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Sewall aerial crew 1980s

Innovation in Every Era: Sewall’s Enduring Legacy in Mapping & Beyond

Sewall’s 1980s fleet: planes, cameras, photographers and pilots. From left: Charlie Peters, Roy Klitch, Alan Grant, Donna Dettmer, Jim Cote, Bob Foss, Scott Bergquist, Frank Bouchard, and Mark Averill By Caroline Engel Few companies can claim a legacy as intertwined with the state of Maine as the James W. Sewall Company. Since its founding in […]

Crop irrigation circle NDVI

Remote Sensing for Agriculture

by Katie Moran, Remote Sensing Analyst As discussed in our prior introductory blog, “What is Remote Sensing and What are its Applications?,” remote sensing provides opportunities for many industries to increase efficiencies and collect valuable insights that are not attainable from the ground. Agriculture is a prominent example of an industry that benefits from remote […]

Biddeford Parking Garage

The Evolution of Tax Increment Financing

by Andrew Nelson Municipal Tax increment financing (TIF) is a financing tool adopted by the State of Maine that enables a municipality or county to leverage new property taxes captured by a specific project or projects in a designated geographic district. The adoption of a TIF district allows a local government authority to shelter new […]

What is remote sensing and what are its applications? RGB/CIR farmland image

What is Remote Sensing and What are its Applications?

By Katie Moran, Remote Sensing Analyst Thanks to the growing popularity of personal drones, people may be more familiar with remote sensing than they might think. Remote sensing—at its simplest level—is the act of gathering information about an object without touching it. Most commonly, however, remote sensing refers to collecting images or heights of objects […]

Dirty pothole and alligator pavement. Better Roads field application helps with potholes and frost heaves through pavement management

Potholes and Frost Heaves Again This Year?!?

by Laura Teisl, GIS Analyst Winter is harsh on Maine roads.  With limited funding available each year, municipalities struggle to select which roads to repair from a list with more roads in bad condition than good.  Fix the torn up, pothole laden roads to keep complaints down?  Throw some skim coat on the edges of […]

Maine Traffic Movement Process

by Diane Morabito, PE, PTOE        Among the myriad of tasks developers face with new projects, the traffic movement permit process is an important one to remember to start early and enlist expert help. Any development project that generates 100 or more one-way trips in any hour of the week requires a traffic movement permit […]

Sewall Provides Civil Engineering Services for Hotel Ursa

Recently, Sewall provided civil engineering services for the future Hotel Ursa located on the University of Maine’s campus. This unique project, developed by Radnor Property Group, involved renovating two no longer used historic buildings, Coburn Hall and Holmes Hall, and adding a new structure next to them to create 95 historic and contemporary hotel rooms […]

Using Drone Imagery as an Engineering Tool

Drones are transforming the methods by which civil engineers can survey, map, and monitor construction sites. Using drones to capture imagery can be a time- and money-saving alternative to deploying planes or helicopters for smaller areas. The technology has advanced rapidly; drones can provide high-resolution aerial imagery and accurate 3D modeling information more quickly, accurately, […]

Boosting Biddeford’s Revitalization

By Kathleen Hayden TFIC and Sewall Company made a creative investment to address Biddeford, Maine’s parking challenges, and more municipal revitalization is already following Maine is a small place, and often, big ideas came from brief encounters at the town hall or a chamber of commerce meeting. This was the case when George N. Campbell, […]

How to Keep Women in Engineering

By Lynn Frazier, PE, PTOE In 2019, the UMaine civil engineering program graduated 36 potential entry-level engineers.  Of those 36 graduates 10 were women and 26 were men; that’s right, more than 25% of these young engineers overcame antiquated societal influences and worked through four years of STEM focused studies to pursue a career in […]