OGC Board of Directors
The OGC Board of Directors represents leadership from many disciplines and regions of the world. OGC Directors are dedicated to achieving the OGC vision, providing their professional expertise to the advancement of Consortium objectives. OGC Directors serve as individuals representing the needs of their sectors -- they do not represent their organizations of employment. Click on any of the names below for more detail on our Board members.
- Roberta Balstad - Senior Fellow at Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
- Jeff Burnett - Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
- Dr. John Curlander - General Manager, Microsoft Boulder
- Philippe Delclaux - Chief Technical Officer for Spot-Infoterra Group, EADS/ASTRIUM
- Ben Eazzetta - President of International Operations for Rolta India Limited.
- Steve Hagan - Vice President of Development for Server Technologies at Oracle Corporation
- Jeffrey Harris - Vice President and Managing Director for Horizontal Integration of Situational Awareness Systems in the Integrated Systems and Solutions business area of Lockheed Martin Corporation
- Joanne Isham - Senior Vice President for Washington Operations for L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc.
- Dr. Mike Jackson - Research Chair, Geospatial Sciences, University of Nottingham
- Michael Jones- Chief Technologist, Google Earth, Maps, & Local Search
- Dr. R. Siva Kumar - CEO NSDI & Head NRDMS Division
- Dr. Vanessa Lawrence, CB - Director General and Chief Executive Officer, Ordnance Survey Great Britain, and Non-Executive Director of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
- Dr. Robert Moses - President & CEO, PCI Geomatics
- John F. Olesak - Vice President - Geospatial Intelligence Operating Unit, Northrop Grumman Information Technology TASC
- Granville Paules - Principal for Aerospace Services at Kelly, Anderson and Associates, Inc.
- Jack Pellicci - Senior Vice President, Intergraph Security, Government & Infrastructure Division and General Manager Federal, Security & Intelligence Group
- Jeff Peters - Director, Federal Programs, ESRI, Inc.
- Kevin Pomfret - Partner, Cantor Arkema PC
- Mark Reichardt - President and CEO, Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
- François Robida - Deputy Head of Information Systems and Technologies Division at BRGM
- David Schell - Chairman of the Board, Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
- Dr. Christopher Tucker - Independent
- Rob van de Velde - Director of Geonovum, the Dutch National SDI Executive Committee
Dr. Roberta Balstad
Roberta Balstad is Senior Fellow, CIESIN, and Co-Director, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University. She serves as Chair of the U.S. National Committee on Science and Technology Data, National Research Council and Editor-in-Chief of Weather, Climate, and Society, a journal of the American Meteorological Society. She has been a director of OGC since 2003.
Dr. Balstad has published extensively on science policy, information technology and scientific research, remote sensing applications, and the role of the social sciences in understanding global environmental change. She was awarded the Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1974. Dr. Balstad was appointed senior fellow at Oxford University in 1991-1992 and was a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1994. She was previously the Director of the Division of Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, the founder and first Executive Director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), and President/CEO of CIESIN prior to its joining Columbia University. She has lectured widely, both in the United States and abroad. From 1992 to 1994, she was Vice President of the International Social Science Council and has served as chair of the NRC Steering Committee on Space Applications and Commercialization, the NATO Advisory Panel on Advanced Scientific Workshops/Advanced Research Institutes, the assessment of Scientific Data and Information for the International Council of Science (ICSU), the AAAS Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, and the Advisory Committee of the Luxembourg Income Study. She has published translations of the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish) and N.P. van Wyck Louw (Afrikaans).
Jeff Burnett
Mr. Burnett is currently OGC's vice president of operations & finance. He joined OGC in that role and became a director of OGC in 2001. He has over 25 years experience in general management, marketing management, direct marketing and product management at a variety of high technology companies. Most recently, he was the director of marketing and business development for Applied Analysis, Inc., a company specializing in information extraction from hyperspectral and multispectral imagery. Prior to AAI, Mr. Burnett was the general manager of a business unit of Harte-Hanks Response Management, which provided customer relationship management outsource solutions to high-tech business-to-business customers. He holds an MBA from Harvard University, a BA from Dartmouth College, and served with the US Navy in the Pacific from 1969 to 1974.
Dr. John Curlander
Internationally recognized for his work in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems and data processing, Dr. John C. Curlander is the General Manager for Microsoft’s Public Sector Product Group, a newly established division within Microsoft with the charter to develop products and related services designed specifically for public sector customers. This group complements Microsoft’s nearly 20,000 person public sector services team to provide comprehensive information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities that meet the demanding requirements of the public sector.
