Kija Kim Profiled in Boston Globe

For Immediate Release

Cambridge, MA ... The Boston Globe recently ran a feature article on Harvard Design & Mapping (HDM) President and CEO, Kija Kim. The article chronicles Ms. Kim's odyssey from college geography student in South Korea to head of a $2 million-a-year Massachusetts high-technology firm.

HDM, which Ms. Kim co-founded in 1988, has established a firm toehold in a specialized but fast growing field of computerized mapping, also know as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The business involves combining maps with complex databases to produce computer renderings of everything from street layouts to rock formations and flight paths.

High-tech mapping is testimony to the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. In computer cartography, scanners, digitizing boards and other high-tech gear replace pens, rulers and compasses used by draftsmen. Information such as the location of pipelines, household incomes or soil is overlaid into maps displayed on computer screens. The result is a visual database that can be more precise, detailed and easier to manipulate than cumbersome paper maps.

HDM client Dick Cohane of Boston Edison organization explains, "It's information at your fingertips. You can analyze and compile data in seconds or minutes instead of a few hours, if not days" he says. "The savings and benefits are outstanding." HDM client David Widawsky, of Raytheon is also a strong believer in the value of computerized mapping, "the information is a lot more powerful and detailed. You get a level of precision that you don't get with the human brain. You can see different scenarios. "

Maps have been virtually a life's work for Kim. She majored in geography and graduated first in her class at Seoul National University, which she calls "the Harvard of South Korea. " When she came to the United States to continue geography studies at Clark University, she intended to go back to Korea to teach.

Instead, while raising two children, she ended up running a computer aided mapping division at a Boston-area to engineering firms. She and a co-worker Jim Aylward, a former town manager, got the idea to start their own business, offering computerized mapping services. In 1988, they established HDM.

Along the way, the Korean immigrant's entrepreneurial story has earned her recognition in minority small business circles. Kim, a Weld appointee to the Massachusetts Asian-American Commission, also serves on an Asian task force against domestic violence, and has done fund-raising for a shelter for bettered Asian women and children. She is a member of the Korean-American Citizens League of New England, a voter registration group.

Kim has done plenty of networking beyond the Asian-American community. Her three-page resume includes a long list of committee memberships, congressional testimony and wards. Displayed in HDM's conference room are photos of her with Gov. Weld on overseas trade missions, and with President Clinton at a White House announcement on reforms to the Community Reinvestment Act.

All that is a long way from Kim's roots in South Korea. She originally wanted to be a lawyer, something to "catching a star" for a Korean woman back then, says Kim. Her next best choice was becoming a professor. This year, she expects the 20-person company to register $2 million in sales. Profit should be 6 to 8 percent of that, she says.

Contact HDM: Email jim@hdm.com or call 800.878-1HDM.