Edwin R. Cowherd
Area of Expertise: Land Surveying Software/Rural Boundary Surveying
Ed began a land-surveying career in January 1965 after graduating from Virginia Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor of Science degree in Forest Management. In April of that year, he began a four-year tour with the United States Army as an army aviator flying helicopters in Vietnam from September 1966 to September 1967. Ed left military service in April 1969 and worked as a forester with Continental Can Company. Ed received his Land Surveyors license in Georgia in January 1971 after successfully passing the surveyor's examination given by the State of Georgia. During the same time period, Ed continued to pursue his forestry career and became a licensed forester in 1977.

In May 1978, Ed Cowherd and Dean Goodman formed Cowherd, Goodman & Associates, P.C. and began writing what was to become the "Survey System 1.1." The software was one of the first surveying packages written by land surveyors for land surveyors. In 1983, Ed and Dean decided to give their land surveying clients their software. Shortly thereafter, they went full-time into writing and maintaining the software that had become the software of preference by many surveying professionals in North America. The company underwent a corporate name change in 1983 and C & G Software Systems, Inc. was born.

Ed initially wrote a good portion of the software, but as the company began to grow, he became the chief operating officer for the company in 1983. Since then he has been responsible for the financial success of the business. He has remained active in the state surveying society and has served as president of the Atlanta Chapter of the Surveying and Mapping Society of Georgia, SAMSOG.