From 1980 to 1992, Dr. Curlander worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, where he became responsible for all SAR ground system activities including SAR signal processing research and development, and radar science applications. His research efforts have led to many of the operational techniques currently used in today’s SAR processors and has received numerous awards for his contributions from organizations that include NASA and IEEE.
In 1992, Curlander accepted the position of President and CEO of Vexcel Corporation in Boulder, Colorado. In this role, he led the company to significant growth with an increasing emphasis on satellite ground systems, photogrammetry and radar signal processing. The innovative technologies developed at Vexcel under his leadership led to the acquisition of the company by Microsoft, a deal which was finalized in May of 2006.
Following the acquisition of Vexcel Corporation by Microsoft in May, 2006, Dr. Curlander served as General Manager of what is now known as Microsoft Boulder. In this role, Dr. Curlander oversaw the business unit to ensure best execution of the vision that Microsoft has for the group’s role in the success of Virtual Earth.
Dr. Curlander received the B.S.E.E. (with honors) and M.S.E.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO in 1976 and 1977, respectively. He received an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree jointly in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1980 and 1985, respectively.
Philippe Delclaux
Chief Technical Officer for Spot-Infoterra Group, EADS/ASTRIUM, a leading provider of geo-information products and services. He co-ordinates the technical activity of the three Infoterra entities located in Germany, France and UK, leads the Infoterra's expert network and supervises the overall Infoterra R&D; as such, he is closely involved in the Infoterra OGC activities in connection with Spot Image, Astrium and EADS.
Prior to taking this position with Infoterra Global, Mr. Delclaux served at Spot Image from 1986 to 2004. Just after the launch of SPOT 1, in 1986, he joined Spot Image Corporation in Washington D.C. area, as VP Technical Operations to implement the technical facilities for processing the SPOT telemetry. Back to Spot Image SA, Toulouse, in 1989, he served as Vice President, Production and Technical Services, then Chief Technical Officer. During this time, among many other responsibilities, he was in charge of developing, maintaining and operating the facilities for SPOT satellite tasking, acquisition and processing. This included the technical and operational management of the worldwide SPOT receiving stations network.
Prior to 1986, Mr. Delclaux held various positions at the Centre National d'ƒtudes Spatiales, primarily managing the development of earth imaging systems and operations. From 1973 to 1978, he was directly involved in the technical development work that led to the founding of SPOT, after which he participated in the development of the SPOT ground facilities.
During his professional life, Mr. Delclaux has been deeply involved in standardization processes. At CNES, he defined the SPOT product formats, in co-ordination with Landsat and then with the CEOS. Then, at Spot Image, he established a standard for SPOT metadata interchange, participated in the GIS GeoSPOT definition which was set up in connection with the young OGC, and contributed to the DIMAP formats used now for the SPOT and Formosat-2 products.
Philippe Delclaux is a graduate of the ƒcole Supérieure d'ƒlectricité in Paris (Engineer Degree in instrumentation, signal processing).
Ben Eazzetta
Ben Eazzetta is President of International Operations for Rolta India Limited, a leading multinational technology services provider serving North America, Asia/Pacific, Europe and the Middle East since 1982. Mr. Eazzetta heads Rolta's subsidiaries in the US, Europe and the Middle East and serves on the company's board of directors.
Prior to joining Rolta, Mr. Eazzetta was President of Intergraph's SG&I division, where he was responsible for all aspects of global sales, marketing, delivery and business development. His career with Intergraph spanned over six years and included several positions including Chief Operating Officer of the Process, Power and Marine Division and President of the Public Safety Division. He was also a Vice President, and Co-founder of Industria.com. He helped raise capital for the company and led the product management and pre-sales teams. Mr. Eazzetta worked at Exxon Company, USA for more than twelve years, where he began his career as a Mechanical Engineer at the Baytown refinery in Texas and was promoted ultimately to Operations and Maintenance Department Head responsible for safety, operations, training and contract administration.
Mr. Eazzetta graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering and Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Eazzetta, along with others, was awarded several patents concerning collaborated commerce and project management.
Steve Hagan
Steve Hagan is Vice President of Development for Server Technologies at Oracle Corporation. He has been responsible since 1994 for Oracle's Nashua, New Hampshire development facility, where he has responsibility for Oracle's development and associated strategic relationships in the areas of Oracle Spatial, the Semantic Web, Medical Imaging & related Image/Audio/Visual services, and "Data Movement/High Availability" utilities.
Steve is a 40-year veteran of the software industry. Before joining Oracle, he spent seven years at Digital Equipment Corporation as the senior engineering manager for database technologies.
