FACes & PlaceS
LOCAL COLOR 2004

Bob Dahl & Barbara Fordyce
by Marilyn Bullock

Being able to walk just about everywhere; the artistic community, the mix of young and old in both the people, buildings, and landscape; lots of nice friends; great recreational activities; a terrific community; not a dreary suburb – these are all reasons that Bob Dahl (pronounced “Doll”) and Barbara Fordyce, Lambertville residents for 18 years, enjoy living here and being involved in the community.

Bob grew up in Towaco, NJ, a rural town in eastern Morris County where he attended the Montville elementary and high schools. Afterwards he went to Princeton for his undergraduate work in biology. Barbara grew up in Livingston, NJ and attended Livingston High School before going off to Ramapo College as an English major. On the first day of Bob’s first job he met Barbara Fordyce at an environmental convention. Ironically, it was also the first day of her first job.

Bob traveled with the Peace Corps for a year. Upon his return, he contacted Barbara, who was working as a PR specialist, and they started dating. A couple of years later they married and Bob went back to graduate school to obtain a master’s degree in Geography. (By the way - one of the reasons Barbara kept her maiden name – “Barbie Dahl.” Nuff said!)

Geography related jobs were not easy to come by, especially in this part of the country.
When the Macintosh came out in 1984, Bob purchased one of the first Macs and, working in MacPaint, he created a set of maps he hoped to sell to geography grad students and professors. Few sold. However, after recreating the maps in the next generation software, MacDraw, Bob sold lots of maps. Steady orders came in for his product, MacAtlas, from newspapers around the country. During these early years of part-time map selling, Bob worked full-time in the computer mapping division of DEP in Trenton and Barb worked at AT&T.

Map Resources, once Cartesia, has evolved over the years and now sells to people doing graphic design for advertising, publishing, and web design for business, government, non-profits, and education. Map Resources is located on Church Street in Lambertville.

In March of 1987 Barbara left AT&T to work full time at Map Resources. Bob left his job later that same year and the two have been working together ever since.

Bob and Barbara were married for five years before starting a family. Son Ben, now 14, was born in 1989. He likes computer games, baseball, science, and nature. Younger son Julian, born in 1994, also enjoys computer games baseball, softball, archery, and piano.

When not working at Map Resources, Bob spends a lot of time working with LEF, the Lambertville Education Foundation (see related article.) He was president from 1998 to 2002 and is still active on the Board of Directors.

Barbara volunteers off and on for a number of organizations around town, including Shad Fest and the Recreation Commission.

Bob and Barb are very family oriented and try to spend as much time with their boys as possible. One passion enjoyed by all four of them is The Lord of the Rings. They have seen each of the “Rings” movies more than once and have the first two on DVD.

A note on how Bob and Barbara came to Lambertville. With Bob working in Trenton at the time, they needed to live closer to his job. They had been looking in various parts of New Jersey and didn’t like anything they had seen so far. During one long day of house-hunting in Hunterdon County, searching for a rest stop, they happened upon the Rosemont Café, which was then where Manon is today. Liking what they saw in Lambertville, they decided that their quest was over. Good for them – good for Lambertville.