Vol. 10 No. 5 Sept ember/October 2012

Right Place

Right Time

Human geography 

tells ‘when’ and 

‘where’ to put boots

on the ground
2 Pathfinder » September/October 2012

On My Mind:

Driving Innovation

Changing technology and increased access to geospatial information are 

rapidly transforming our world. New technology offers new possibilities to 

bring geospatial intelligence online and on-demand. At the same time new 

data sources like social media and human geography offer broader and deeper 

analytic insights. As I have said before, NGA will always seek to put GEOINT 

into the hands of our users by leveraging the advantages that technology and 

improved tradecraft provide. 

The Director of National Intelligence has made effective integration of 

intelligence his top priority. NGA is a key partner in this community-wide effort. 

GEOINT’s intelligence advantage lies in its visual foundation for all intelligence 

disciplines, enabling situational awareness and understanding. GEOINT can 

provide the intelligence advantage for real-world situations. Earlier this year, to drive end-user innovation, we 

introduced a new construct called the integrated work group (IWG), where developers, analysts, security professionals 

and others work side by side to address real-world issues. As a result, we now deliver innovative capabilities every 

60 days. These capabilities improve efficiency and productivity, and ultimately improve the quality of analysis.

For example, to develop deeper analytic skills, we established the IWG for Iran. The IWG continues development of a 

new integrated analytic environment that allows analysts to display and analyze disparate geospatial data with other 

intelligence in a common framework. The environment is available on three network domains to broaden community 

access. The IWG construct fosters deeper, more collaborative analysis, and results in more consistent and accurate 

judgments conveyed with a unified voice.

To improve data discovery, accessibility and usability, we established the IWG for Yemen and the Horn of Africa. 

Human geography is one of the sources informing this effort. The team has made great progress in ensuring data 

enhancements improve decision making about data collection through the new Geospatial Requirements One-stop 

Visualization Environment, or GROOVE. Historically, when trying to understand what data exists about a specific area 

of the world, analysts sorted through databases, printouts and shoe boxes of information. GROOVE puts all of that 

information online at users’ fingertips. This saves time by allowing users to focus on analysis, not data searches.

Lastly, to improve GEOINT access and use in the unclassified environment, we established the IWG for Readiness, 

Response and Recovery. A number of innovative solutions in this environment have sped access to data, automated 

data collection and improved analysis. One such solution is the Synthetic Aperture Radar Flood Analysis Tool, which 

cuts analysis time by 50 percent and reduces the resources needed to analyze critical infrastructure potentially 

impacted by flooding, such as roads and power stations. The time saved can be used to provide real-time, broader 

and deeper analysis for response and recovery efforts.

These are just a sample of the innovative solutions NGA is developing and deploying as a result of our IWGs. In this 

issue, you will read more about the IWGs’ progress, and other advancements occurring across NGA and the GEOINT 

community, and about the emerging use of human geography data. As we move forward, we will continue to 

aggressively develop and deploy new solutions to put the power of GEOINT into our customers’ hands, when and 

where they need it most.

Letitia A. Long

Director

ON MY MIND
3Pathfinder » September/October 2012

DIRECTOR

Letitia A. Long

DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Michael A. Rodrigue

OFFICE OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS,

DIRECTOR

William M. Caniano

EDITOR

Susan H. Meisner

GRAPHIC ARTIST

Jay Conklin

Published by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Office of Corporate Communications

Telephone: (571) 557-5400

DSN 547-5400

E-mail: pathfinder@nga.mil. Visit us on Facebook at 

www.facebook.com/NatlGeoIntAgency or on 

Twitter at https://twitter.com/nga_geoint.

The Pathfinder is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency publication 

that promotes awareness and understanding of geospatial intelligence. 

The Pathfinder is an authorized Department of Defense publication for 

members of the Department of Defense. Contents of this publication are 

not necessarily the official view of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, 

Department of Defense or NGA. Articles in the Pathfinder may be 

reproduced in whole or in part without permission, unless stated otherwise. 

If reproduced, credit the author and the “National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency, the Pathfinder magazine.” Any reproduction of graphics, 

photographs and imagery is subject to the original copyright.

On the Cover: The study of human geography allows NGA’s geospatial 

intelligence analysts to provide decision makers with the information 

necessary to ensure our military is at the right place at the right time to 

provide assistance to those in need. U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Tom 

Morton hands an Afghan child a toy during a security patrol in the Garmsir 

district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Feb. 25. Morton is a team lead 

assigned to Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine 

Corps photo by Cpl. Reece Lodder. NGA photo illustration by Jay Conklin.

Inside back cover: Design by Glenn Holloway. Photo by Tony Boone.

2 On My Mind:

Driving Innovation

» NGA News

4 INSCOM Commander Speaks to “Power of NGA”

» Features

6 GEOINT IT Changing to Better Support Analysts, 

Integrated Intelligence

8 NSG Expeditionary Architecture: Harnessing Big Data

10 NGAA Extends Outreach Efforts

11 Modeling the Future of GEOINT

13 Human Geography Provides Context to GEOINT

16 Forum: Water a National Security Issue

18 Integrated Work Groups Drive Improvements to 

Analytic Process

» History

21 Our Heritage: Cartographer Reveals Hidden 70 Percent 

of Earth’s Surface

CONTENTS

11

16

21
4 Pathfinder » September/October 2012

INSCOM Commander 

Speaks to ‘Power of NGA’

By Rosemary Heiss, Office of Corporate Communications

Amy Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty is the commander of U.S. Army 

Intelligence and Security Command, which oversees the Army’s 

use of geospatial and other intelligence disciplines. Before taking 

the lead at INSCOM, Fogarty also served as the senior intelligence 

officer for the International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan, 

during which time he saw firsthand the value of using GEOINT in 

influencing international decisions favorable to ISAF forces.

Q. What has been your experience with 

the National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency?

I can’t be more complimentary of the support that NGA 

has provided both for the two years I spent at CENTCOM 

(Central Command) and the year and a half I spent at the 

J2 (joint intelligence office) over in ISAF. When you start to 

look at challenges that we face, everything starts with a dot 

on a map. It’s the ability to present that in an effective and 

accurate manner that’s critically important. I don’t think 

there was a time that I briefed Gen. [David] Petraeus or Gen. 

[John R.] Allen that we didn’t sit down with a map—start 

with a description of the environment, what the situation 

was. It could be a political situation or a tactical situation, 

but it always started with, ‘OK. Where are we talking about, 

and what are we talking about?’ The multiple tools that your 

analysts use to depict the information really brings it to 

life. The old adage, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words,’ is 

absolutely true. There were multiple situations. It could run 

from a target that we had captured or killed. It might be an 

allegation of a civilian casualty incident. It might be something that the Afghans were reporting, and it was our ability 

to go into the boss and say, ‘Look. This is really the ground 

truth.’ And that always had a map or a GEOINT product—an 

image—to really explain what happened. 

Q. Can you give an example of how you 

used GEOINT?

If you think back to the November border incident (Early 

reporting said 24 Pakistanis were killed by NATO fire. In 

the immediate aftermath, Pakistan closed the border to 

NATO.), the first thing we had to do—the first instinct—

was to call the NGA team and say, ‘Let’s lay out a picture 

of the area.’ And when I say picture I mean it’s more than 

just a photo. It really is the whole product—to show the 

terrain, to show where the border was, to show where 

the [Pakistan] (PAK) positions were, to show our guys on 

the ground and walk step by step through this entire 

incident. The team was able to do that very, very quickly. 

What we were able to do was get a universal understanding on the friendly side of what happened, and it was 

very apparent after that what the facts were and where 

the friction occurred. 

