Index

About the GAF

Mission Statement

Clients

Contact Information

About the GAF

Grendarr Advisory Foundation, Inc. (GAF) is a system charting company specializing in navigation mapping and geological finding operations. Our products include our Navigational Chart browser G-NAV, our fast System map viewer G-View Plus, and our comprehensive image map converter G-Convert. We provide several levels of support for these products.

GAF also offers mapping consulting services, with our focus on Planetary Mineral Estimation, Site Location Finding, Ecosphere and Environment Studies, and Creature Cataloging. Two of our largest customers are Deam Laboratories, for whom we have done many high-profile Sites Location Surveys, and DXF Mining, for whom we have preformed extensive planetary mineral estimation's.

Finally, GAF occasionally works on system charts for other companies, including MasterNav, for Corellian Engineering.

Mission Statement

Our mission has four parts, in decreasing order of importance:

1. Create good Maps.
2. Make good Money.
3. Explore the Galaxy.
4. Have Fun.

Have Fun.

This may seem almost flippant, but we're serious. If you've looked at our employment opportunities, you'll know that we pay a lot of attention to making GAF fun - our corporate office has a NH₄/HG Pool and a Zero-G Sauna, we play magna-shuffle, Zinbiddle, and Sabacc. While watching all the latest holo's on are our 120 inch holo projector (with its 1200 watt sound system).

What we tell people is, if we're going to spend 16 hours a day here, it'd better be a pretty nice place. Actually, our philosophy of having fun is deeper than that -- it's that work should be fun, or there's really no point in doing it. If you enjoy what you do, you do a good job at it. We all enjoy charting, but we have to make sure we enjoy the environment we chart in and the projects we chart, or we'll burn out.

There are companies that basically spend nothing on amenities for their employees, and pay them starvation wages for several years until the employees end up hating their jobs and either go to another company or leave astral mapping altogether and take up Nerf herding on backward planets (true story of an Ex-Corellian Masternav guy). GAF, on the other hand, has never lost a full time employee in seven years of business.

What does this mean to our customers? It means our employees still love their jobs, so you can be assured that the scouts charting your system aren't burn-out cases counting the hours until their stock matures. It also means we don't lose our experienced employees, so we have the best people in the business.

Having fun is important, but like the Dhuru fly and the Nafen, you have to know when to get to work so you can continue having fun. (Although, I've always kind of resented the Dhuru Fly's smugness and asceticism. Honestly, which of them would you rather have at a party?)

Explore the Galaxy.

Lets face it we all want to know what's out there, right? GAF has made it its business to know what's out there. While some companies simply chart out the local hotspots, and major trade routes. We believe you need every backwater star system on a map before you can plan your hyperspace routes, and business ventures.

So we strive to do what others only laugh at, the charting of all systems not just what someone feels is important based on lose facts and looking at the stars through a telescope. Untill you've been there how do we know?

Make good Money.

Let's not pretend. GAF is a business, and businesses must make money. GAF makes good money. We've got the smartest, most experienced people, and we've got a history of succeeding in a field where horror stories are the norm. Someone told me recently one third of all scouting projects fail (someone also told me 90% of all statistics are made up). This seems almost conservative in my experience.

The problem is that anyone can hang out a rescard and say, "Hey, we're system scouts, too!" If they seem to talk the talk, how is a manager supposed to know they can't actually scout the scout? A quarter of a million dollars later, you end up with a big pile of diagrams and a manager who thinks maps are a giant money-sucking hole.

That's usually when we get called in. In the end, having mapping done correctly and on time is much better than getting a super-low system rate. The problem is, the system rate is just part of the equation. It's the system rate times the size of the sector needing to be mapped, to do the project, also plus the business you lose if the project slips.

Most companies have "Make good money" as an invisible part of their mission statement, only it's at the top. We're honest enough to include money on our statement, but we're committed enough to put it after "Create good Maps ".

Create good Maps.

Every scout loves creating good system maps. All you need to do is set up the environment so she can do it. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems more cost-effective to take shortcuts and churn out cruddy system maps, with the intention of fixing it later. (Take the Divis Arm, Please.)

The problem is, often this really is more cost-effective in the short term, so managers trying to beef up their monthly revenues think it's a keen thing to do. But in the long term it ends up eroding customer confidence and discouraging scouts, who really want each system chart to be a work of art.

Thus, our top priority is to create good maps. Yes, sometimes one can make more money in the short term by writing ugly charts, but in the end you lose from these deals -- you lose credibility, you lose your sense of honor, you lose business.

Clients

Planetary Mineral Estimation

DXF Mining

Site Location Finding

Deam Laboratories

Ecosphere and Environment Studies

Creature Cataloging

Contact Information

If you have questions about our products or services, or other business queries, contact the Gendarr Advisory Foundation, Inc. Main office on Andreos in the Trontik System. Located just outside the south side of Andreos Starport at 3346 Nova Court Suite 967.