At Home in the World

If East View doesn’t have information that a client needs, the company will locate it. “We work with clients to understand what they need next and find a way to get it,” says Ron Levitus, East View Information Systems’ director of marketing and communications. Levitus says that “making sure the information we provide or link [to] is protected” is a top priority, and “that everyone knows who owns the rights and can stand behind it.”

The View From Above

Easy-to-use Web sites such as Mapquest.com can give users the idea that making custom maps is a piece of cake. This couldn’t be further from the truth, especially when East View Cartographic produces maps for clients such as Minneapolis-based Honeywell’s avionics-equipment manufacturing division. Using a digital elevation model of Iceland that covers 3,600 square kilometers, East View made a detailed three-dimensional model of Iceland’s Akureyri Airport and surrounding area for Honeywell’s terrain avoidance systems.

“Most of the cartographic side of the business is on-demand,” Lee says. For instance, street-map providers have used East View’s data and images to amend post-Katrina maps for New Orleans, and the Wildlife Conservation Fund works with East View’s maps for wildlife studies in the Band-e-Amir region of Afghanistan. However, the company has seen a spike in demand from specific industries, such as telecommunications providers, which are looking to pinpoint the best locations for cellphone towers.

In the East View’s company library, a framed December 2001 issue of Time hangs in a prominent location. Juxtaposed with the cover is a pull-out map of the Taliban’s Tora Bora stronghold. “Time drew that map from data we own,” Levitus says. Hard-to-get information for Time and other customers will continue to be East View’s bailiwick.