Q. You mentioned that NGA is uniquely 

capable of providing certain types of 

support. Why do you think that is?

You have people who are first of all technical experts and 

state of the art in their capabilities. They are completely 

networked and take an enterprise approach. They can 

reach back to the rear for help where needed. They can 

reach forward to confirm or deny a particular aspect of 

what we were trying to do. And then we could layer in 

all the other INTs (intelligence specialties)—I could layer 

in SIGINT (signals intelligence), I could layer in HUMINT 

(human intelligence) reporting. That enhanced their 

production and their products. Every time we [would] 

bring in a visitor, we’d sit down at the table, and I would 

walk them through the situation using the very effective 

tool the NGA analysts had produced to tell the story for 

the command. So they’re technical experts. They are 

very comfortable using all the disciplines to enhance the 

products, so very good team players. And the last aspect 

is absolutely integrated at all levels. They are connected 

with each other and connected into the customer, so they 

end up being very flexible and very responsive. That’s for 

me, the power of NGA. The power of the enterprise: the 

technical expertise, the ability to integrate with the other 

disciplines to tell a complete story and approach the 

practice exactly where they’re needed. That really gives 

NGA a very responsive capability.

DOD photo
5Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Q. What do you need from NGA?

What I think we need is to sustain the relationship. My fear 

is that as overseas contingency operations wind down, we 

will regress to where we were before and that [despite] 

all the lessons learned, we’ll go back to the way we were 

doing business. We can’t afford to do that. I think that with 

NGA, by the integration we have in the facility, that won’t 

happen. We’re postured well to articulate our requirements to NGA. As long as they continue to be flexible and 

responsive, we’re going to be good to go. What we see is 

there’s this insatiable demand for GEOINT across the enterprise. I think it’s staying at the cutting edge, constantly 

having a chance to wring out within your organization, 

and we can help you wring those things out and promote 

that very quickly to the forward edge. We’re very confident 

that we’ll be able to sustain that. I tell all the agencies 

that we’ve made so much progress over the last 12 years. 

Some of it has been a result of incredible pressure that 

has allowed some things to move forward faster than 

they would. We can’t afford to slip back to the way it was 

before. As long as we remember that we’ll be OK.

Q. What’s next for GEOINT in the Army?

If you look at Intel 2020 for the Army, one of the pillars is 

‘Relevant intelligence to the edge.’ What we want to do is 

move to where I can push a final [product] very quickly. 

If we’re building our visualization tools and you guys are 

there right from the beginning, you [can] understand 

what the requirements are and you can build to those 

requirements. We have to work day to day to increase 

our collection where we have 

access. When we get 

access, we have to 

take advantage 

of that. Then 

we’ve got to 

really listen to 

the customer. In some cases, it’s the ability to take really 

dissimilar, disparate types of data and integrate it into a 

standard product very quickly and be able to push that 

down in the most efficient manner to the guy out on the 

edge. There’s a mutual benefit to that. In COIN (counterinsurgency) in particular, information has a tendency to be 

bottom up. If we enable the [soldier] with the latest, most 

advanced, most sustainable graphic representation that 

will speed information flowing back up. If we can send a 

guy out and he’s got a pre-loaded set of maps or charts, 

and all he has to do is put an icon on a spot, send a report 

and shoot that back up and it automatically populates, 

number one it will be a lot more accurate. It will be much 

more timely, and that’s what we’re striving for. 

Q. Is there anything you’d like to add?

My admiration and appreciation for how talented and 

dedicated the workforce is. I don’t know how many 

times I saw the same guys that had been at previous 

locations with me. You’ve got frequent deployers. They 

bring such incredible expertise. NGA had the right 

people. They had good technology, but it was the 

integration of all of that with the commander forward 

that made that very, very successful. The reality is NGA 

guys are saving lives. There are men and women who 

made it home today because of the work that a crew of 

very talented, very dedicated NGA engineers, scientists 

and analysts were able to work. I will forever be in your 

debt for that. You had the whole enterprise leaning into 

something that you were committed to and making a 

difference where it was really important. 

U.S. Army photo by Spc. Creighton Holub

Sgt. Will Daniels, a forward observer in the Long Knife Brigade’s 

combat observation and lasing team, revamps his plan with the 

guidance of Romanian Lt. Col. Vasile Vreme, the commander 

of the 341st Infantry Battalion, during a nighttime observation 

mission Nov. 4, near Nasiriyah, Iraq. The group consisted of a 

small team of American forward observers with a large number 

of Romanian troops working together.
6 Pathfinder » September/October 2012

GEOINT IT Changing 

to Better Support 

Analysts, Integrated 

Intelligence

By Rosemary Heiss, Office of Corporate Communications

More than 90 percent of the stored data in the world has been created in the past two years, according to a June 

Financial Times article on big data. About 2.5 exabytes (an 

exabyte is 1 billion gigabytes) of data are created every day— 

only .1 exabyte less than all the data created in 1986.

That’s a mindboggling increase in the volume of data created, 

and that volume only reflects one part of the big data challenge that users must solve in order to make high technology 

work for an industry. Variety and velocity of data are equal 

parts of the challenge, according to a June Mashable article. 

Variety refers to the different data and file types, including 

movies, images, text strings and geo-location data. Velocity 

refers to the rate of change in the data. 

The geospatial intelligence community, long known for its bent 

toward high tech, has been working to take advantage of this 

onslaught of data in its effort to serve up visualized intelligence 

data as the foundation for integrated intelligence. The National 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is in the middle of this drive for 

transformation. 

NGA hosted members of the National System for Geospatial 

Intelligence at NGA Campus East in Springfield, Va., in June 

for the NSG Infotech Users Conference, during which speakers 

provided updates on how the community is adapting information technology to make GEOINT data more relevant to the 

intelligence community. 

During the conference, NGA Director Letitia A. Long provided 

attendees an overview of NGA’s efforts to transform. She 

talked about the NGA strategy, which outlines two goals—

online, on-demand access to GEOINT and broader and deeper 

analysis — and the seven objectives that will help the agency 

achieve those goals. 

“The changes we’re making are crucial,” said Long. “We know 

we have a lot to offer. We have to deliver it in a totally new way 

in a format that our customers will want.”

We are overwhelming analysts with data, said keynote 

speaker Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was assistant 

director of national intelligence for partner engagement at 

the time of the speech and is now director of the Defense 

Intelligence Agency. Analysts have the problem of solving 

data challenges — including storing, cataloguing, searching 

and processing it— instead of spending their time solving 

intelligence problems, Flynn said. The analyst is the customer.

NGA is working to make the volume, velocity and variety of 

data that is available to the IC easily and quickly accessible to 

GEOINT analysts, regardless of where the data is stored. NGA’s 

emphasis on better serving its customers is being led by the 

Online GEOINT Services team. 

OGS Director Barry Barlow explained that GEOINT analysts 

might have to search more than 1,400 content storage sites to 

find useful data. 

OGS is working to change that, he said. His team has been 

working with customers to understand their GEOINT needs and 

will use what they have learned as they develop a new online 

GEOINT content site.

Part of his team has taken a fresh look at NGA’s customers to 

validate legacy understanding of their GEOINT needs and collect 

information about needs that GEOINT has not filled, said Christine 

Batchelor, who works for OGS’s customer service focus area. 

“We know a lot about our customers and how they use our 

current products, but what we’re trying to focus on more is 

their need for dynamic products or services that today we may 

or may not provide or that we would be able to provide better 

in the future,” said Batchelor.

