Started in 1963 in a spare bedroom in Modesto, California in the home of its two original founders, Compass Maps, Inc. has grown to encompass over 35 employees in a full printing and publishing facility.  The founders, Dick and Shirley Elke, had no previous experience in map publishing although Shirley had been a cartographer for the Southern Pacific Railroad and California State Automobile Association.  Publishing its first map for a title company client, Compass Maps soon found a niche market in Northern California for annually-updated road maps.

Outgrowing the bedroom, Compass Maps relocated to an industrial neighborhood, and added pre-press equipment, printing presses and map folding machines.  In its first 35 years of operation, CMI produced all maps and updates through manual cartographic processes, which is accomplished via pen and ink on artboard.  In 1998, CMI published its first computer-generated cartography, and is now in the process of converting all of its manual map bases to digital format.

In 1998, Mr. Elke retired and turned full operation of the business over to the employees.  Many of the CMI employees have been with the business for over 20 years.  Active in local nonprofit organizations, CMI supports continued education of its staff and also offers internships and scholarships for high school and college students.  CMI is proud of our community and our place in the world, and works to keep it and its employees healthy by recycling paper and hazardous printing materials.  In 43 years, CMI has never had a manufacturing accident.

CMI publishes maps and atlases for retail distribution (book stores, gas stations, grocery and office supply stores) and also creates custom maps and directory books for chambers of commerce, municipal agencies, real estate agencies, and title companies.  CMI also publishes specialty custom maps for school districts, and prints urban bike maps for several city clients.  A long-standing in-house motto has been, "We can create whatever you can imagine."

Future plans for CMI include expanding our map titles into surrounding regional states while continuing to improve our mapping processes.  One goal is to provide annual updates on most cartography while decreasing the overall publishing time to market.

We encourage our map users to give us feedback.  We strive to incorporate this feedback to improve our printed product, as we regard the map-using public as the most official and comprehensive research source available.  Please don't hesitate to contact us with any comments you may have regarding Compass Maps, Inc., or our products.