The results of the 2004 election have been tallied by the Tellers Committee
and they reported that Kari J. Craun won the election over Alan W. Voss to
become ASPRS Vice President for 2004. Once she is sworn in as President in
2006, Craun will be the fifth woman to hold that office since the Society
was founded in 1934. With the installation of officers at the ASPRS Annual
Conference in May, Russell Congalton moves into the position of president;
Karen Schuckman becomes president-elect, and Donald Lauer becomes past president.
Craun is Chief of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mid-Continent Mapping
Center in Rolla, Missouri.
In the three races for Assistant Division Director, Clifford J. Mugnier was elected assistant director for the Photogrammetric Applications Division, Thomas R. Loveland was chosen as assistant director for the Remote Sensing Applications Division, and Daniel J. Paulsen was elected assistant director for the Professional Practice Division. Each will serve a two-year term as assistant director then rise to a two-year term as division director. Mugnier is a member of the faculty at Louisiana State University (LSU), Department of Civil and Environment Engineering and is chief of Geodesy at the LSU Center of GeoInformatics, New Orleans, Louisiana. Loveland is a research geographer for the U.S. Geological Survey EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Paulsen serves as a Geospatial project manager for Pacific Western Technologies, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Craun emphasized that her service on the ASPRS National Board of Directors and Executive Committee gave her a “much better understanding of the ‘business’ of the organization.” She noted that “While the Society has been and continues to be very successful, there are some challenges in the immediate future.” Craun points to recruiting and retaining members as one of these challenges that she plans to address. By taking proactive steps she hopes to begin an upward trend in the membership rolls.
Another challenge Craun notes for the Society is determining how best to invest its resources to further the organization’s mission and support its members. “This is a wonderful challenge/opportunity to have,” she said. Finally, she feels ASPRS will continue to be challenged to make its voice heard on issues important to its members. Craun concluded that “Over the past several years, the Society has provided significant input on numerous issues, including most recently, the fate of the LANDSAT program. The industry needs ASPRS to continue being a strong representative on these types of issues to legislators and other decision-makers.”
As Chief of the USGS Mid-Continent Mapping Center, Craun is responsible for a workforce of 230 employees, government and contract, with the broad mission of ensuring relevant base geospatial data availability for the United States. As part of this mission, MCMC is responsible for managing the USGS’ cartographic and geographic services contract as well as contracts to support acquisition of commercially available, remotely sensed data. Craun joined MCMC in 1994 and was named Chief in 2001.
Before coming to MCMC, Craun was located at the USGS National Mapping Division Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. Prior to joining USGS in 1988, she worked for the Defense Mapping Agency in San Antonio, Texas and Brookmont, Maryland. She holds a BS degree in Geology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and an MS degree in Photogrammetry from Purdue University.
In 1987, Craun joined ASPRS when she was a graduate student at Purdue. She has served the Society in a wide variety of regional and national elected positions, including:
• President in 2001 of ASPRS Central Region (formerly Rolla)
• Co-chaired the 2001 ASPRS Annual Conference in St. Louis
• Currently chairs the ASPRS Convention Policy and Planning Committee
• Presently serves as Central Region National Director
• Holds a seat on the National Board of Directors of ASPRS
• Elected 2001 by the National Board of Directors to the ASPRS Executive Committee
She resides in Rolla, Missouri with her husband Jeff and two daughters, Zoey and Natalie.
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 Kari J. Craun is attached. For more information about the 2004 officers, please log on to the ASPRS website at http://www.asprs.org.
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