“In traditional IT development, the user’s definition of a 

requirement can be different from an engineer’s interpretation of the requirement, which is sometimes obvious when 

looking at the final product,” said Mark Riccio, director of 

OGS application services.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, keynote speaker at the NSG Infotech Users 

Conference in June at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus 

in Springfield, Va., speaks during the change of directorship for the Defense 

Intelligence Agency on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., 

July 24. Army Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr. turned over directorship of DIA to 

Flynn after serving in the position since 2009.

DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo
7Pathfinder » September/October 2012

NGA’s agile development process is “very interactive,” 

said Riccio. “The developer and customer are in constant 

coordination to make sure that what is delivered meets the 

intent of the user.”

NGA has already seen this process make GEOINT data more 

accessible and more useful. Integrated work groups—which 

contain analysts, source strategists, human resources specialists, 

research and development scientists and other skilled people 

working together to solve key intelligence problems—are 

actively testing the agile development process. 

The work groups, which collaborate routinely with NGA 

mission partners, are identifying requirements, and through 

the agile development process, NGA is delivering solutions. 

The integrated work group responsible for creating new ways 

to operate in an unclassified environment has already used 

applications created through this process to benefit some of 

their partners—first responders. 

Information NGA analysts traditionally provided to first 

responders in hard copy— expensive to print and often out 

of date before the ink dries—analysts instead placed into a 

mobile application that first responders could dynamically 

update and share in the field.

“When first responders call, we are providing unclassified, near 

real-time, mobile GEOINT—not in hours, but in minutes,” said 

Long. “We are giving first responders the decision advantage 

and equipping them to save lives.”

Knowing When We’ve Got it Right 

NGA will use business analytics to learn what GEOINT applications are used most frequently and, conversely, what apps 

are not used, said Barlow. Business analytics will provide the 

metrics that guide further GEOINT creation.

Barlow described how incorporating analytics will allow NGA to 

change its acquisition of GEOINT IT support. Instead of buying 

application developers’ time, the agency is going to metered 

service, paying for applications based on how much customers 

use them and how valuable they are to the user, quantitative 

and qualitative metrics the online GEOINT site will provide. 

NGA is working to provide a customer-focused environment 

that gives GEOINT analysts tools that harness the volume, 

velocity and variety of data to solve intelligence problems.

“In traditional IT development, the user’s definition of a requirement 

can be different from an engineer’s interpretation of the requirement.”

—Mark Riccio, director of OGS application services

U.S. soldiers with Bravo Troop, 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, Task Force Red Horse, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, Task Force Red Bulls, conduct a 

dismounted patrol along the mountainside approaching the village of Pacha Khak in Parwan province, Afghanistan, April 7, 2011. Bravo Troop’s main objectives were to clear the 

village of weapon caches and to conduct a key leader engagement with the village malik.

U.S. Army photo by Spc. Kristina Gupton
8 Pathfinder » September/October 2012

How does the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency harness the power of “big data,” data so complex and voluminous that users cannot easily store, transmit or retrieve it? 

NGA faces three fundamental challenges with big data:

•	 managing the enormous volume of the data

•	 planning for its seemingly unquantifiable and

exponential growth

•	 synthesizing the disparate varieties of the data into useful

knowledge, i.e., understanding 

The National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) 

Expeditionary Architecture (NEA) Integrated Program Office 

is pursuing advances in high-performance computing (HPC) 

and virtual cloud structure to overcome these challenges and 

enable big data storage, retrieval and transmission (see related 

July/August Pathfinder article, “NEA Provides Virtual Capabilities”). When coupled with the emerging intelligence discipline 

of activity-based intelligence (ABI), big data can be effectively 

harnessed, exploited and analyzed, permitting analysts to 

provide answers to warfighters and strategic decision makers.

Activity-Based Intelligence

Activity-based Intelligence is defined as a discipline of 

intelligence where the analysis and subsequent collection 

are focused on the activity and transactions associated with 

an entity, a population or an area of interest. These activities 

and transactions are not solely tied to geospatial actions, 

but also apply across the cyber, social, financial and commercial domains.

Big data, across all domains, provides the substance for ABI 

analysis. 

ABI enables focused intelligence analysis, within critical 

timelines, on hard problems such as irregular warfare, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and counter-weapons of mass 

destruction. ABI is valuable in understanding the environment, 

even if there are no direct hostile actions or actors. Preparation 

of the environment, support to stability operations, nation 

building and civil affairs operations all benefit from characterizing and understanding the patterns of life in an area of interest 

and exploiting that knowledge.

“We are being called upon to think differently, work differently and collaborate differently ... We are being challenged 

to think in terms of activity-based GEOINT rather than 

target-based GEOINT and to explain not only where something is happening, but also why,” said NGA Director Letitia 

A. Long in her April 2011 Pathfinder column on leveraging 

technology. 

To meet this challenge, NGA must embrace and deal with 

big data effectively. The efforts of the NEA, which has been 

working on ABI enablers for the past several years, have 

been instrumental in managing big data and maximizing 

its potential.

Data and Knowledge Management for ABI

ABI encompasses multiple phenomenologies, locations, 

timelines and confidence levels, as well as big data. Information about activities, transactions and entities adds another 

complexity; the analyst may describe any and all of these data 

points differently, even though they may in fact represent the 

same entity. The analyst must resolve entities—that is, understand the details of the entities—and can only do so when ABI 

processes supported by HPC render the big data information 

unambiguous. 

NSG Expeditionary

Architecture:

Harnessing Big Data

By Keith L. Barber, 

Director, National System for Geospatial Intelligence 

Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office

Keith Barber, Director, National System for Geospatial Intelligence Expeditionary 

Architecture, briefed at the NSG Info Tech Users Conference 2012. Barber provided 

attendees an overview of how NEA is evolving its architecture to include cloud 

architecture and the use of activity-based intelligence. 

NGA photo by Tony Boone
9Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Further complicating the issue, ABI data sources can be 

conventionally structured (such as traditional GEOINT) or 

completely unstructured (such as free-form text). Being able to 

use this data is the basis of the NEA ABI quick-reaction capability, a Web-based service to support U.S. military operations in 

in theater.

The underlying premise of ABI is that analysts can use activity data (and its related metadata) to identify associations 

within the data and thereby relate entities of interest. More 

data is better for the ABI analyst, and big data represents 

limitless possibilities for ABI. ABI analysts are investigating 

relationships which may have little to no signature, yet when 

taken in aggregate with all other related data, may provide a 

signature. 

Associating data is vital to ABI analytics, thereby making it 

crucial to use all of the metadata that is available. The true 

promise of associations is only possible in the metadata. For 

example, two entities may be related in space and time per 

their positional metadata; or related across cyber space per 

their computer metadata; or relationally, per the metadata 

associated with, for example, a census. Today, metadata is 

almost an afterthought; very soon it will be the linchpin to the 

associations that make big data so valuable for ABI.

NEA recognizes that high data volumes are both a blessing and 

a challenge; with large data volumes the analyst is more likely 

to discover data that could be related. Yet understanding what 

data was captured and how analysts can link it is a much harder 

issue. ABI also poses the challenge of how to represent the 

significant information contained within large data sets. 

NEA’s response is to work with industry and federally funded 

research and development centers to explore representations 

of association data hidden within large data sets. Commonly 

called graph analysis, this new approach to data representation 

based on metadata provides the analyst unprecedented insight 

into data contained across phenomenologies and across the 

enterprise. It provides a way to view, filter and manipulate 

the data in more powerful ways than in traditional relational 

databases. Graph analysis dynamically changes as analysts find 

new associations in the big data, making new connections, 

weakening existing connections or showing a completely new 

pattern or association. 

