About
Team
Meet the team
A company is only as good as its staff.
Mike Saunt
Managing Director
Mike setup Astun Technology in 2005 with some seed capital from a previous venture. A background in GI (having worked for MapInfo among others) the interest lay in the web and what can be done with data mashups. An advocate of Open Data and Open Source Mike is primarily involved with the running of the business which means he dips in to all areas whether general management, sales, development, project delivery or support.
Peter Goulborn
Technical Architect
At the age of 15 Peter swore he would never work in (a) accountancy and (b) IT. Naturally this meant that he worked first in an accounts office and then in software support. Since then he has worked in web development and hopes to bring his experience from both sides of the technical divide to bear in helping Astun continue to create high-quality and innovative applications.
A native of South London, Peter has many interests but is most likely to bore you about his two young children who he thinks are already more interesting than he's ever been.
Mike Smith
Business Development Manager
Mike joined Astun in August 2010 to develop our commercial offerings. A Chartered Surveyor by profession, Mike became GIS Manager and subsequently Business Services Manager at Reading Borough Council in the mid nineties. He then moved into the private sector with GIS Specialists GDC until their acquisition by MapInfo and subsequently Pitney Bowes. Before joining Astun, he was Sales & Marketing Manager for Aligned Assets, where he was responsible for most of their prestigious contract wins. He believes in working in partnership with our customers to help them meet their goals. In what are very difficult financial circumstances his experience within the public sector and his understanding of their requirements makes him particularly suited to this role. Mike is also a Chartered Geographer and a former Director of the AGI.
Jonathan Lake-Thomas
Server side developer
Jonathan is responsible for the maintenance and development of the database and server side components of iShare. He has 15 years experience as a developer and has previously worked in the financial and telecommunications sectors. His main areas of specialist knowledge are in the .NET framework and relational database systems. In addition to having an interest in technology, he is also a keen skier and enjoys live music.
Matt Walker
Geospatial Architect
Matt is responsible for enterprise deployment of Astun’s web GIS, data integration and publishing solutions and is the technical lead on Logger and Publisher. He has over 10 years technical and leadership experience with expertise in PostGIS, Oracle, GeoServer and all things web. He's passionate about open software, standards and data and plays an active role in OSGeo:UK promoting the use of open geospatial software. Matt's based in the Midlands just south of Birmingham, his interests outside of work include time with his young family, weekends away in his camper van and occasional (and sometimes hazardous) mountain biking.
Simon Chapman
Product Support Specialist
Prior to joining Astun, Simon spent 11 years with the ROMANSE (ROad MANagement Systems for Europe) office at Southampton City Council, working with Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). These included traffic management and public transport tracking systems with time spent supporting control room operations and undertaking website maintenance. Simon recently graduated with an MSc from Portsmouth University, attaining a distinction in Information Systems. His final project focused on web based GIS and Web 2.0 within the context of ITS.
Simon enjoys camping and bike riding with his young family.
Kim Stimpson
Commercial / Technical Writer
Kim started off her working life as a developer in RPG for IBM System 34 writing applications for the communication market and still tinkers one day a week with the new RPGLE for IBM System i. She branched into technical writing having created various “User Guides” and “Workshops” during her time employed in software development and as a Product Manager. Her main role at Astun is as a freelance Technical Author helping to document the ever-growing iShare platform. In her spare time Kim enjoys hacking over the North Downs on her trusty steed!
Carrie Ivens
Office Assistant
Wondering what Carrie, a Food Technologist with 20 years experience in the Food Industry, is doing at Astun? Well, developing tasty food concepts from field to fork requires some super organisational and communication skills that have come in very handy when managing the admin department (just Carrie so far) for Astun. When not in the office Carrie has three kids (two daughters and one husband) to organise and, if she gets any spare time, she's usually found down the allotment, leaning on her fork.
Jo Cook
GIS Consultant
Jo Cook who joined Astun in January has been working with GIS for over a decade, mostly within the archaeological and heritage sector. She spent the last 9 years working for Oxford Archaeology, where she was responsible for managing small and large-scale GI-based projects. She has been working with web-based GIS since 2005, including Mapserver, Geoserver, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and OpenLayers.
Jo is a Charter Member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), and founded the UK local chapter in 2006.
Jo will be working as part of the consultancy team at Astun, working on software deployment and data integration.