Founded in 1996, we are a business intelligence firm located in Cheney, Washington, just southwest of Spokane (Washington's second largest city). SmartDrill is comprised of seasoned professionals having backgrounds in various fields such as marketing and management consulting, advertising, market research and advanced analytics.

Our key practice areas are:

• Marketing Analytics (e.g., market segmentation analysis, predictive modeling, database marketing analytics, etc.)
  
• Market Research (e.g., market definition and brand/advertising tracking; customer satisfaction; product development and testing; communications development and testing; etc.)
  
• Operations Research (operations optimization analysis and modeling)
  
• Risk/Decision Analysis
  
  
• Project Planning and Management   

Over the years, we have participated in consulting efforts on behalf of clients ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies, as well as nonprofits and government agencies.

Our Philosophy

We believe, based on many years of experience, that data-driven solutions are superior solutions. But we also believe that data mining and marketing analytics do not have to be a mysterious and expensive undertaking. We work to demystify the process and make it affordable^__even to smaller businesses^__while maintaining the highest standards of quality and professionalism.

We offer a flexible approach to consulting, and we are happy to be involved on either a project or retainer basis. In addition, for those clients who just need a small amount of help or advice to supplement existing in-house capabilities, we offer per-diem arrangements.

Leadership

Peter Taves, Founder and Managing Consultant

Peter, who launched SmartDrill Data Mining in 1996, has more than 30 years' experience in marketing, advertising, management consulting and market research; and more than 40 years' experience in advanced analytics. Prior to SmartDrill, he was a Founding Partner at Growth Strategies Group, a business consulting collaborative that assisted clients with marketing and management consulting, market research and advanced analytics.

Before that, he had served as Research Supervisor, Technical Development, for Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, NY, NY; Associate Research Director for Humphrey, Browning, MacDougall Advertising, Boston, MA; Director of Market Research for leading business strategy consulting firm Bain & Company, Boston, MA; and Senior Vice President, Director of Marketing Services, for Ingalls, Quinn & Johnson Advertising, Boston, MA.

Because of his extensive statistical background, Peter has also served as a beta tester for various statistical software packages, including SPSS CHAID, SPSS Answer Tree and Statistical Innovations’ GOLDMiner.  In the early 1990s he also developed one of the first MS Windows versions of a dual-simplex linear programming software application.

Before entering the business world in the late 1970s, he had taught various psychology courses at Briarcliff College (Briarcliff Manor, NY) and both the Rochester Institute of Technology and its sister institution, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (Rochester, NY).

He holds a B.A. degree in Psychology (cum laude) from Johns Hopkins University, where he also studied advanced inferential statistics; and an M.A. degree in Social Psychology from Princeton University (Ph.D. is ABD). While at Princeton, he served for four years as a Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant on full scholarship, and his main focus was experimentation in the area of attitude formation and change. Among his many activities, he taught an undergraduate class in statistical methods and experimental design.

Since 1972, Peter has been a lifetime member of Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology.