get to know us
Our Vision
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Meet the Founders
Douglas Bonham
Doug Bonham brings thirty years of technical design experience from the Seattle technology corridor, holding positions at Microsoft, including electronic engineer, software engineer, and researcher, plus fifteen years of designing custom scientific instruments for field biologists.
Constance Woodman
Entrepreneurial Lead on an NSF I-Corps and a researcher on an NSF PFI:AIR-TT related to using computer vision to track birds, Connie utilizes her design and rapid prototyping skills to bring ideas to life. Posses a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and trained at the Fischer Engineering Design Center.
Christopher Evelyn
Field biologist and professor Chris has practical experience in evaluating the use of technology for imperiled species surveys for government vs. private wildlife management needs to meet the needs of both parties. With a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara in Evolution, Ecology, and Marine Biology, Chris has 13 publications related to species mapping and population management.
Company Structure
Field Data Technologies (FDT) is a Montana 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. FDT supports academic research, development and use of wireless smart devices. FDT develops and promotes technologies that detect, measure and analyze natural events in the field and transmit results to scientists, producers, students and educators.
Field Data Services is a Montana (FDS) is for-profit business. FDS focuses on creating land manager solutions and turn-key consulting to enable land management decisions and choices for business owners.
Where FDT works to create open-source, non-profit, and academic partnerships, FDS focuses on business solutions and management data. The two sister companies allow us the most flexibility when going between academic research and business services spaces.
Tree Kangaroo Project
Tree kangaroo project in Papua New Guinea. Custom GPS and behavior monitoring collars. First ever GPS tracks of wild tree kangaroos. This is an ongoing FDT project that began in 2018.
Media Coverage
Company History
Our technology began in 2014 when Doug Bonham won first place at a technology start-up contest in Seattle. His instrumented birdhouse concept won out over intense competition from his engineering colleagues at Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon. The concept remained a solo garage project until he brought prototypes to ecology conferences in Alaska, Nevada and Australia in search of a team.
From those conferences came like-minded eco-engineers Connie Woodman and Chris Evelyn who brought NSF I-Corps start-up experience. This trio succeeded with their first big USDA Conservation Innovation Grant to develop open-source wildlife monitoring technology. Doug’s day job designing Surface Pro devices at Microsoft led to early awareness of a novel sensor component – an infrared multi-zone rangefinder (LiDAR on a chip). He instantly saw this new chip’s utility as a trigger for wildlife trail cameras. This innovation led to our current funding from simultaneous SBIR grants from USDA for insect pollinators and from NOAA for monitoring small stream fisheries.
Product Evolution
Our Supporters
These organizations have provided teamwork, funding, and other resources to help us bring new technolgy to wildlife conservation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Talk to us
Have any questions? We are always open to talk about your business, new projects, creative opportunities and how we can help you.