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MTL Staff MTL employs a nucleus of highly-qualified staff. In addition to their practical skills in a variety of computer-related fields, MTL's consultants all have experience in the development sector; they are familiar with the particular requirements and are well-equipped both to train counterpart staff and to motivate local project personnel. |
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Nicholas Freeland Information Systems Analyst Mr. Freeland has spent seventeen years working as an information systems consultant in the overseas agricultural, agribusiness and rural development sectors, with emphasis on computer-based management systems, geographic information systems, electronic communications and networking. By combining the necessary natural resource and high technology skills, he has become a specialist in the use of computers for development applications. With formal train-ing in Systems Analysis and in Management Practices, he has had practical experience of introducing computer systems on a range of development projects in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean from marketing information systems to food security monitoring, from early warning systems to business management, and from survey data analysis to image processing. In addition to the consultancy and training assignments he has himself undertaken, his positions in MTL, first as Projects Direc-tor, then as Managing Director, have involved him in the supervision of many other projects. Linda Nussbaum Training Specialist Ms Nussbaum gained a BA in Geography and an MSc in Land Resource Management and Planning, specialising in the analysis and interpretation of remotely sensed data for agricultural land management. She worked at the Ministry of Public Works in Qatar where she set up a database for land survey records. In 1987, Ms Nussbaum joined MTL as Projects Assistant where she became involved in administrative operations; in management and support of all MTL's consultancy and training projects; in advice and support for the company's computer systems both in the UK and overseas. As Senior Training Specialist for MTL, her main role is in the training of overseas students on MTL's training courses, both in the UK and overseas. Ms Nussbaum has written and produced comprehensive training manuals on a range of computer applications for food security; and has run computer training courses in Guyana, Bangladesh, Tanza-nia and Botswana, as well as carrying out other types of computer consultancy assignments, such as those most recently undertaken in Sudan and Syria. Peter Hoefsloot GIS/Database Specialist As part of his MSc course at Wageningen, where he specialised in arable crop science and meteorology, Mr. Hoefsloot spent eight months in Tanzania working on land resource surveys. After graduating, he taught at an agricultural school and in 1986 became a professor at the International Agricultural College of Deventer in the Netherlands. From 1989 to 1991 he was an agrometeorologist at the Agrhymet Centre in Niger, where he was involved in the use of agrometeorological and remote sensing databases for arable and rangeland monitoring, and where he began to write software programs for climatic and land resource applications. From 1991 he was based at the Remote Sensing Project in Harare, continuing his involvement with land resource analysis, with an emphasis on computer systems design and development. He is an experienced programmer in XBase (including Clipper), BASIC, Pascal and VisualBASIC, and has written a number of significant applications, such as SUIVI and a GIS toolbox, which have been widely adopted in the SADC countries and elsewhere. Most recently for MTL, he has undertaken consultancy assignments in Botswana and Zimbabwe. John Lynton-Evans Management Consultant Mr Lynton-Evans is a qualified management consultant, whose assignments over the last few years have become increasingly focused on various aspects of food security, to the extent that he is now one of the leaders in this sector. His consultancy missions have covered a wide geographical area, and have involved him, frequently as Team Leader, in food security issues ranging from strategic grain reserves, through agricultural marketing, to the logistics of grain distribution. Missions include the formulation of the second phase of the SADC Regional Early Warning System for Food Security and assistance to the associated national units in Namibia, Lesotho and Mozambique; marketing policy analyses in a number of emerging Eastern European economies; and studies of grain storage and logistics in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Sudan. More recently, with another MTLconsult consultant, he was responsible for the design and implementation of information systems for a US$ 1 billion Grain Marketing and Distribution Project in China. Clarence Sakamoto Agrometeorologist Dr Sakamoto has divided his extensive career as an agro-meteorologist between training, technical, management and consultancy assignments. He has over twenty years of teaching experience at undergraduate and graduate levels, and has written a number of training guides and manuals (the most recent of these for MTL on the uses of agrometeorology for early warning within the SADC region), and nearly one hundred technical publications. He had over ten years of managing teams of multidisciplinary staff at the US Department of Commerce, NOAA, and the University of Missouri. Then, from 1988 until joining MTL in 1994, he worked in Southern Africa first as Senior Agrometeorology/Data Processing Consultant for WMO in Botswana; then as Senior Agrometeorologist on the FAO Regional Early Warning System for Food Security Project, based in Zimbabwe, but covering agrometeorological activities in the national early warning units in all ten countries of the SADC region. Nevil Pearce Financial Systems After gaining a BSc in Agriculture and an MSc in Management Studies, Mr Pearce has spent his entire working career using computers in the agricultural sector. He began as a programmer with Farmplan Computer Systems Ltd and became Customer Services Manager of Farmplan International. He was then in charge of the establishment of the overseas Product Services Division of Plan-A-Farm Inc., responsible for the specification, development and support of farms accounting software and livestock management systems for dairy, beef and pig production. Since 1986, as a consultant for MTL, he has been in-volved in the design and supply of computer systems for development projects in Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Nigeria, Jamaica, and Somalia. More recently, he has completed his qualifications as a Chartered Accountant, and now specialises in the design and implementation of financial systems. Graham Tottle Agricultural Systems Mr Tottle specialises in the application of computing to agricultural development, particularly for smallholder authorities, co-operatives, estates and credit banks. He began his career with five years of direct experience in natural resources development in Africa, then worked for twenty years with International Computers Ltd (ICL), where he became Manager of Agricultural Systems and initiated the SCAPA Project (System for Computer-aided Agricultural Planning and Action). Since leaving ICL in 1984, he has continued his involvement with SCAPA, and has provided his services as an agricultural systems consultant in some fifteen developing countries. He is author of several papers on agricultural computing and is a member of the British Computer Society's Committee for Developing Countries. Most recently for MTL he has provided consultancy services for computerisation in the plantation sector to projects in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Yemen and Iraq. James Cutler Geographic Information Systems After a BSc in Geography and an MSc in Land and Water Management, Mr. Cutler has been working as an environmental systems analyst, specialising in remote sensing and GIS applications for land use planning, resource appraisal, and development planning. Since becoming involved with MTL in 1988, he has undertaken a number of consultancy assignments physical planner on the South Kassala Agricultural Project in Sudan; Watershed Management Adviser on the North West Region Agricultural Development Project in Somalia; and, most recently, as Management Information Systems Specialist for the Food Security Coordination Unit in Sudan. He has also worked in Ghana, Nepal, India, the Caribbean, Bolivia and Oman; and, in addition to his consultancy assignments has conducted a number of training courses in GIS and remote sensing. Justin Saunders Geographic Information Systems After a BSc in Agriculture and an MSc in Remote Sensing and GIS, Mr. Saunders has continued his involvement in these fields, and has considerably broadened his practical experience through a wide range of project work a river basin development master plan in Ethiopia; a land use survey and plan in the Sudan; introduction of a land information system in Barbados; cotton mapping in Paraguay; installation of GIS/remote sensing facilities in China; and satellite image map production in Oman. He is proficient in the use of most commercial GIS packages, has experience with GPS and conventional survey techniques, and has knowledge of such fields as tropical horticulture, land use planning, soil conservation, irrigation, water supplies and integrated rural development. He has also been involved in applications lead training, in technology transfer, and in studies of appropriate implementation of image processing and GIS. |