NGA is working to ensure that data collectors and suppliers 

keep and provide all available metadata. NGA’s InnoVision 

Directorate, which concentrates on research and development, is working with providers to establish standards for 

data and metadata. Industry is also working to develop highly 

flexible and evolving metadata that will enable search and 

retrieval beyond simply spatial and temporal correlations. 

NGA’s challenge is to balance standardization of data and 

queries with flexibility for data discovery and association. 

Exposing and refining the metadata associated with big data 

strengthens ABI analytics.

NSG partners discussed improved access to GEOINT data through the use of next generation collaboration capabilities at the NSG Info Tech Users Conference 2012. Panel 

members left to right are Keith Barber, NGA; Chuck Gassert, Space and Naval War Systems Command; Dan Synder, Air Force Special Operations Command; Chris Philips, 

Air Force GEOINT Office; and John Snevely, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

NGA photo by Tony Boone
10Pathfinder » September/October 2012

The Cloud Provides the Solution Space

Bringing big data together (either physically or virtually) in a 

cloud environment is essential to realizing the potential of ABI. 

Much like ABI, NEA’s cloud architecture is based on principles 

of access, sharing and collaboration; NEA’s cloud will provide 

on-demand access to all available data, both exploited and 

unexploited. The reliance of ABI on raw multi-intelligence data, 

which an analyst has not yet formed into a finished intelligence 

product, demands the existence of a data cloud. The cloud is 

the ideal construct to contain raw data, as well as analyzed 

data, finished intelligence products, analyst reporting and 

association data/metadata. 

The most difficult challenge in ABI is organizing association 

data (which forms the basis of the ABI analysis and reporting), archiving it and providing for its intelligent retrieval 

and display. The cloud presents the ideal solution space 

where association engines can cull through the metadata 

and make the required associations. Having data reside in a 

common cloud environment allows the power of concepts 

such as complex event processing to begin the association 

processes. By compiling activity-based association data with 

its metadata over time, and adding analysis and reporting 

from many analysts, a rich archive will be formed to harvest 

patterns of life, networks and abnormalities which may have 

been overlooked otherwise. 

Ultimate End State for ABI Knowledge Management

One of the goals for enabling ABI to the maximum extent 

possible is to design an architecture which will take advantage 

of the inherently multi-INT nature of ABI and provide a unifying 

vision for how data can be exploited in “activity space.” By 

focusing on activity, performing integration in the activity layer, 

and using rich metadata for associations and relationships, 

disparate big data sets can be greatly reduced and exploited. 

Analysts can then more easily obtain the significant data for 

subsequent analysis. By establishing a cloud architecture to 

encompass the data and processes associated with ABI analytics, and providing an advanced high-performance computing 

environment, NEA is enabling the NSG to harness the full 

benefits of both big data and ABI.

The Path Ahead for NEA, ABI and Big Data

The vision for NEA is to deploy and sustain a full-spectrum 

ABI architecture both forward and at home, leveraging 

past and current investments in communications, cloud 

infrastructure, high-performance computing and virtualized applications across the enterprise. The ABI applications 

will be integrated within the forward infrastructure placed 

in theater by NEA and will support reach-back operations, 

riding on the backbone of the communications architecture 

the NEA has established. 

ABI applications and tradecraft will evolve as warfare and 

technology evolve and must support operations anywhere 

in the world. ABI analysis, relying on the cloud and highperformance computing, will reduce data discovery timelines, 

improve the ways analysts display data and spawn new 

analytical products which will take less bandwidth while 

conveying more actionable information. NEA is positioned to 

lead the way as the deployable foundation for NGA’s instantiation of the emerging discipline of ABI.

NGAA Extends Outreach Efforts

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Alumni Association, formed to bring together former and current members of 

NGA and its predecessor organizations for continuing social, 

professional and NGA support functions, is only about 18 

months old and already working to extend its outreach. 

The association is seeking more interaction with other intelligence community-related organizations. 

One example is NGAA’s participation with the Intelligence 

Community Associations Network. ICAN is not an organization, but rather a venue that brings together about 40 representatives of associations, societies, centers, foundations, 

conferences, institutes, museums, alliances and educational 

groups. The network meets periodically to share developments in their respective areas and highlight upcoming 

conferences. 

NGAA contributes a geospatial intelligence perspective to the 

meetings and takes away a broader knowledge of intelligence 

community-related activities.

NGAA is also working with the 

U.S. Geospatial Intelligence

Foundation to forge a closer 

relationship that will benefit both 

organizations and offer increased 

opportunities to contribute to the GEOINT tradecraft. 

Both groups plan to seek additional areas of mutual interest 

and int action.

“USGIF is making significant contributions to raise awareness 

of GEOINT and foster its introduction into college curricula, 

making it an excellent partner organization for NGAA,” said 

Allen Anderson, chairman of the NGAA Board of Directors. 

Said USGIF President Keith Masback, “USGIF is committed to 

partnerships of all kinds, and we are excited by the tremendous 

potential synergy offered by close collaboration with NGAA.”

More information about NGAA is available at 

www.ngaalumni.org. Information about USGIF is 

available at www.usgif.org.
11Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Modeling the Future of GEOINT

By Laura Lundin, NGA Office of Geospatial Intelligence Management

For many organizations, shrinking budgets and constrained resources mean slashing existing programs and limiting 

future investments. But how do decision makers determine 

where to cut and where to invest while limiting risks often 

associated with new technologies and aging legacy systems?

For the geospatial intelligence community, the answer lies in 

computer models, data sets, visualization tools, system configurations and an increased awareness of system capabilities.

Exploring the GEOINT Frontier

Two current efforts — under way in the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency’s Office of Geospatial Intelligence 

Management (OGM) Frontiers Division — apply these tools 

and techniques to help the GEOINT community look to 

the future while defining, studying and analyzing current 

capabilities and technology applications.

The division’s modeling and simulation efforts and the Community Information Needs Forecast (CINF) database work hand in 

hand to ensure intelligence community and Defense Department leaders and National System for Geospatial Intelligence 

(NSG) partners have up-to-date, data-driven information at 

their disposal to objectively inform their decision making.

The Frontiers Division builds upon today’s GEOINT capabilities 

by identifying potential “system-after-next” systems, which can 

take years to design, build and deploy.

Given these lengthy development cycles, the CINF database 

is crucial to understanding current system capabilities and 

building fact-based, objective recommendations for future 

ones, often in response to queries from the GEOINT functional 

manager (NGA Director Letitia A. Long), Congress, Office of 

the Director of National Intelligence and the Undersecretary of 

Defense for Intelligence.

The Community Information Needs Forecast

Primarily supporting the NSG modeling and simulation community, the CINF outlines a target set populated with information on the community’s GEOINT requirements and systems’ 

performance measures from partners around the world.

Starting as a simple dBase II file in 1990, the CINF is now a large, 

complex, relational database that contains projected future 

imagery and geospatial information needs for the NSG and 

documents the community’s end-to-end intelligence foundation, peacetime and crisis requirements.

Built to represent the needs of the NSG user, the Frontiers 

Division, Future Needs Branch, maintains the CINF and engages 

with NSG and Allied System for Geospatial Intelligence 

members to identify intelligence 

priority areas and projected requirements.

“The CINF provides a holistic snapshot of 

projected GEOINT needs—10 to 15 years in the future,” said 

Robert Spans, chief of OGM’s Current and Future Needs Branch. 

“We reach out routinely to the subject matter experts and ask 

them to think hard about the types of information they will 

need to answer their GEOINT problems.”

