Rick Thompson, a leading GIS officer working with considerable experience in the social housing sector, has moved from his role at Trafford Housing Trust to join Oxford Data Consultancy as its account manager and GIS consultant, charged with the responsibility of helping housing providers improve their operations through the use of GIS.
In his three years at Trafford Housing, Rick moved the organisation from one that knew nothing about GIS to a housing provider that now takes GIS seriously within areas across the business from asset management to neighbourhoods and developments. The trust is now seen as one of the leading associations in the use of GIS for day-to-day business process design and using spatial analysis to inform strategic decision-making.
Thompson realised early on that very few housing providers actually had anything to do with GIS so he was instrumental, along with Alex Hill at Plus Dane Housing, Steve Litchfield at Orbit and Andrew Bradley from Sovereign Housing, in re-establishing Gi4 Housing, a user group for housing providers who were already using GIS or thinking about using GIS.
Thompson has previously worked for Cheshire Police as its GIS administrator where he led a force-wide GIS procurement and implementation project and a CCTV mapping project which achieved national recognition. For his efforts at Cheshire Police, he received a Chief Constable’s commendation as well as a medal from the Prime Minister for his assistance in the Olympic Games Torch relay.
