We provide geospatial consulting services to air and maritime port clients globally, from New Zealand to California. Our diverse team specializes in system architecture design, ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, system integration, data conversion and migration, web app development, and field mobility solutions. Our ultimate goal is to enhance our clients’ operational efficiency, safety, sustainability, and resilience.

Integrating geospatial technology and planning across systems to reveal insights for local and regional government.

Successfully worked as an acoustic duo known as "Sweet and McElvaney" with Jody Allen Sweet and then as "Lisa and Shannon" with his wife Lisa performing music in Santa Barbara, California, Ibiza, Spain, and Hawai'i. Performed for diverse multi-national European crowds for five of those years. The duo now performs as Butterfly Assembly and they released a self-titled album of original music under the same name in December 2023. You can find it on all streaming services and purchase it on CD. (Support musicians by buying their music.)

Shannon was the Global Technology Lead for Geodesign in the Advance Planning Group at Jacobs, where he focused on integrating geospatial technology and geodesign processes with planning and design to help clients create a more sustainable, resilient built and natural environment. As part of the Kaleidoscope application development team, Shannon supported product development, marketing, and project delivery.

Shannon McElvaney was the Chief Geospatial Officer and co-owner of WISRD, a small business that takes an integrative, cross-sectoral, systems approach to help leaders understand what it takes to create and maintain resilient infrastructure for our cities, campuses, and installations. Shannon brings a wealth of knowledge in smart city planning and development to enable people to design, build and maintain sustainable and resilient communities. He has more than 27 years of experience applying a broad range of geospatial technologies across numerous industries including planning, utilities, transportation, natural resources, and renewable energy. Shannon has written many articles on the use of geospatial technology and is the author of the book Geodesign: Case Studies in Regional and Urban Planning. In addition to writing, Mr. McElvaney is a regular speaker at conferences and workshops around the world and a former adjunct professor in Geodesign at Penn State.

Shannon McElvaney was an adjunct professor in the Geodesign Program in the Landscape Architecture Department at Penn State University. He taught geodesign studio courses in the graduate program focused on applied project-based learning.

Shannon McElvaney was a Business Development Director at Critigen, where he focused on corporate strategy, partner development, product development, marketing and sales.

Global Industry Manager for Community Development at Esri, working on developing integrative planning tools, techniques, and processes that will enable people to design and build livable, sustainable, healthy communities. Responsibilities included business development; development of applied projects involving integrated planning in state, local, and provincial government; translating business use cases into product and solution development; partner relationship management; outreach and education in integrated planning through speaking, writing, and workshops; development of marketing materials and content; training; and cross sector support for planning in environment, water, sanitation, transportation, economic development, disaster preparedness and recovery, energy, forestry, parks & open space, conservation, and agriculture. He is versed in smart city, sustainable city, resilient city, green infrastructure, and innovation hub planning.

Mr. McElvaney was the Director of Geospatial Services for Pacific GPS, based out of their Colorado Springs office specializing in project management, product development, project delivery, and consulting services. At PGPS he managed a $5M Navy IDIQ for geospatial services with multiple task orders in the Pacific and Indian oceans, wrote a business plan for the Hawaii Geographic Information Coordinating Council on imagery acquisition, metadata standardization, and GIS data portal development, and managed business development. His expertise includes GIS, GPS, and IS program development, articulating project specifications, contract negotiations, program and project management, management of subcontractors, and GIS/GPS integration and training. He has written and presented at numerous conferences on the use of geospatial technology to support sustainable development and practices.

Returned to position as Information Solutions Consultant at CH2M HILL's Enterprise Management Solutions business group which spun off to become Critigen within a couple of months. Performed market analysis and developed marketing materials to support sustainable development. Concentrated on the use of GIS to support the adoption of sustainable practices through solar mapping, eco mapping, carbon reduction, and multi-modal transportation and planning. In addition, worked on Department of Energy (DOE) project as Task Lead for 9 cities including Berkeley and San Francisco, CA; Madison and Milwaukee, WI; St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA; Boston, MA; and New York, NY, assisting each city with measuring 16 metrics which sought to measure the adoption rate of solar PV and solar thermal installations while identifying a number of possible impediments. Included facilitation of communication between National Lab "Tiger Team" Leads and City Project Managers; and reporting on program status. Continued to write proposals and work on business development, particularly in the areas of sustainability.

