March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Old Town company takes forestry and engineering to the air

OLD TOWN — The sky’s never been the limit for the James W. Sewall Co.

Among the paintings and photographs that adorn the company’s office walls at its headquarters at 147 Center St., Old Town, are aerial views of different towns and cities. Certain other photographs, occasionally printed in wild and unnatural colors, also depict earthly realms as seen from on high — satellite-high, that is.

These photographs portray the evolution of the James W. Sewall Co., founded in 1880 by James Jr., from civil engineers and foresters to civil engineers and foresters, with a high-tech twist.

David Sewall can walk through the three-story headquarters and explain what projects (some captured on those wall photos) absorb his employees’ attention. Many, many projects involve high-resolution photography, aerial or spacial, and computers. These technologies, camera and computer, represent the Sewall Co.’s future.

Though James W. Sewall Jr. officially established his namesake company 115 years ago, his father, James Sr., practiced civil engineering years earlier. He trained as a civil engineer at Bowdoin College and pursued sanitary engineering after graduation.

The late 1800s “was a time when towns were putting in infrastructures” to correct unsanitary conditions, David Sewall said. Medical specialists “were recognizing the health problems caused by improper sanitation.”

James Sr., who taught sanitary engineering at MIT a while, and his brother, Joseph, hailed from Old Town. The two civil engineers “were working throughout the eastern United States,” designing municipal sewer and water systems, David Sewall said.

While designing a sewer system for Memphis, Tenn., the Sewalls contracted malaria. A doctor urged them (particularly James Sr.) “to stay away from sewer systems” and “to get some fresh air,” David said.

An avid sportsman, James Sr. diverted his attention to forestry, where the large landowners always needed an engineer’s service. He and Joseph conducted forest surveys, designed woods roads and bridges, and did other engineering in the woods. Their work took them to Quebec and the Maritimes, and that combined interest in forestry and civil engineering “established us in the fields in which we’re strong today,” David noted.

James Jr. also attended Bowdoin College, where he trained as a forester. He later became a professional engineer, holding an early P.E. license granted by the state.

His son, Joseph Sewall (no middle initial), “was in college (Bowdoin, of course) during the early World War II years,” David said. “He graduated in an accelerated program they had to get men through college in three years instead of four.” Joseph joined the Navy and became a navigator. He flew transports on the Great Circle Route between the northeastern United States and Britain.

After the war, Joseph “was planning to go to graduate school in forestry. His father died in 1946,” so he came home to run the Sewall Co., David said.

Joseph had developed a keen interest in flying. He recognized the value of aerial photography, a military concept with burgeoning civilian applications, particularly for mapping Maine woodlands.

“He thought, `Wouldn’t it be nice to get a plane and a camera and do our own (photography)?”‘ David said. “They went out and bought an old plane and a war-surplus camera and went into the business.”

That camera still hangs in a corridor corner near the main entrance. He’s not sure, but David Sewall believes the camera still functions.

David pointed out that by introducing aerial photography, “the Sewall Co. broadened into other mapping applications.” That trend continues, as each new technological or capital investment “requires us to seek new applications for that investment,” David explained. “We are a privately owned company; we need to put each investment to the best possible use.”

A quiet, bespectacled individual, David broke with family tradition by not attending Bowdoin College. He graduated from McGill University in Montreal and joined the Sewall Co. full time in 1979.

Today, he’s the fourth-generation Sewall to head the company. Planning and vision are necessary to insure future growth, which cannot always take place in Maine.

The Sewall Co. employs about 135 people, most based in Old Town, but much corporate activity occurs out of state. A civil engineering department designs water- and wastewater-treatment plants, as well as private buildings and other infrastructure improvements.

This department has expanded into traffic engineering. The Sewall Co. has established a digital database for the Maine Department of Transportation. The database “was largely funded by the Clear Air Act,” David said. The company photographed “several hundred intersections in Maine’s non-attainment areas” (primarily nine coastal counties). Ground crews verified traffic counts.

Then Sewall employees combined the aerial and terrestrial data into a GIS (a geographical information system). This computerized database can be used to create traffic “models” on a computer screen.

Much corporate activity combines aerial work with computers. For example, the Sewall Co. has aerially mapped woodlands for decades. Now the company can feed aerial information into a GIS to create maps that depict such data as tree growth and species diversity, resource-protection zones, and infrastructures (logging roads, camps, etc.).

“We are working extensively in forestry now,” David said. The Sewall Co. recently appraised woodlands in Argentina without sending an employee there. A contractor sent the pertinent information, some satellite-collected, to Old Town; “we took that information and tried to apply a financial worth to it,” David said.

The Sewall Co. has aerially mapped more than 600 New England municipalities over the years. The collective information has been fed into Sewall computers — and released in reports and maps covering everything from land-use planning to economic development.

The Sewall Co. has developed a relationship with NASA, which has provided satellite imagery for specific projects. NASA-generated photos are not actual, traditional prints, but computer-enhanced imagery. Satellites take black-and-white images; earthside computers improve these images and add coloration.

Additional technological enhancements have involved the Global Positioning System (GPS). This network of navigational satellites affords precise and real-time navigational capability for anyone using a GPS receiver.

“We’ve had GPS receivers for five or six years now,” David said. “We were one of the first (engineering) companies in Maine to have a comprehensive set.”

GPS information includes the exact latitude and longitude of the receiver, whether hand-held or vehicle- or aircraft-mounted. The Sewall Co. uses its GPS receivers for aerial navigation. “GPS helps us to make sure we’re right on the line when we’re flying our missions,” David said.

The company has four aircraft, three twin-engined Piper Aztecs and a Piper Navajo, that fly mapping missions. These have taken Sewall crews into New York and recently into the Midwest, where “we’re doing a lot of work in the utility industry,” David noted.

This work involves mapping the “utility corridors,” primarily natural-gas pipelines, where utilities are concerned about complying with stringent safety regulations. “We’ve established a good reputation with the utility industry in this sector,” David said.


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