In 1998 Steve Hagan was instrumental in bringing Oracle into Principal Membership in OGC, and committing Oracle to work with OGC standards throughout the development of the Oracle Spatial product line. Under his leadership, Oracle has been adding spatial functionality to its database product for 10 years, beginning with Oracle 8.
The particular strategic contribution of Steve Hagan's organization is its extensive network of strategic relationships with nearly all of the key geospatial software and data suppliers; its special concentration on very large databases; and, its focus on addressing "Spatial Intelligence" and the mainstreaming of Location into Business Intelligence and numerous related applications.
Steve Hagan holds an M.S. in Computer Science from University of Southern California, and a B.S. In Aerospace Engineering from Penn State University.
Jeffery Harris
Jeffrey K. Harris is Corporate Vice President and Managing Director for Situational Awareness Systems for the Lockheed Martin Corporation. In addition, he serves as the Lockheed Martin corporate senior executive point of contact to National Security Community customers. Mr. Harris has been a director of OGC since 2003.
Previous assignments include President and General Manager of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space Operations and President of Lockheed Martin Special Programs. Also, he served as President of Space Imaging, a satellite imagery and information products company.
Before entering the private sector, Mr. Harris served in senior national leadership positions for the U.S. Defense and Intelligence Communities. In June 1993, he was named Associate Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs. In this role, he supervised the Community Management Staff, responsible for the integration and coordination of programs across the different national and defense intelligence agencies for the Director of Central Intelligence.
In May 1994, Mr. Harris was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space, also serving as Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the organization responsible for the acquisition and operation of all U.S. government space-based reconnaissance systems.
Mr. Harris began his career in 1975 with the Central Intelligence Agency as a photo technologist at the National Photographic Interpretation Center. In 1978, he joined the CIA Office of Development and Engineering's satellite development programs.
During his career, Mr. Harris has been awarded the NRO Medal for Distinguished Service, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the CIA Distinguished Intelligence Medal, two CIA Intelligence Medals of Merit, the USGIF Lifetime Achievement Award and the General James V. Hartinger Award for military space achievement. He serves on the boards of Analytical Graphics Inc, Rochester Institute of Technology, National Defense Intelligence University Foundation and the National Correlation Working Group.
Mr. Harris received his bachelor's degree in Photographic Science and Instrumentation from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Joanne Isham
Joanne Isham joined L-1 Identity Solutions in April 2008 as the Senior Vice President for Washington Operations. She is the leader in planning, developing and executing the Federal market strategy for L-1 Identity Solutions, the world’s largest supplier of identity products, solutions and services.
Prior to joining L-1 Identity Solutions, Ms. Isham was the Chief Operating Office of High Performance Technologies, Inc., and before that she was the Vice President, Deputy General Manager of Network Systems at BAE Systems.
Prior to joining BAE Systems, Ms. Isham was a member of the Senior Intelligence Service and a career officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). From September 2001 until her retirement in 2006, she served as Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Prior to that assignment, she served as the Associate Deputy Director for Science and Technology and then Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the CIA.
Ms. Isham held several other senior management positions in the CIA and other Intelligence Community organizations, including Director of Congressional Affairs for CIA, Deputy Director of the Resource Management Office of the Community Management Staff (CMS) and as CMS’s director of Program Analysis. In these positions, she was responsible for budget and resource issues spanning the Intelligence Community. Ms. Isham also spent a number of years on assignment to the National Reconnaissance Office as Director of Legislative Affairs and a Program Manager.
She has received numerous awards throughout her career including the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement, the CIA and NGA Distinguished Intelligence Medals and the DIA Director’s Award.
Ms. Isham is a member of the Senior Advisory Group for the Director of National Intelligence; Board of Trustees Analytic Services, Inc.; and serves on the Boards of Silicon Graphics Incorporated, Applied Analysis, Incorporated, The Sanborn Map Company, INSA and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). She is a technical advisor to the Parsons Institute of Information Mapping of The New School; and Appistry, Incorporated. She is also a member of the President’s Roundtable and several Dean’s councils at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Ms. Isham is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She lives in Northern Virginia.
Dr. Mike Jackson
Mike holds a research Chair in Geospatial Science at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he is also Director of the Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS) and Chair of the University Crime, Security and Defence Priority Group. CGS is a multi-disciplinary post-graduate research centre focussing on geospatial intelligence, location-based services and geospatial interoperability. Prior to 2005 he was Director of QinetiQ's Space Division.(QinetiQ, formed from the UK's Defence Research and Evaluation Agency, is a leading science and technology organisations with more than 10,000 scientists and engineers). In earlier appointments, Mike was Head of Location Platform at Hutchison3G UK, a Hutchison Wampoa third generation mobile telecommunications company, and CEO of Laser-Scan Holdings plc, an organisation which took an early and active role in the specification and development of standards within OGC. Mike has first-class honours and PhD degrees from Manchester University and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology from Kingston University in 2002. Professor Mike Jackson has been a director of OGC since 2001.