The CINF impacts future GEOINT operations by validating 

GEOINT user needs coupled with an evaluation of possible 

gaps in capabilities across the NSG, said Spans.

This ensures the CINF represents community needs for GEOINT 

capabilities that are robust, flexible, integrated and readily available —providing a critical baseline on which to advance GEOINT.

Modeling the Future of GEOINT

Building on the CINF’s tools and information, OGM’s modeling 

and simulation program generates “computer models that 

simulate the performance of GEOINT systems in an effort to 

analyze their performance and explore alternatives,” said Riley 

Jay, chief of OGM’s Modeling and Simulation branch.

Initially, the CINF team produces a subset of the CINF database, 

tailored to the anticipated global and regional needs appropriate 

to the questions at hand and supportive of multiple scenarios.

The modeling team then defines the sensor, intelligence 

cycle requirements and operations concept for the architecture being modeled. These elements are combined with the 

tailored CINF needs information and input into OGM modeling tools, which provide quantity and quality collection 

statistics over a specific time period for the system being 

modeled. The CINF’s visualization tools provide breakouts of 

day by day and cumulative collection results — which can be 

broken down by things such as architecture, sensor type and 

target type.

These performance results may also be incorporated into a 

value model that combines multiple metrics into a single utility 

value, which can then be plotted to show systems performance 

versus cost of investment.

“Having an unbiased, hard numbers analysis of performance 

and of alternatives for the overall GEOINT architecture helps 

decision makers determine where investments are needed 

while, at the same time, providing our GEOINT stakeholders a 

better understanding of how their requirements are going to 

be satisfied,” Jay said.

Historically, these efforts studied capabilities in a larger, general 

context, but some recent studies have focused on specific 
12Pathfinder » September/October 2012

questions or systems from GEOINT partners concerned with 

systems’ performance while facing looming budget cuts.

“In some cases, the studies allowed us to show our partners 

what the realistic possibilities were and give them an opportunity to refine their original requirements to help ensure cost 

savings without negative impact to the mission,” Jay said.

One such partner at the Defense Intelligence Agency is U.S. 

Strategic Command’s Joint Functional Component Command 

for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JFCC-ISR).

“OGM has been a vital partner in supporting efforts to improve 

national and tactical modeling and simulation products and 

service available to the combatant commands and defense 

leadership,” said Bob Metcalf, chief, JFCC-ISR Modeling and 

Analysis Support Branch.

According to Metcalf, OGM’s models and studies have helped 

DOD and IC senior leadership make timely, well-informed 

decisions by distilling complex geospatial intelligence questions down to necessary details in a concise, accurate and 

repeatable fashion.

This is evident in the 18-month, community-wide 2010–2011 

Integrated Radar Way Ahead Study, which aimed to inform 

IC and DOD senior decision makers on the NSG future radar 

architecture.

Within IRWA, NGA’s modelers led the Modeling and Simulation 

Working Group, which included six teams from the NSG-ASG 

community running models and integrating results into the 

final assessment.

“Where previous community studies would have multiple 

teams working independently, the Radar Way Ahead study 

was very much an integrated effort, with everyone working 

together,” Jay said.

This integrated approach has distinct advantages over past 

efforts, including an increase in decision makers’ confidence 

in the results. “Having the various models packaged together 

showed decision makers not only a range of possibilities but 

the similarities provided by multiple models,” Jay said.

The team’s understanding of how diverse operational procedures could influence system performance encouraged them 

to look at the scenarios differently, leading to a more critical, 

well-rounded assessment.

“Ultimately, we are really about informing our decision makers 

so they can shape our future architecture,” Jay said.

Defining Future Efforts

Both the CINF and OGM’s modeling and simulation efforts 

are vital to ensuring the community’s success. By developing 

robust system data sets and operating advanced models and 

quantitative tools with analytic flexibility, OGM can address 

a range of scenarios, deliver results quickly and enable 

independent verification and validation of analyses.

Given today’s austere budget conditions and evolving 

analytic environment, these objective evaluations grow in 

importance.

The criticality of meeting NSG users’ mission needs, while being 

good stewards of public investment, necessitates a rigorous 

examination of each GEOINT capability. As national security 

priorities evolve, NSG commitments to global and defense 

operations will continue to demand timely and accurate 

GEOINT support to U.S. and allied missions around the world.

Additionally, the Frontiers Division is expanding modeling 

efforts and data sets, providing new capabilities to better 

inform NSG leadership. The group is working to include 

phenomenologies like Overhead Persistent Infrared and Light 

Detection and Ranging, both of which have seen increased 

usage in GEOINT operations, such as during the 2010 Haiti 

earthquake humanitarian and recovery efforts.

“OGM is leading the way in developing modeling and simulation techniques for accurately representing contributions of 

emerging capabilities, like OPIR, to the warfighter,” Metcalf said. 

“They have excelled at making sure GEOINT capabilities are 

well-understood and accounted for, guaranteeing the best level 

of support is provided to its mission partners and customers.”

The Office of Geospatial Intelligence Management is expanding modeling efforts and datasets on new capabilities and phenomenologies like Light Detection and Ranging, as this 

image of a soccer field in Haiti represents. 

NGA ALIRT image
13Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Human Geography 

Provides Context 

to GEOINT

By Kathi Ghannam, Office of Corporate Communications

What is human geography?

Human geography is a century-old social science discipline that looks for interconnections between people and places, 

including how people use the physical landscape and how, 

based on a number of factors, that use evolves over time. 

Using this discipline, the National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency and others in the intelligence community analyze 

ethnicity, language, religion, demographics, economics, 

education, water and land use, transportation and natural 

resources. 

“There are two branches in the study of geography: physical 

and human,” said NGA’s Human Geography lead Bruce Heinlein. 

“As physical geography is a foundation of GEOINT, so too must 

human geography be. Human geography must be equally 

woven into the fabric of our knowledge, understanding, 

tradecraft and services.”

While the major focus of human geography is not the Earth’s 

physical terrain, it is hardly possible to discuss human geography without discussing the physical space on which human 

activities happen, said Heinlein. 

“Human geography adds context,” said Heinlein. “You may 

not be able to see in imagery what water shortages are doing 

to the cultural aspects (of life) but with that info you could 

understand why groups are in conflict.” 

NGA’s vision is to create new value for its customers by broadening and deepening its analytic expertise by providing contextual 

analysis informed not only by the Earth’s physical features and 

imagery intelligence but also by human geography.

“NGA needs to build on what we do well, describing where, 

when and how many, but we need to be able to anticipate 

where, what and why,” said NGA Director Letitia A. Long. “This 

is another step as we continue to evolve GEOINT for the next 

generation, for the next fight.”

A man carries a bag of sugar from a truck filled with humanitarian-assistance goods, 

delivered by Iraqi soldiers from the 4th Battalion, 18th Brigade, to the people of the 

village of Gambar, Iraq, Aug. 14.

DOD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Kirk Worley

NGA applies human geography 

to GEOINT by: 

•	 Examining a broad range of geospatial information, including terrain, elevation and features like 

roads, buildings, hilltops and rivers to determine 

how people move from one place to the next, 

and how that movement manifests spatially and 

over time.

•	 Analyzing populations: language, ethnicity,

education, demographics. Do certain populations commonly or readily form alliances? 

•	 Looking at history: Is there a history of religious

conflict in a region? 

•	 Looking at the economy, access to technology

and climate

Letitia A. Long, Director, NGA

Geospatial Intelligence Forum Magazine, July 2012 
14Pathfinder » September/October 2012

The integration and analysis of HG data that we can obtain 

about a place can yield new insight into age-old questions, like:

•	 Where will the next pandemic outbreak occur?

