"Clayton and Henry

counties on the booming south side of Atlanta have had

extraordinary growth over the past decade," said

Jones. "With Henry County in particular showing up

on national lists of the fastest growing counties in the

entire country, this area represents a huge opportunity

for real estate developers and home building. Those

enterprises require many areas of expertise, and

particularly with the current regulatory climate, it

takes real experts with years of experience to produce a

real estate development which will meet all county, state

and federal regulations, and still produce saleable lots

and homes at a reasonable price."

After being in the business

for many years and building literally hundreds of homes,

Jones, who is the current president of the Greater

Atlanta Home Builders Association, said he is well aware

of the need for a full-service engineering and surveying

firm in the area, and he decided to look for the right

people to fill the needs of Tim Jones Communities as well

as the requirements of other land development firms in

the on the south side.

Conceptual Design

Engineering Inc. was started in April of 1998.

Jones chose George T.

(Terry) Chapman, a civil engineer and land surveyor with

many years of experience in land development, to head up

CDE.

Chapman is registered as a

professional engineer and a land surveyor in Georgia, and

he has a master of business administration degree with a

real estate specialty from Georgia State University.

Starting with the work for

Tim Jones Communities, Chapman has been able to build the

firm to a total of 12 professionals, including three

fully equipped field survey crews and an office staff

with equipment to provide a full range of land

development services.

Surveying and engineering

design have both gone electronic, as one might expect in

this age of computers and lasers. Some people might

expect to see the old style "chain" which

surveyors have used since George Washington surveyed land

in Virginia. No more - it's all done with light

beams and mirrors these days.

A modern surveying

instrument can measure an angle to within a few seconds

of arc a distance of 3,000 - 4,000 feet within hundredths

of a foot, and do it all within about 30 seconds.

There are very few of the

old style drafting tables in the office either. All the

design and engineering calculations, as well as the

drafting work, are done on the computer.

The closest equivalent of

the drafting process now is probably word processing.

Drawings are built up on

the screen in layers which can be turned off or on as

needed for final plotting on the automated plotter.

Any piece of the drawing

can be moved, changed, rotated, erased, copied,

stretched, clipped or scaled.

And it's all done on the

screen until the last moment when it is plotted to a hard

copy in order to make blueprints.

Chapman said CDE prides

itself on its commitment to the community as well. The

Henry County Chamber of Commerce is planning a new

building, and CDE will assist with the site design.

Habitat for Humanity is a

favorite group that finds itself in need of the firm's

services, and Jones said there is great satisfaction in

seeing a deserving family living in a new Habitat home.

"Conceptual Design is

committed to the metro south area and plans on offering

consulting and surveying services to this area for many

years to come," said Jones. "The Tim Jones

organization is proud to offer this service to Clayton

and Henry counties and to add to this growing group of

companies offering land development services and home

building."

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