The ASPRS Tellers Committee has counted the ballots from the 2003 election and reported that Karen L. Schuckman won the election over Charles Mondello and George Southard to become ASPRS Vice President for 2003. Once she is sworn in as President in 2005, Schuckman will be the fourth woman to hold that office since the Society was founded in 1934. With the installation of officers at the ASPRS Annual Conference in May, Donald T. Lauer moves into the position of president; Russell Congalton becomes president-elect, and Terrence J. Keating becomes past president. Schuckman comes from the private sector of the Society.
In the two races for Assistant Division Director, Dave Greenlee was elected assistant director for the Geographic Information Systems Division and Capt. Jonathan W. Bailey was elected assistant director for the Primary Data Acquisition Division. Each will serve a two-year term as assistant director then rise to a two-year term as division director. Greenlee is a member of the Geographic Sciences Team at the USGS’s EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Capt. Bailey is currently the chief of the Remote Sensing Division (RSD) of the National Geodetic Survey (NGS).
Schuckman pinpointed three primary areas that she would like to address during her term. First, she has been deeply involved in the development of standards and guidelines for the use of emerging technologies, such as Lidar and GPS/IMU. As chair of the Division Directors, she supported the other divisions in drafting digital imagery, digital camera, and airborne sensor calibration guidelines. “While these efforts are not complete,” she commented, “the issues surrounding new technology — adoption of standards, export control, licensing and government policy – remain of critical importance to our membership and to the end users who support our industry. As an officer, I would make it a priority to focus attention on the timely completion of these projects by the technical divisions.”
Secondly, Schuckman hailed the ongoing work of the ASPRS 10-year industry forecast, now in its third year. She believes this work should continue and that ASPRS should participate in the development of on-line curricula, continuing education workshops and certification programs directed at the technician and the professional levels.
Finally, the issue of membership recruitment and retention needs attention. Schuckman believes, “ASPRS should be the place where we come together to share our successes and our failures, to find help in meeting our individual challenges, and to continually reinforce the relevance of our technology in every facet of life. But increasing membership should not be a goal in and of itself; rather, it must be the result of a concerted effort to provide tangible benefits and relevant learning experiences to individuals who are drawn to GIS, remote sensing, and mapping.”
2003 ASPRS Officers
Schuckman is a senior vice president at EarthData Technologies, leading the development of new airborne remote sensing and photogrammetry applications for the EarthData group. She was appointed to this position following her tenure as general manager of EarthData International of North Carolina. As GM, she was instrumental in the design and phase one implementation of the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program, the first statewide lidar program and currently the largest lidar mapping project in the world.
Schuckman’s involvement with ASPRS began in 1990, when she attended California State University, Fresno as a graduate student in the surveying and photogrammetry program. She has served the Society in a wide variety of elected regional and national positions, including:
In addition, Schuckman volunteered on the organizing committee of the 1994 ASPRS Annual Meeting in Reno, Nevada and served as an associate editor for PE&RS. In 1997, she was appointed by the ASPRS President to the Multi-Organization Task Force on the NCEES Model Law for Surveying. She is also the ASPRS representative to the NCEES Participating Organizations Liaison Council where ASPRS influences the implementation of professional licensure for photogrammetrists and GIS professionals in individual states across the US. In addition to the many elected, appointed, and volunteer positions outlined above, Schuckman has contributed personally to the ASPRS Building Fund and is a ASPRS Building Fund Benefactor.
Schuckman participated in ASPRS academic activities during her student days at CSU from 1990 - 1992, as a government employee while she worked at the USGS, National Mapping Division in Menlo Park, CA from 1992 – 1994, and as a representative of the private sector throughout her tenure at EarthData, from 1995 to the present. She understands the unique contributions of academia, government, and private industry to the identity of ASPRS as a professional society.
On a personal note, Schuckman has raised two daughters, Sarah (23) and Carla (18). She has trained harness horses, enjoys fast-paced road cycling, and was a member of the USA Women’s National Gymnastics Team in 1971-1972. She was the first woman athlete in any sport to achieve All-American status at her undergraduate alma mater, the Pennsylvania State University, in 1974.
Founded in 1934, ASPRS is an international professional organization of 7,000 geospatial data professionals. ASPRS is devoted to advancing knowledge and improving understanding of the mapping sciences to promote responsible application of photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems and supporting technologies.
A photograph of Karen Schuckman is attached. For more information about the 2003 officers, please log on to the ASPRS website at http://www.asprs.org.
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