•	 Where will transnational criminal activity spread?

•	 Where will the next mass migration event occur?

The path forward for HG integration

The Director of National Intelligence asked NGA to provide 

guidance and standards to intelligence community efforts to 

leverage the power of the human geography discipline late last 

year, and to lead the IC’s efforts to survey all of the community’s 

efforts within that realm, said Heinlein. 

As a result, NGA and its community partners are exploring possible solutions for discovering and serving up that much-needed 

analysis, to include building mobile applications, cataloging 

existing content and leveraging cloud storage capabilities that 

will decrease physical database storage requirements. 

So what are the specific tasks that NGA will engage in to shore 

up the community’s access to HG?

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency analysts reconcile U.S. Geological Survey data, which reflects a combination of NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer data with field and rem

environmental dynamics affecting soils formation and land use.

“First and foremost, our efforts are joint and highly collaborative on all levels, from technology to people and processes,” 

said Heinlein. “We are documenting requirements in the HG 

landscape and identifying ways that we might be able to 

satisfy them.” 

To that end, an IC-wide HG Senior Steering Group was established, which is composed of 22 Department of Defense and 

intelligence community agencies with HG equities. 

Additionally, the agency, along with the Department of State, 

has established a Worldwide HG Data Working Group to build 

voluntary partnerships around human geography data and 

mapping focused on making information available to promote 

human security.

That working group will develop outreach programs, interface 

with the community, identify HG subject matter experts in classified and unclassified environments, document best practices 

and methodologies, develop data standards and seek training 

and academic opportunities. 
15Pathfinder » September/October 2012

To determine how to best use HG in NGA’s analysis, Long 

created a Joint Program Office comprised of analysts from 

both NGA’s Analysis and Production and Source Operations 

and Management Directorates. This office is taking the 

lead in shaping NGA’s HG community of practice, which 

originated a year ago and recently expanded to include 

analysts from the entire IC.

“There are pockets of HG excellence within the agency and 

government-wide,” said Heinlein. “A number of the tools that 

were highlighted during the DNI study are being examined for 

their applicability and utility.”

NGA has forged a number of industry and academic partnerships to help develop those tools and technologies needed to 

collect, analyze and disseminate HG, and equip people with the 

skills to integrate HG into all aspects of their mission.

An example of the international community’s successful 

integration of HG into analysis comes from the Kosovo war 

in 1999. Visualization technologies and techniques enabled 

military decision makers to create spatial and temporal 

databases to better understand the various segments of that 

society, according to a March 2011 article by Karen Kroll in 

Geospatial Intelligence Forum magazine. By understanding 

and using HG, planners were able to determine the best locations to pre-position humanitarian aid and medical support 

prior to the Serbian ethnic cleansing operation. 

“Recognizing that the Serbs were burning select homes, 

and possessing knowledge of the migration routes refugees 

would use to find safe passage, food and water were staged 

before the onset of the crisis,” wrote Kroll. “In this case, it was 

a preventative stabilization operation to reduce starvation, 

infant mortality, water shortages and infectious disease 

outbreaks.” 

By refining those pioneering tactics and technologies, 

Heinlein’s team looks to build on early successes to mitigate 

future conflicts.

mote sensing interpretations, with NGA terrain, elevation and hydrology data to provide insight into 

Continuous moisture stress

Continuous low temperatures

Steep lands

Shallow soils

Salinity/alkalinity

High organic matter

Low water holding capacity

Low moisture & nutrient

Acid sulfate condition

High P,N & organic retention

Low nutrient holding capacity

Excessive nutrient leaching

Calcareous, gypseous condition

High aluminum

Seasonal moisture stress

Impeded drainage

High anion exchange capacity

Low structural stability

Seasonal low temperatures

Minor root restricting layer

Seasonally excess water

High temperatures

Low organic matter

High shrink/swell potential

Few constraints

Ice/glacier
16Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Forum: Water a National Security Issue 

By Kathi Ghannam, Office of Corporate Communications

NGA hosted an educational forum entitled International 

Waters: Conflict, Cooperation and 

Climate Change June 26 to explore 

the relationships between water 

disputes, international relations 

and intelligence analysis, including 

indications of conflict. 

“Water has historically been a vital 

part of human interaction, stress and 

even conflict,” said Bruce Heinlein, 

NGA, director, Human Geography 

Joint Program Office, Analysis and 

Production Directorate. “Within the 

study of human geography within the 

IC [intelligence community], water 

is one of the 13 key themes we are 

focused on.”

Almost 50 percent of the world’s 

population lives in a water basin that 

crosses the political boundaries of two 

or more countries, said guest speaker 

Aaron Wolf, professor of Geography 

at Oregon State University, who has 

advised the World Bank, U.S. Agency 

for International Development, 

UNESCO, Environmental Protection 

Agency and the State Department, 

Haji Khan Agha, director of the Helmand Arghandab Valley Authority, questions a presenter during a summit that brought leadership from Nimroz and Helmand provinces 

together with members of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the International Security Assistance Force, March 1, to discuss water management at the Afghan 

Cultural Center, Camp Leatherneck.

DOD photo by Chief Petty Officer L.A. Shively

including their Foreign Service 

Institute. In addition to the water 

needed to sustain human life, 

transportation, hydropower and 

two-thirds of the world’s agriculture 

production also rely on water.

Nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide 

lack access to adequate sanitation, 

causing 250 million illnesses a year, 

resulting in between 2.2 and 5 

million deaths, at a cost of more than 

$125 billion annually to the world’s 

economy, said Wolf. 
17Pathfinder » September/October 2012

“As a result, the potential for paralyzing 

disputes is especially high,” said Wolf. 

“Conflicts over water often arise not 

over natural supplies so much as 

the human interventions, the water 

infrastructure intended to manage 

them,” said co-presenter Matt Zentner, 

Defense Intelligence Agency. “Dams, 

irrigation, diversion and other infrastructure alter hydrological relations, 

affecting the quantity, quality and 

timing of downriver flows, but also 

power relations between upstream 

and downstream riparians.” 

When it comes to water disputes, 

perceptions can be just as dangerous 

as realities, said Zentner. If Pakistan 

believes that India can shut off its 

water supply, it may act on that 

perception regardless of its validity. 

Zentner and Wolf agree that there 

are a number of indicators for water 

conflicts that analysts should monitor 

closely, to include migration, construction, rioting and the passage of new 

water usage laws, said Zentner.

There are several IC-wide water 

initiatives, to include the Water 

Infrastructure Working Group, focused 

on analyzing water’s impact on the full 

spectrum of military operations as well 

as its role in instability, conflict and 

shaping regional security dynamics.

The Water Resources Working Group 

provides a forum for discussing how 

remotely sensed images and geographical information system analysis and 

modeling can provide environmental 

intelligence for military decision makers 

and government policymakers working 

with security, stabilization, transition 

and reconstruction operations and 

water security issues. 

Water also underpins a number of collaborative community efforts ranging 

from the climate change community of 

analysis to the environmental geography sub-group within Heinlein’s office.

Water security informs GEOINT 

analysis across all of NGA’s mission 

sets. NGA’s analysis of food and fuel 

security, and the impacts of climate 

change to national security, depend 

on understanding global water 

security, as does GEOINT analysis of 

Death Valley, Calif., is the hottest, driest place in North America, according to the National Park Service. 

Temperatures can exceed 115 degrees. In 1929, the area recorded no rainfall. Cracked mud at the valley’s Racetrack 

area illustrates its inhospitality to man.