Michael Jones
Michael Jones is the Chief Technologist of Google's Earth, Maps, and Local Search efforts, the teams within Google responsible for providing location intelligence and information in global context to users worldwide. As a technologist and inventor with numerous patents, he also serves on the boards of several technology companies. Michael was formerly the CTO of Keyhole Corporation, CEO of Intrinsic Graphics, Director of Advanced Graphics at Silicon Graphics, and a developer of scientific and interactive computer graphics software for many years. The products of this work include Google Earth, Intrinsic Alchemy, OpenGL, IRIS Performer, military flight simulators, desktop video teleconferencing, nationwide truck routing, color conversion of black & white movies, and cellular phone antenna site optimization. A computer programmer since age ten, he is also an avid traveler and an amateur photographer with a home-built 4-gigapixel camera made with parts from the U2/SR71.
Dr. R. Siva Kumar
Dr. R. Siva Kumar is the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) CEO and Head of the Natural Resources Data Management Systems (NRDMS) Divisions of the Department of Science & Technology, agencies that are spearheading NSDI development in India. In his role as Member Secretary of the Task Force on NSDI he bore primary responsibility for launching the NSDI movement in India. Under Dr. Kumar's leadership, the NRDMS programme has increased in size, funding and relevance to society. The division runs concurrent programmes of collaborative research with Canada, Norway, UK and The Netherlands.
He holds the rank of Brigadier in the Indian Army and previously served in Army headquarters as Director Military Survey.
Throughout his career, Dr. Kumar has been actively promoting the use of GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing in his country and has evolved innovative projects for dissemination of these technologies. He has been on the visiting faculty of Jamia Milia, Delhi University, BITS (Birla Institute of Technology & Science), Mesra, CME (College of Military Engineering) Pune and STI (Science and Technology Initiative). During the Year of Scientific Awareness, he launched a geospatial technology awareness project for rural school children in the states of Punjab, AP and West Bengal. He edited a book that was published in the languages of Telugu, Bengali and Gurumukhi as well as in English.
Dr. Kumar has traveled widely, studying national mapping organizations and Spatial Data Infrastructure programs in numerous countries. He is actively involved in Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP), GSDI and other organizations and committees, and he is on the advisory boards of several magazines. He has been the recipient of a number of honors and awards, including the Dolezal Prize of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) in 1996, the Tata Scholarship for Study Abroad and the Netherlands Government Fellowship.
Dr. Vanessa Lawrence, CB
Vanessa is the Director General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey. She is the first woman to head Great Britain's national mapping agency and one of the youngest Director Generals in Ordnance Survey’s 217-year history. She is a world-renowned expert in how geographic information systems (GIS) can improve decision making at all levels of government and business and the official adviser to the British Government on mapping, surveying and geographic information.
Vanessa received her business training from the publishing company Pearson plc. Prior to joining Ordnance Survey, Vanessa held senior positions at Autodesk Inc, the fourth largest PC software company in the world. This role gave Vanessa the responsibility to position GIS strategically with major organisations; for example, Governments, the European Union, the World Bank, national mapping agencies, cadastral agencies and most importantly new customers world-wide who were not currently using geographic information for decision-making. During this time, Vanessa had particular focus on work in South Africa for the Chief Surveyor-General of South Africa to help create the ward structure for the South African General Election, held in May 1999. Vanessa has extensive experience in running organisations in several continents.
Beyond her work today with Ordnance Survey, Vanessa is Chair of the United Kingdom ACE Association, the organisation representing Chief Executives of Government Agencies, Trading Funds and Non-Departmental Public Bodies on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell. She also chairs a high-level group with membership drawn from the public and private sectors advising Ministers on using location information to improve decision-making in government.
Vanessa is a patron of two charities, The Cure Parkinson’s Trust and MapAction, a UK-based international charity which specialises in the mapping of disaster areas and supplying geographical information for humanitarian relief operations.
Vanessa is the Honorary Vice-President of The Geographical Association and a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society and of the University of Southampton. Vanessa is a Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton and Kingston University.
Vanessa is one of the few recipients of the Scottish Geographical Medal, a prestigious award conferred only occasionally since 1890 by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In addition she has six Honorary Doctorate degrees, is an Honorary Fellow of University College London and of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Vanessa was appointed as a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) in the Queen’s 2008 New Year Honours list.
