Gardels Awards

Kenneth D. Gardels Award

In Loving Memory of
Our Friend and Colleague
Kenneth D. Gardels
1954-1999

PREVIOUS AWARD RECEPIENTS
Recepient	Organization	Location	Date	Citation
David Danko	ESRI	Cambridge, MA	June 24, 2009
Mike Botts	University of Alabama in Huntsville	Norcross, GA	September 17, 2008
Clemens Portele	interactive instruments GmbH	Enghien-les-Bains, France	July 11, 2007
Simon Cox	CSIRO	Edinburgh, Scotland	June 28, 2006
Doug Nebert	US FGDC	St. John's, NF	June 15, 2005
Kurt Buehler	founding CTO, OGC	Southampton UK	June 16, 2004
Martin Daly	Cadcorp Ltd.	Southampton UK	June 16, 2004
Edric Keighan	CubeWerx, Inc.	Reston, VA	June 11, 2003
William Lalonde	CubeWerx, Inc.	Reston, VA	June 11, 2003
Peter Vretanos	CubeWerx, Inc.	Reston, VA	June 11, 2003
Ron Lake	Galdos Systems, Inc.	London, UK	June 12, 2002
Arliss Whiteside	BAE Systems	Nashua, NH	June 6, 2001
Allan Doyle	International Interfaces	Redlands, CA	April 5, 2000
John Herring	Oracle Corporation	Reston, VA	June 16, 1999

About the award

The Kenneth D. Gardels award is a gold medallion presented each year by the Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) to an individual who has made exemplary contributions to the OGC's consensus standards process. The Gardels Award was conceived to memorialize the spirit of a man who dreamt passionately of making the world a better place through open communication and the use of information technology to improve the quality of human life.

Kenneth Gardels, a founding member and a director of the OGC, coined the phrase "Open GIS". Kenn died of liver cancer in 1999 at the age of 44. He was active in popularizing the open source geographic information system (GIS) "GRASS" and was a key figure in the Internet community of people who used and developed that software. Kenn was well known in the field of GIS and was involved over the years in many programs related to GIS and the environment, including the Research program in Environmental planning and Geographic Information Systems (REGIS), California Environmental Resources Evaluation System (CERES), Center for Environmental Design Research (CEDR), and the Tahoe Conservancy. He was a respected GIS consultant to the State of California and to local and federal agencies, and frequently attended GIS conferences around world.

Kenn is remembered for his principles, courage, and humility, and for his accomplishments in promoting spatial technologies as tools for preserving the environment and serving human needs.

Original Award