North Arrow Research was founded in 2012 by Philip Bailey with a clear and ambitious purpose: to help people solve complex geospatial challenges at scale. Matt Reimer joined shortly thereafter, bringing a wealth of experience in cloud architecture and professional software development expertise. Kelly and Lorin joined later, both of whom share a deep understanding of fundamental GIS principles and a passion for data management.
Fourteen years on, the original vision still drives everything we do. We are energized by clients with bold ideas — whether they are ready to push their analysis across vast spatial extents or transform a promising concept into a powerful, professional platform. Big thinking inspires us, and turning it into reality is what we do best.
We work exclusively in the environmental conservation realm. We are motivated by our efforts having a positive impact on the world and have worked hard to avoid the resource extraction industry. We are committed to leaving the world in a better place than we were fortunate enough to find it.
Core Strengths
Geospatial Software Development
We specialize in creating custom GIS software solutions. We build standalone applications, web mapping solutions and plugins for both QGIS and ArcGIS Pro. Our GCD product has been installed thousands of times all around the world.
We have deep experience with geospatial data processing and analysis using both desktop and cloud-based solutions. We lean heavily on open source GIS technologies such as GDAL and OGR that allow us to work with a wide variety of geospatial data formats and that easily transfer to the cloud.
Cloud Architecture and Development
We punch above our weight in the cloud. We have designed and implemented solutions for clients using Amazon Web Services. We are experts at building scalable, cost-effective solutions that leverage the power of the cloud.
Our Cybercastor product is a cloud-based job orchestration system that can handle millions of parallel model runs. And our Riverscapes Data Exchange is a cloud-based data warehouse and web mapping interface for geospatial data. Both are capable of handling petabyte scale data and millions of users.
Databases and Data Management
We are deeply passionate about well-organized data. We have designed and implemented geospatial databases for clients using both relational and NoSQL database management systems. We are experts at designing data models that are optimized for performance and ease of use.
Our INSTAR product is a geospatial database and laboratory software for tracking taxonomic identification of macro invertebrate organisms. The underlying Postgres database uses PostGIS and custom recursive functions to efficiently store and query complex taxonomic data.
Open Source
We believe in the power of open source software. Most of our projects are open source and available on GitHub under either Riverscapes or North Arrow Research organizations.
As part of the Riverscapes Consortium, we are committed to the FAIR principles of data management and have released most of our products under open source licenses. We also contribute to existing open source projects and are committed to the QGIS community. We are proud to be part of the open source ecosystem and believe that it is essential for advancing geospatial science and conservation efforts.
Where We Work
Most of our projects are in the United States, but we have worked with clients all around the world, including in Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, France and Vietnam.
Corporate Structure
North Arrow Research is a small company, incorporated in the province of British Columbia, Canada. We are debt-free and, as a 100% engineering company, have extremely low fixed costs. There are no sales staff. Our goal is to provide outstanding service and honest advice without spin.