Dr. Robert Moses
Dr. Robert Moses has served as President and CEO of PCI Geomatics since 1990 and has been a director of OGC since 2003.
After studying medicine at the University of Toronto, Dr. Moses began his practice in 1972-1973, specializing in emergency medicine. In 1979, he founded Syntronics, a company whose artificial intelligence-based composer synthesizer, the McLeyvier, was awarded a Canadian Design Award of Excellence in 1982.
Dr. Moses began his work with geospatial imaging when Syntronics' coarse grain parallel-processor supercomputer won an Industrial Research Assistance Program award. The goal: to merge PCI's image analysis technology with supercomputer processing. When this integration was completed in 1987, Dr. Moses became actively involved with PCI Inc. He became president in 1990, and in the early 1990s Dr. Moses led PCI away from proprietary, hardware-based systems to non-proprietary, open systems software development. Under Dr. Moses' leadership, PCI Geomatics has grown from a single office, single product company, into one of the world's top Geomatics solution providers.
The Open Geospatial Consortium's commitment to interoperability and open standards resonated strongly with Dr. Moses. PCI was the first organization to provide OGC with financial support, and the company has consistently driven their own development toward open, interoperable solutions.
In addition to ensuring the continued growth of PCI Geomatics, Dr. Robert Moses currently serves as: Chair of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Science and Technology for the Ministry of Natural Resources, Government of Canada; Member of the Council of Science and Technology Advisors for the Government of Canada; Chair of the National Advisory Board on Earth Sciences for the Ministry of Natural Resources, Government of Canada; Vice Chair of Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc (OCE); Geomatics Industry Champion for the Government of Canada Innovation Agenda; and on other similar bodies.
John F. Olesak
Mr. John Olesak is the Vice President for the Geospatial Intelligence Operating Unit for Northrop Grumman Information Technology TASC. In this role, he is responsible for an operating unit that provides innovative geospatial solutions and services including systems engineering, integration, and tactical operations support for the Defense and Intelligence Communities.
Mr. Olesak has more than thirty years of experience supporting, developing and managing imagery and geospatial studies and analyses, systems engineering, integration and development programs, research and development activities and data production programs. In his previous role as the Director, Geospatial Intelligence Division, Mr. Olesak was responsible for providing systems development and engineering support to the imagery and geospatial community with a particular focus on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), previously the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA).
Since joining TASC in 1992, Mr. Olesak has held roles of increasing responsibility providing business leadership to deliver quality, timely and cost effective enterprise-level integration and interoperability engineering solutions for the NGA and other related customers. He has led and mentored teams of technical and program experts, provided program, project management, and technical support in areas including image processing and dissemination, rapid prototyping, geospatial product design, spatial data engineering, earth sciences applications, and support to military operations.
Previously, Mr. Olesak served more than twenty years on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Career highlights include serving as the Deputy Director, U.S. Army Topographic Engineering Center, where he negotiated major research and development agreements with organizations, laboratories, and universities; developed mapping software standardization programs with government agencies; and assisted in the formulation of research and development programs in response to specific user requirements. As the Topographic Plans and Programs Officer for the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, U.S. Army, Mr. Olesak developed and implemented U.S. Army plans for topographic engineering doctrine, force structure, training, and imagery and geospatial systems developments. As a Defense Mapping Agency requirements staff officer, he helped to establish international mapping production agreements and assisted in the formulation of international standards for maps and terrain analysis products.
Mr. Olesak has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from American University and has attended Executive Development Courses at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. Mr. Olesak is a member of the Board of Directors, Open Geospatial Consortium and a member of the Board of Visitors, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Granville Paules
At Kelly, Anderson and Associates, Inc., Mr. Paules manages a business line which provides comprehensive services spanning the full range of government and commercial business support from strategic assessment, positioning, and marketing to proposal development, contract negotiations, and ongoing contract management support.
Mr. Paules has over 30 years of senior level management experience in the Federal government, predominantly with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Mr. Paules served as Deputy Director for Program Planning and Development Division, Earth Science Enterprise at NASA HQ, and concurrently as its Chief Technologist. Prior to that he was Operations Director of the Space Station Freedom Program at NASA HQ during program formulation and early development.
As Chief Technologist he advocated and obtained budget support for the Advanced Information Systems Technology Program and led the Earth Science 2025 Vision formulation effort, based on a highly interoperable constellation of environmental sensors.
