About Us

Charlie Davidson - Chief Executive Officer

Being a young professional, some are surprised by the experience that Charlie brings to a GIS or Construction project. He has experience working both as a GIS consultant for multiple municipal clients and as a Civil Engineer for the City of Syracuse. If you are involved in public works, Charlie speaks your language. Charlie often meets with new and old clients and is highly involved in the roll-out and implementation of a GIS project.

Erik Backus, P.E. - Chief Financial Officer

Erik is the director of the CEM program at Clarkson University. Erik's experience within the world of Construction Management and Civil Engineering makes him invaluable to our team as a leader. Erik is often in charge of setting up and closing out contracts as well as estimating and scheduling work. If anyone knows how the individual pieces of a project will fit together as a whole, Erik is the guy! 

Bill Olsen - Chief Information Officer

Bill is one of the most useful people to have around and one of his many talents is knowing everything GIS. Bill is a GIS coordinator and instructor at Clarkson University. Almost every CEM student passes through Bill's program. Bill has completed many GIS projects for Clarkson University, St. Lawrence University, SUNY Potsdam, and for clients of his sole proprietorship. If there is a technical problem that the team or client is struggling with, Bill is usually the one who knows how to fix it.

How it all started...

Charlie owes his love of hunting to his family or, more specifically, his uncle, Chase Winton.  Chase Winton is the highway superintendent for the Town of Sherburne, NY. One evening during the 2015 hunting season, Charlie and Chase were in the garage chatting and prepping for the hunt the following morning. When Chase asked him how his college classes were going, Charlie described the GIS class he was taking and that he had a final project coming up. In response, Chase said, "You know what would be cool? If you optimized my plow routes." Charlie agreed to do it for his final project, they both cracked another beer and chatted into the night.

At the time, neither of them knew that this project would become part of something much bigger. The snow plow project for a school final became a full blown implementation of a GIS-based asset management system into Sherburne's highway department complimented with advanced GIS analysis projects. Neighboring towns heard about Sherburne's new system for asset management and Charlie founded the sole proprietorship "Davidson GIS."

While operating Davidson GIS,  Charlie frequently collaborated with Erik Backus and Bill Olsen, Charlie's former instructors at Clarkson University. Considering the guidance and work Erik and Bill provided for Davidson GIS, it was only a matter of time before Davidson and Associates Consulting LLC was formed between the three.