Project manager of the Site Control & GIS section on the $22B MASDAR City Development Program, the first carbon neutral, zero waste city for the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company. Responsibilities included overseeing the development and maintenance of the GIS including system architecture, data standards, and processes needed to run a robust GIS program that supported sustainability, planning, design, construction, and operations and maintenance. Additional tasks included 1) establishing and maintaining survey control for the project, 2) management of the site-wide survey contract, 3) writing of survey scope and tasks, and 4) the integration of GIS with the Program Management Information System which included various Bentley, ESRI and Primavera products including Project Wise and Primavera Contract Manager. Mr. McElvaney’s responsibilities included active, daily coordination with over 20 delivery and project teams, the management of client expectations, quality assurance, budget, meetings with local government agencies, evaluation of new products, the making of presentations, and the supervision of 4 staff. Actively used GIS to conduct groundbreaking "6D" modeling incorporating 3D, time, cost, and carbon to guide sustainable development.

Mr. McElvaney was an information solutions consultant at CH2M HILL’s Colorado Springs office providing project management, product development, and project delivery services. He was also the Rocky Mountain Region Geospatial Practice Lead for Colorado Springs and Denver supervising 8 staff. He was in charge of staffing, workload balancing, business development, project management, delivery, and profit and loss. His expertise includes GIS, GPS, and IS program development, articulating project specifications, contract negotiations, program and project management, management of subcontractors, ground based LiDAR known as High Definition Scanning, RFID integration, remote sensing, survey and mapping, and GIS/GPS integration and training. He has written and presented at numerous conferences on GIS and GPS integration, application development and implementation for environmental, transportation, and urban planning. He also maintained his credentials as a Trimble-certified GPS for GIS Mapping Instructor during this period.

Responsible for expanding and diversifying business opportunities, developing marketing materials, marketing, creating and maintaining partnerships, and overseeing all aspects of program and product development, execution, and customer liaison for the Hawai’i and Asia/Pacific region. Duties included market research, articulating project specifications, preparation of bids and proposals, contract negotiations, program and project management, management of subcontractors, development of multimedia presentations, technical demonstrations, technical editing, GIS and information systems program development, and GIS/GPS integration and training. Supervised and mentored 15 staff and maintained status as a Trimble-certified GPS and GIS Mapping Systems Instructor. Raised and maintained 100% of the operating budget of approximately $1M each year with various contracts with USGS, USFWS, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, State Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Division of Aquatic Resources, Dept. of Transportation, Dept. of Agriculture, Dept. of Health, etc. Shannon also acted as a business planning partner for NatureServe’s marketing and business planning efforts throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. In addition to his work duties, he was the Esri ArcGIS User Group Coordinator for the state of Hawai’i (2000-2003).

Responsible for beginning and then overseeing all aspects of GIS, GPS, and LiDAR program and product development, execution, and customer liaison for the Hawai’i/Pacific region. Duties included articulating project specifications, preparation of bids and proposals, contract negotiations, program and project management, management of subcontractors, development of multimedia presentations, technical demonstrations, marketing, new market development, GIS/GPS integration, sales, and training, laser technology integration, sales, and training coordination. Mentored 3 staff as well as maintained status as a Trimble-certified GPS Mapping Systems Instructor.

Responsible for expanding business opportunities, marketing; product development, and the planning and development of the GIS/Cartography department, including the design and acquisition of systems hardware, software, and data layers; the design and production of new procedures and products for both internal and external customer support, training, product promotion, data retrieval, documentation, and quality control; the conversion of manual processes to automated procedures using GIS technology; the development, coordination, and evaluation of all plans for GIS and cartographic projects; research and adaptation of new techniques for use in GIS applications; preparation of specifications for GIS systems design; collaboration with project leaders and staff to determine project needs, solve problems, and meet project objectives; the advising of land managers and biologists in regards to data visualization and environmental modeling and planning; determining appropriate type, source, and scale of data to meet project objectives; meeting with GIS consultants to resolve technical problems and discuss enhancements to GIS system and software; and staying abreast of current trends in GIS and GPS hardware and software development. Supervised 2 staff.

Responsible for invasive species management as well as design and layout of trails throughout the arboretum. This required the surveying and mapping of collections using traditional methods as well as GPS. All data was input and stored in a customized database and GIS. Worked there part time while finishing degree.