As a senior program executive for the Earth Science Enterprise and, more recently, the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Mr. Paules was engaged in formulation of many advanced concept satellite missions including the New Millennium Earth Observer-1, now a major test bed for evaluating multi-sensor interoperability. Throughout this assignment he served as the Senior DoD Liaison responsible as NASA's representative to the multiagency Space Technology Alliance and the Civil Applications Committee.
He received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and earlier while at the Department of Transportation (DoT) he received the DoT Distinguished Service Medal for significantly advancing the state of transportation systems planning using the emerging desk top computer capabilities.
Prior to his work with DoT, Mr. Paules served as a NASA Flight Controller at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Mission Control Center in Houston. He was a Primary Guidance Officer (Flight Dynamics) during Apollo missions. In tribute to efforts during the Apollo 13 crisis, Mr. Paules, as a member of the flight operations team, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jack Pellicci
Jack Pellicci assumed the position of senior vice president of Intergraph's Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I) division and general manager of the company's Federal, Security and Intelligence business units on September 18, 2006.
After a successful career in the United States Army, where he attained the rank of Brigadier General and served as the Director of Training, US Department of the Army and Commanding General of the Army Personnel Information Systems Command, he joined Oracle Corporation. At Oracle, Pellicci served in numerous positions including group vice president for the Global Public Sector and Vice President Business Development and Program Management for the North America Public Sector. As a member of the Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) since 1995, he has been a strong proponent of Spatial Information Management and brings a wealth of geospatial knowledge and industry acumen to Intergraph.
He also serves on the Board of directors of Sedona Corporation, a leading provider of customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions for small and mid-sized financial institutions and Skyline Software, a leading provider of Geospatial Visualization software.
Pellicci was selected as a recipient of the Government Computer News award for Excellence in Information Management. He also is a winner of the Federal Computer Week Federal 100 award, one of 100 executives selected annually, who have had the greatest impact on the government systems community.
Pellicci is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he received his bachelor of science in engineering. He also received a master of science in engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and is a graduate of the U.S. government's senior course, The Senior Executive Seminar in National and International Affairs.
Jeff Peters
Jeff Peters currently serves as Director of Federal Programs for ESRI, Inc. Based in Washington, DC, the Federal organization works closely with various Department heads and agencies throughout the Federal Government as well as many of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Global partners such as NATOand the United Nations in support of their mission critical geospatial initiatives. In his role at ESRI, Mr. Peters is responsible for the vision and strategy for geospatial technologies and solutions serving the national Government and its international operations.
Mr. Peters has over 17 years experience spanning information technology, business development, strategic planning, and corporate leadership in the software industry. Prior to joining ESRI, Mr. Peters was President of Mountain CAD, Inc., where he launched innovative tools and solutions using computer aided drafting (CAD) and geograpgic information technology (GIS). For the past 7 years he has been a member of the ESRI Board of Directors playing a key role in strategic planning and corporate leadership.
Mr. Peters holds a B.A. degree from the University of Montana and an M.B.A. degree from the University of Redlands. He also serves on the Department of Homeland Security advisory board.
Kevin Pomfret
Kevin is a business lawyer in Richmond, Virginia with an expertise in the legal issues associated with spatial data and spatial technology including intellectual property rights, licensing, liability, privacy and national security. He has advised companies on licensing and distribution agreements, mergers and acquisitions, financing arrangements and regulatory issues. He also writes and speaks extensively on spatial law and technology.
In addition, Kevin served as a satellite imagery analyst with the U.S. government prior to attending law school. In that capacity he developed an imagery collection strategy to monitor critical arms control agreements. He also served as the special assistant to the U.S. government official responsible for developing the Intelligence Community's satellite imagery collection and exploitation requirements.
He also works with a broad range of technology companies in a variety of other industries, ranging from early-stage companies to public companies. Kevin also assists private equity funds and venture capital funds in making investments and acquisitions. He has been recognized as a Virginia "Super Lawyer" and a member of Virginia's "Legal Elite."
Mark Reichardt
Mark Reichardt is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC). Mr. Reichardt has overall responsibility for Consortium operations, overseeing the development and promotion of OpenGIS® standards and working to ensure that OGC programs foster member success. He works with other standards development organizations and professional associations to establish alliance agreements to assure that OGC standards and other standards work together fluidly. Such coordination is critical, for example, to support standards that enable the full integration of geospatial information with real time sensor data and Building Information Models (BIM) used in architecture, engineering, construction and full life cycle management of buildings and other physical infrastructure. Mr. Reichardt joined the Consortium in November 2000 as Director of Marketing and Public Sector Programs; became the President of OGC and a member of the Board of Directors in September, 2004; and was appointed President and CEO in January 2008.