ThinkStock photo

transportation-related issues ranging 

from smuggling to the opening of 

the Arctic. Since water security affects 

deployed U.S. troops, NGA provides 

GEOINT support on issues ranging 

from supply lines to mobility. 

Additionally, NGA conducts GEOINT 

analysis of water-related hazards 

worldwide, including support to 

disaster response and humanitarian 

operations.
18Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Integrated Work Groups Drive 

Improvements to Analytic Process

By Sara Fiske, Contractor, Office of Corporate Communications

When National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Letitia A. Long 

unveiled NGA’s vision to “Put the Power of 

GEOINT in Your Hands” at the 2010 Geospatial Intelligence Symposium in New Orleans, 

she set in motion a major transformation of 

the agency. 

After conducting an online services contest 

and pulling together a vision implementation team, the agency established incubators and test beds and developed a set of 

strategic initiatives. Major organizational 

changes and re-alignments followed, all 

to better enable the agency to change the 

way it does business. In May, the NGA published its new strategy—the roadmap for 

how NGA is moving to achieve the vision.

One of the many developments was the 

establishment of three integrated work 

groups (IWGs) to integrate people and skills 

from across the agency to focus on specific 

analytic issues. Each group represents a 

cross section of NGA and includes everyone from analysts, to 

information technology specialists to research professionals, 

among others. 

NGA has tended to do its analytic work based on its organizational structure, rather than by issue, said the deputy division 

chief for the IWG-Iran. Long designed the IWGs to change 

that paradigm, fostering an integrated approach to GEOINT 

and moving the agency closer to achieving its vision.

Each IWG has its own unique focus. The IWG-Iran works to 

improve the agency’s analytic expertise and tradecraft on Iran, 

developing capabilities and solutions applicable across the 

enterprise for all other GEOINT analysts. This effort addresses 

primarily the second vision goal to “broaden and deepen our 

analytic expertise to produce new value.” 

The IWG-Readiness, Response and Recovery (IWG-R3) focuses 

on domestic and international disasters, special security events 

(such as the Super Bowl) and application development. It 

provides support to NGA’s emergency preparedness, response 

and recovery mission partners, such as the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency, Coast Guard and FBI.

These mission partners work primarily in unclassified operating environments, so the IWG-R3 is developing solutions that 

enable the agency to respond quickly with a more robust 

analytical presence in unclassified domains, including the 

Internet. That effort includes strengthening GEOINT selfservice capabilities, often in the form of new mobile device 

applications, some of which Long demonstrated during 

her 2011 GEOINT Symposium presentation in San Antonio. 

Providing more self-service capability is a key piece of the 

first vision goal to “provide online, on-demand access to our 

GEOINT knowledge.”

NGA established the Yemen/Horn of Africa IWG (IWG-Y/HOA) 

to focus on efforts to enrich the geospatial data offerings for 

this region, using a variety of traditional and non-traditional 

sources, including human geography. 

Human geography studies patterns and processes that shape 

human interaction with the environment. It includes human, 

political, cultural, social and economic aspects of the social 

sciences. It’s part of a broader category of foundational GEOINT 

data that the IWG-Y/HOA is trying to better collect and leverage to help solve complex intelligence issues.

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency analysts work in the Mobile Integrated Geospatial Intelligence 

System, or MIGS, during an Integrated Work Group for Readiness, Response and Recovery hurricane 

response exercise at Arnold, Mo., in May. The MIGS provides transportation, communication and workstation 

access for analysts in the field.

NGA photo by Marcy Taylor
19Pathfinder » September/October 2012

“If the human geography data is readily available, it’ll push 

me, as an analyst, to examine other aspects of the intelligence 

problem,” said the lead analyst for the Yemen branch of the 

IWG-Y/HOA.

Motivating analysts to examine different aspects of intelligence 

problems is a goal of all three work groups. New technology is 

the enabler.

The IWG-I is working to bring data from a variety of sources 

directly onto the analyst’s desktop. Previously, analysts 

would log onto a system in one physical location, but then 

move to another system to incorporate the data into their 

analysis. 

To address this issue, the IWG-I is developing the Integrated 

Analytic Environment (IAE) to bring all sources of data together 

on the same desktop, allowing analysts to discover, visualize 

and analyze all the available information at the same time, from 

the same place. Currently in the beta test stage of development, the goal is to make the IAE available across all intelligence community domains.

“All the technical solutions exist,” said the national GEOINT 

officer for Iran. “Changing the NGA culture is the biggest 

challenge.”

The chief of data services for the IWG-Y/HOA echoed that 

sentiment. “We do a good job of collecting data, but we don’t 

make it easy to find and access,” he said. “Analysts spend more 

time searching for data, rather than analyzing it—it needs to 

be the other way around.” 

The IWG-Y/HOA is working to make NGA foundational data 

holdings more discoverable and easier to use. One tool they are 

developing is a Web-based geospatial requirements management tool called “GROOVE”—the Geospatial Requirements 

One-stop Visualization Environment. Built on open standards, 

combatant command testers have given it rave reviews. 

Another software tool the IWG-Y/ HOA is pioneering is the 

“Geospatial Observable Web Kit (GOWK),” which requires a 

specific and disciplined data entry process, but features a 

user-friendly Web interface that helps analysts capture their 

imagery observations. With a simple keyword search, users 

Through a joint project involving NGA’s Integrated Work Group for Readiness, Response and Recovery, the Department of State’s Humanitarian Information Unit and the 

American Red Cross, volunteers were able to trace features on commercial imagery over Gulu, Uganda, to create vector data in OpenStreetMap, an online, volunteer community 

effort that provides first responders and others worldwide foundation data they can use for future disaster risk reduction projects. The American Red Cross is partnering with the 

Ugandan Red Cross, having locals add attribution such as roads and building names to the data. The final result is an open and sharable resource for human geography data.

Screen resolution graphic by OpenStreetMap using DigitalGlobe imagery
20Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Pulling people together from around the

agency to work on a single intelligence issue was 

a dramatic move, “but the agency had to do 

something dramatic to make the kind of 

change the vision requires,” said the 

National GEOINT Officer for Iran. 

“The culture required positive disruption.”

can access a dynamic geospatial product, move around the 

globe, display the data in different ways and interact with its 

attributes, rather than simply look at a static report. A specific assessment can stand alone or become part of a more 

integrated analytic product. For example, a user may ask to 

see all the military equipment located in a certain region at a 

specific time, or he may ask to see all the equipment movements in the same region over the last six months. GOWK can 

address both questions. 

Common data standards are one key to creating these serviceenabled technology tools; changing the slow, bureaucratic way 

the government has traditionally acquired new technology is 

another. The IWGs are experimenting with user stories to define 

needs, and have users and developers working side by side in 

an iterative development process. 

The agency is also looking to the commercial world to help fill 

the technology gap. “The commercial aspect of our industry 

is very high tech and very dynamic,” said the chief of data 

services. “We need to work within that environment, using 

commercial technology where we can and incorporating their 

way of thinking about development into our processes.”

Ultimately, the goal for all the IWGs is to find the best tools, 

integrate them where possible and roll them out to the rest 

of the agency. The IWGs are also developing new GEOINT 

products that are helping drive improvements in the analytic 

process itself. 

The IWG-I has developed a new interactive version of the 

traditional NGA intelligence brief, or NIB. Unlike the standard 

NIB—a written report with static graphics—the iNIB is an 

interactive product that allows users to tailor their viewing 

preferences, offering them the option of printing a one-page 

PDF summary, downloading an un-annotated version of a 

graphic, accessing links to related reporting on Google Earth, 

and sharing the information via intelligence community social 

media applications. 

