform enhancements including a network infrastructure upgrade to improve the speed and performance of individual technical workstations as well as data transfers between servers and the technical workstations to increase work efficiency.

After applying for and receiving a grant totaling approximately $118,000 from the Ocean Wind Pro-NJ Grantor Trust in 2021, RAS successfully added two state-of-the-art technical workstations and a brand-new server that has upgraded speed and performance of data transfers, making it more cost effective and easy to maintain large files. “Ultimately, we are running much more systematically allowing us to be more efficient in delivering our work product,” said Schmoyer. “The grant has helped a great deal in expanding our workload with the wind sector. Because of the new server we were able to install with grant money, we had the infrastructure to purchase a drone which has expanded our ability to process imagery and accept wind projects up and down the coast.”

In addition to improving network infrastructure and enabling RAS to be more competitive in the ever-growing wind sector, the timing of the grant also made a huge impact on employee morale. Coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic was perfect for reduced processing times and improved work quality which allowed RAS to offer a hybrid work structure. According to Schmoyer, processing time has decreased, productivity has increased and employee morale is high. “The project is a definite success,” she said.

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