Before joining the OGC, Mr. Reichardt was involved in technology modernization and production programs for the US Government. In the mid 1990's, he was a member of a DoD Geospatial Information Integrated Product Team (GIIPT) formed to help transition the DoD mapping mission to a more flexible and responsive geo-information based paradigm. Under Mr. Reichardt's leadership, the GIIPT Production Team validated the ability of commercial off the shelf hardware and software to meet many of the DoD functional requirements for geospatial production operations.
In 1998 Mr. Reichardt accepted an assignment with Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government to manage a program to illustrate how the use of geospatial information and technologies could improve local to federal government coordination. In early 1999, Mr. Reichardt was selected to establish and lead an international Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) program for the US Federal Geographic Data Committee. In this position, Mr. Reichardt helped to establish globally compatible national and regional SDI practices in Africa, South America, Europe, and the Caribbean. He was instrumental in establishing several nation-to-nation collaborative SDI agreements.
Mr. Reichardt serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association and on the BuildingSmart Alliance Board of Direction.
François Robida
François Robida is Deputy Head of Information Systems and Technologies Division at BRGM. BRGM is France's leading public institution involved in the Earth Science field for the sustainable management of natural resources and surface and subsurface risks. In his current position, he is in charge of research and development and supervises European and international projects in the domain of Information Systems for geosciences and environment in general (such as Orchestra, Rise, Swing, Genesis, Aegos, EuroGeoss, OneGeology).
Prior to taking this position in BRGM, François Robida held different positions in the organization related to computer science applications to earth sciences. Following his first work in mining geostatistics, he was in charge of the design and development of software related to all aspects of geology, and especially to 3D modeling. He was then responsible for the BRGM software group, co-coordinating the development and marketing of software developed by BRGM.
As “Terre Virtuelle” project leader since 2001 (Terre Virtuelle / Virtual Earth is a BRGM R&D corporate project to support the development of new services through the use of new technologies), François Robida has promoted and introduced interoperability, Grid computing and Virtual Reality technologies within BRGM. The project delivered in 2003 the first OGC compliant portal in France.
Involved as an actor of the development of interoperability at different levels, he has been a member of the European Expert Group for INSPIRE during the preparation phase, and he chairs the Working Group on “Geographic information & INSPIRE” of the European Geological Surveys association (EuroGeosurveys). He also represents BRGM in CNIG (French council for geographic information), in OGC (BRGM became the first French OGC member in 2001), and has also been a member of the OGCEurope advisory board.
François Robida is currently member and treasurer of the Council of IUGS/CGI, the Commission for Geoscience information which develops GeoSciML, the geosciences markup language. He is co-coordinating the technical development of the OneGeology initiative (94 countries) that aims at delivering a geological map of the world based on interoperability principles. François Robida is a Mining Engineer, graduate of the Nancy School of Mines (Engineer Degree in geostatistics).
David Schell
David Schell serves as Chairman of the Board of the Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. which he founded in 1994 with both public and private sector support to evolve "OpenGIS®" into a global standard for interoperable geoprocessing. Mr. Schell is primarily responsible for directing OGC's Board of Directors operations, including oversight of corporate business planning and management, and strategic planning and development initiatives designed to ensure OGC's continued leadership in evolving and expanding technology markets.
Mr. Schell's activities in the area of geospatial technology standards began in 1985 with his work at Massachusetts Computer Corporation (Masscomp), and later with Okidata Microsystems, where he focused on development and marketing of real time measurement and control, document management, and spatial imaging systems. During this period, Mr. Schell worked closely with the US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (USACERL) to support development and industrial application of USACERL's widely used open source GIS product, the Geographical Resources and Analysis Support System (GRASS). In 1991, he was elected to lead the non-profit corporation founded, in partnership with the Corps of Engineers, to formalize technology transfer of GRASS to the private sector, and to begin organizing industry support for the creation of an infrastructure to support the development of geospatial interoperability. Renamed the Open GIS Foundation, the organization focused on industry outreach and the integration of diverse geospatial product capabilities in the UNIX and internet environment, and defined the concept of "Open GIS" which resulted in the creation of the Open GIS Consortium, Inc., with Mr. Schell as its president and chairman. Mr. Schell led OGC in this capacity until 2004, when he assumed the role of Chairman and CEO upon appointment of Mark Reichardt to the new position of President and Chief Operating Officer and the renaming of the corporation the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Mr. Schell began his career as a systems analyst for IBM Corp., and subsequently worked in technical marketing for Honeywell Information Systems and Data General Corporation. In the early 80's, he worked with several UNIX-based workstation companies as marketing director, focusing on strategic alliances, the integration of UNIX-based productivity tools, and the development of industry business models for third party marketing.