The iNIB, the IWG-I associated production process and 

overarching mission strategy are forcing analysts “to think more 

upfront about what they’re writing about and how they’re writing it,” said the national GEOINT officer for Iran. So far, customer 

feedback about the iNIB has been good.

But the work of the IWGs has its challenges. For example, the 

IWG-R3’s mobile apps and widgets have been met with great 

enthusiasm by users, but initiatives to enhance mobile apps 

also extend into what GEOINT Mission Manager for this IWG, 

Dennis Bowerman, calls “identity management.”

 The importance of “verifying that it’s actually first responders going into our systems to get the data” is paramount in 

addressing user authenticity, said Bowerman. The group is 

also addressing legal and policy issues relating to homeland 

security data and Executive Order 12333, which outlines the 

rules for how the intelligence community operates within the 

United States. 

But the work of the IWGs is starting to make a real difference 

for the agency as well as the entire GEOINT community. Part 

of the IWG-R3’s mission is to teach customers how to use 

all the apps and widgets they’ve been developing. This will 

allow NGA to deploy fewer personnel to support natural 

disasters and special security events in the future, saving 

both time and money, an important consideration in an era 

of shrinking budgets.

But sometimes the most significant changes are invisible to the 

customer. Working closely with colleagues from different parts 

of the agency, IWG members have the opportunity to learn 

more about each other’s tradecrafts and how to leverage the 

different expertise available to them. 

“Every day, I’m learning about a new [geospatial] dataset that 

I can use in my work,” said the lead analyst for the Yemen 

branch of the IWG-Y/HOA.

Pulling people together from around the agency to work on a 

single intelligence issue was a dramatic move, “but the agency 

had to do something dramatic to make the kind of change the 

vision requires,” said the National GEOINT Officer for Iran. “The 

culture required positive disruption.”
21Pathfinder » September/October 2012

Cartographer Reveals Hidden 

70 Percent of Earth’s Surface

By Dr. Gary E. Weir, NGA Historian

“Ihad a blank canvas to fill with extraordinary possibilities, a fascinating jigsaw puzzle to 

piece together,” said oceanographic cartographer 

Marie Tharp in an oral history interview conducted 

for the 50th anniversary of the Lamont-Doherty 

Earth Observatory in 1999 and as reported in their 

2006 news release announcing her death. 

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime —a once-in-the-history-of-the-world—opportunity for anyone, but 

especially for a woman in the 1940s,” said Tharp of 

her oceanographic work. 

In 2011 the National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency named a conference room at its new 

campus in Springfield, Va., for Tharp. The designation celebrates her knowledge of the Earth and her 

skill as a cartographer; few others knew as well as 

she did that part of the Earth the ocean hid. 

I had the good fortune to know Marie. In her South 

Nyack, N.Y., home we talked for the best part of two 

days. She unrolled for me across two banquet tables, situated 

end-to-end, the brown-paper drafts of the comprehensive map 

of the ocean floor she composed with her partner, geophysicist 

Bruce Heezen. 

The Office of Naval Research sponsored their work and then 

published the result in 1977, well before the digital revolution 

took over the process of making maps. I could see the data 

points they carefully placed on the paper over many months. 

She and Heezen also produced groundbreaking maps of the 

North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. 

Marine scientists and oceanographers who professionally came 

of age in the 1960s and 1970s universally experienced a revelation upon seeing the Tharp map of the world ocean. Allyn Vine 

of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, father of the 

Alvin submersible (a deep-ocean research vehicle), noted that 

since the formation of the Earth no scientist could possibly 

form a near true mental image of the ocean floor. 

Vine related to me that the Tharp-Heezen map stunned every 

scientist who viewed it. They could suddenly see the object of 

their lifelong curiosity in a way previously impossible. Apparently it felt somewhat akin to the experience my generation 

felt when Life Magazine published the first pictures of the Earth 

taken from the Moon. There we were, and it was real! Marie 

Tharp made the ocean bottom truly real for geologists and 

physicists. 

Born in Ypsilanti, Mich., in 1920, Tharp departed early from the 

study of English and music that occupied her undergraduate 

years. World War II took most of the male students off to war 

and opened graduate programs in the sciences to women 

as alternative students. Tharp took full advantage of the 

opportunity. She completed a master’s degree in geology at 

the University of Michigan and another in mathematics at the 

University of Tulsa. 

In 1948, looking for a true challenge, Tharp moved to New 

York City and found employment at the geology department 

of Columbia University. She worked initially as a secretary and 

then began plotting ocean depth soundings as an assistant 

to the department chairman, Professor William Maurice “Doc” 

Ewing, one of the founders of the discipline of geophysics in 

the United States. She followed Ewing to New York’s Palisades’ 

area when he established the Lamont Geological Observatory 

for Columbia University in 1949. 

Cartographer Marie Tharp appears here as she did when she collaborated with Dr. Bruce Heezen on 

the first comprehensive map of the world ocean floor.

Photo courtesy of Marie Tharp Maps LLC
22Pathfinder » September/October 2012

In the process of plotting ocean depth soundings which 

revealed the bottom by echo return, she slowly traced and 

exposed the existence of a 40,000-mile long geological ridge, 

running in a curved circuit around the globe. That discovery 

formed the basis for her more comprehensive work both in the 

individual oceans and then in the larger 1977 map. 

The intensity and regularity of Ewing’s program of collecting terrestrial and oceanographic soundings and other 

data permitted Tharp to take an additional step, making a 

remarkable and groundbreaking discovery. She revealed the 

existence of a valley at the pinnacle and along the length of 

the mid-Atlantic segment of the ridge that she felt looked very 

much like a rift valley in east Africa. While the suggestion at the 

time struck many geologists as absurd, others who favored the 

new hypothesis of seafloor spreading felt it had promise. Time 

would reveal that Tharp had contributed a significant element 

to the emerging paradigm of plate tectonics. The seafloor did 

indeed move to the east and west from the rift valley along 

the mid-Atlantic ridge, opening up space for the interior of the 

Earth to extrude new crustal material to fill in the opening gap. 

Like so many modern cartographers, Tharp received credit 

for her work beyond her immediate peers only late in life. The 

Library of Congress honored her and three other cartographers 

in 1997 for their contributions to the field during the centennial of their map and geography division. In 2000 the Office of 

Naval Research included her as one of the seminal personalities 

in a celebration of the birth of oceanography as a multidisciplinary science in the United States. I had the opportunity 

to do an oral history with her at that time, as well as another in 

conjunction with my own work on the history of oceanography 

for the U.S. Navy. 

A giant in her field, Tharp helped anyone who wished to know 

the Earth. She set a high standard for her fellows in a venerable, 

practical scientific endeavor that still serves today as one of the 

pillars of geospatial intelligence. 

This is the World Ocean Floor Panorama, the first complete map of the world ocean bottom, created by Marie Tharp and Dr. Bruce Heezen at Lamont-Doherty Geological 

Observatory under U.S. Navy sponsorship in 1977. 
Tierra Tucker is 

an open-source 

reseacher at the 

National GeospatialIntelligence Agency. 

She joined the team 

as an intern while in 

college and is now a 

full-time employee who 

adds her skills and 

expertise to a diverse 

NGA workforce.

“I love working for a 

great agency where 

I know I make a 

difference.”

NGA

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

am

I

nga.mil FB: NatlGEOINTAgency @NGA_GEOINT
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Join the conversation

NGA

nga.mil | FB: NatlGEOINTAgency | @NGA_GEOINT