CruiseMate About Us
- CruiseMate was developed in 1999 by John Armstrong, RFT, ATE and Chris Kovalcik. At that time John had about 23 years of cruising experience in the province of British Columbia, Canada. After cruising thousands of plots and painstakingly filling in cruise cards, it was time to bring cruising into the 21st century. Together with Chris Kovalcik, CruiseMate was designed and was ready for marketing in 2000. The software allowed the cruiser to collect the cruise data in the field, had many functions built in and allowed the data to be validated to ensure there were no errors before leaving the plot. In the office, the data was simply exported into a format that allowed the data to be imported in the approved compilation programs at that time.
- Cruisers loved the new software and the response was overwhelming. Cruisers were able to increase productivity as the software had many of the required calculations built in, thus speeding up the process. As well, the data came in to the office without any errors, and could be compiled instantly. There were no further delays between data collection and compilation.
- Since its inception, many improvements have been made to CruiseMate. For instance, the GPS plot location function was added. John developed the GPS plot location process in 2011, which was adopted by the Government of British Columbia in 2013. This is a process that allows the cruiser to navigate to the plot with sub-meter GPS units in a way that is both auditable and repeatable.
- CheckMate followed CruiseMate for check cruising and auditing and is extensively used by the Ministry of Forests, Range and Natural Resource Operations in BC. CheckMate compares the check cruiser’s data with the original cruiser’s data and then calculates and tabulates the results by measurement tolerance categories as outlined by current standards. Many larger companies have also adopted CheckMate as their go-to auditing software to assist during their internal audits.
- CompMate was developed in 2013 and fully approved in 2015, with Els Armstrong, RFT, ATE as the lead. This software is quickly gaining popularity throughout the province due to its intuitive, comprehensive qualities, small file sizes and compatibility with ENFOR software.
- But all good software requires the right hardware. As technology is constantly changing, we also constantly search for the best products. Our website features some of our current "favorites" but for more information, please contact John Armstrong for sales of these products: Phone or Text: 250-819-4128.
- We invite you to have a look at our products, their abilities and functions and would like you to feel free to contact us for a free demo.
Our 3-person team has more than100 years combined experience!
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John Armstrong, RFT, ATE John began his career in the forest industry in 1978 with MacMillan Bloedel Ltd., Nanaimo, BC, where he worked as a timber cruiser until April 1982. He has owned and operated a successful forestry-consulting firm since 1985 and incorporated in 1987. He specializes in Timber Cruising, Residue and Waste, Training, Auditing, the development of Timber Cruising software and the development of GPS plot location establishment. John has been serving on Forest Measurements Board of ABCFP and is a proponent of Timber Cruiser certification in BC. John received the software innovation award in the Northern Interior in 2007 for the development of CruiseMate and was awarded the 'Distinguished Forest Professional' award by ABCFP in 2017
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Els Armstrong, RFT, ATE Els has been actively involved in Forestry since 1985. Her expertise consists of all aspects of operational cruising, cruise compilations as well as data analysis, training and compilation audits. From 2007 to 2013 Els was employed by the Ministry of Forests, Range and Natural Resource Operations as the Regional Timber Cruising Coordinator for the Southern Interior of BC but has since returned to the consulting world. Els has a long history serving as a volunteer on several boards at the Association of BC Forest Professionals and has served on ABCFP’s council (2018-2020). She is currently serving as a Director of the Southern Interior Timber Cruisers Association and the Forest Measurements Board of ABCFP. |
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Chris Kovalcik Btech,-TM, Ctech, LPIC3, MCSE, CLA, A+ Chris has been involved in the IT industry since 1986 and has received diplomas in Electronics Engineering and Computer Programming. He has developed software in several computer languages including Perl, PHP, Java, C, C++, C#, BASIC and more for many platforms, including Windows Computers, Unix based systems and Handheld PC's. He also provides IT solutions for both business and personal needs. |