In October of 2002, CIO Magazine presented Mr. Schell with the CIO Magazine "CIO 20/20 Vision Award" for innovation and leadership in the development of transformational technologies essential to today's business process. In 2007 he received the GeoTec Media 2007 Visionary Achievement Award for dedication to the technical advancement and widespread use of geospatial technology.
Mr. Schell earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from Brown University and the University of North Carolina respectively, and currently holds an appointment as Special Professor in Geospatial Interoperability in the School of Engineering at the University of Nottingham.
Dr. Christopher Tucker
Christopher Tucker recently stepped down as Senior Vice President for the Americas and National Programs at ERDAS, a leading technology provider for geospatial exploitation, analysis, data management/dissemination, information sharing and collaboration across the defense, intelligence, civilian federal, state/local, and commercial sectors - worldwide. Tucker came to ERDAS by way of the acquisition of IONIC, the world leader in interoperable web-mapping, location based services, imagery management and distributed geoprocessing, where Tucker served as President/CEO. While commercial technology companies, IONIC/ERDAS’s core businesses have always been defense and intelligence.
Tucker is on the Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium (www.opengeospatial.org), an international industry consortium of 350+ companies, government agencies and universities participating in the development of technical standards to that support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. Serving on the Executive Committee of the Board, Chris has worked to ensure that defense, intelligence, and homeland security requirements are given top priority. Tucker is also on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (www.usgif.org), where he is on the Management Committee, working closely with the President and CEO to advance the GEOINT community, technical interoperability, and intelligence tradecraft. Tucker served on the National Research Council’s Committee on NGA’s GEOINT Research Priorities, helping to define the R&D investment strategy that NGA must undertake in order to transform to its future concept of operations. Tucker also serves on the Secretary of the Interior’s National Geospatial Advisory Committee, a Federal Advisory Council (FACA), which was established to promote the creation and integration of cohesive geospatial data, information and knowledge to enable commercial, academic, and nonprofit organizations and all levels of government to more effectively protect our homeland, manage our resources, prepare for emergencies, empower and serve Americans, underpin economic growth, and govern our nation.
Tucker was the founding Chief Strategic Officer of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital fund, focusing his efforts on developing In-Q-Tel's overall strategy for tackling the Agency’s priority IT problems. As such, Tucker was responsible for managing the technical portfolio, issues of organizational design, and relations with the intelligence community, industry and media.
As Special Advisor to the Executive Vice Provost of Columbia University, Tucker was responsible for a range of issues having to do with strategic institutional development, R&D portfolio management, federal science and technology policy, and the organization of interdisciplinary research. While at Columbia, Tucker co-founded the Center for Science, Policy and Outcomes and the Columbia Public Policy Consortium, and taught several courses at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.
Tucker earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia University in the City of New York.
Rob van de Velde
Rob van de Velde is currently director of Geonovum, the Dutch National SDI Executive Committee. Geonovum’s mission is to realize better access to geo-information in the public sector and full integration of its services to public and industry. Geonovum has been mandated by the National GI-Council to implement the EU INSPIRE Directive in The Netherlands and to develop a National Georegister. Furthermore Geonovum develops and manages the national framework of geo-standards.
In his current role as director Mr. Van de Velde is strongly engaged in stimulating location awareness and organizing strategic cooperation amongst leaders in national and local government, academia and industry. He has a part-time position as lecturer in Spatial Informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Economics. He has contributed to more than 40 publications on spatial decision support systems, environmental impact assessments and e-Government services based on geospatial technology.
Graduated as a human geographer (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), he started his career in geospatial technology when joining the National Planning Agency in 1985, the first Governmental Agency in the Netherlands to acquire GIS technology from ESRI inc. In 1988 he led the development of the first Dutch National Digital Atlas, presented by the Minister of Spatial Planning and Environment to national parliament, local politicians and leaders of industry. Later he served the National Environmental Protection Agency, responsible for developing a corporate geographical information system. He directed a consortium that developed the 10 Minutes Pan-European Land Use Database and was managing partner of an international collaboration between governmental agencies and universities under the EU-INTERREG3 program, entitled “Participatory Spatial Planning in Europe”. In 2000 he joined the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Food Quality, heading the GIS Competence Center. Here he experienced the key value of accurate spatial data and geospatial technology in managing the severe outbreaks of aviaire influenza and foot-and-mouth disease. Building on this he initiated the development of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure for Disaster management, a joint effort of several public agencies, which was awarded the Public Safety Innovation Award in 2007.
Updated: 2009-06-29 10:30:18 EST
