Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Foreword

For a quarter-century, the NGA has delivered timely, 

relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) 

to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals, 

and first responders, providing a critical advantage in the 

ongoing work to keep our nation safe.

Throughout these twenty-five years, NGA has proved 

itself to be a transformative agency with a history of 

adapting and innovating to meet the challenges of an 

evolving world. Known initially as the National Imagery 

and Mapping Agency (NIMA), the agency’s first transformation was in unifying eight distinct organizations into a 

cohesive whole. In the midst of these cultural changes, 

there were several groundbreaking achievements, such as 

the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, that demonstrated 

the power and possibilities of the new agency.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the agency again 

transformed, devising a robust deployment program to directly 

support combat forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

as well as developing homeland security partnerships necessary to protect against the threat of global terrorism. 

In November 2003, NIMA was officially renamed the 

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, signifying the 

ongoing evolution of the agency and the recognition of 

GEOINT as a distinct intelligence discipline and tradecraft.

With the emergence of GEOINT, NGA cemented its place 

in the intelligence community and provided world-class 

support to several critical operations, including the Abbottabad compound raid on Osama bin Laden in 2011. NGA 

also continued to push boundaries, seeking new ways to 

collaborate and innovate with partners and technologies 

as diverse as Moonshot Labs and artificial intelligence.

Today, as we prepare to build on these first twenty-five 

years, NGA faces a diverse set of twenty-first-century 

challenges that will require all of our skill and ingenuity—challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise 

of the great power competition. If our history shows one 

thing, it is that NGA knows how to adapt and evolve to 

meet an ever-changing mission landscape to keep the 

nation safe. As we celebrate this anniversary, let’s take 

a moment to remember the resilience and determination 

of the people who got us here and recognize that each 

transformation along the way has helped prepare us to 

meet whatever challenge waits over the horizon. 

Team NGA, the work you do makes a critical difference in 

the lives of individuals at home and around the world every 

single day. This anniversary is your story—congratulations 

on twenty-five years of showing the way!

Dr. Lisa Williams

NGA Chief Historian

Table of

Contents

Chapter 1

FORGING A NEW AGENCY

1

Chapter 2

BUILDING A REPUTATION

11

Chapter 3

PUTTING GEOINT ON THE MAP

25

Chapter 4

GEOINT FRONTIER

39

Part of a multi-page letter to Vice President, Al Gore proposing legislation 

for the establishment of NIMA. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.
On October 1, 1996, the National Imagery 

and Mapping Agency (NIMA) was created by 

merging the imagery and mapping functions and 

responsibilities of eight distinct organizations 

into a unified whole. 
1Chapter

ONE

FORGING A NEW AGENCY

NIMA Stand-up Ceremony on the Pentagon Parade Ground.

Source: NGA Historic Research Center.
On October 1, 1996, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) was created by merging the imagery and mapping functions and responsibilities of eight distinct organizations 

into a unified whole. The establishment of this new agency was, at the time, the greatest 

transformation of the intelligence community since the signing of the National Security Act 

of 1947. As such, NIMA faced considerable challenges both leading up to and through the 

earliest years of its existence, yet managed to forge a new discipline and build a reputation 

for excellence that continues to this day in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

NIMA emerged in the 1990s as a response to the shifting priorities of a post-Cold War environment, as well as intelligence shortfalls identified during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (August 1990–February 1991). For decades following World 

War II, the intelligence community was shaped and defined by its opposition to the Soviet threat. As the Soviet Union broke apart, 

beginning with the sudden fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and quickly followed by complete dissolution of the USSR in 1991, US 

intelligence had to adapt to meet new and emerging threats that didn’t adhere to the Cold War playbook. 

It was during this time of transition, in August 1991, that Saddam Hussein launched an invasion of neighboring Kuwait. The resulting 

Gulf War, which saw the deployment of more than five hundred thousand American troops and the largest air campaign since 

Vietnam, was a resounding success for US-led Coalition forces. The conflict offered the first serious test of the Goldwater-Nichols 

Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986—which reorganized the military command structure to reflect the concept of 

joint operation—and saw the first combat use of multiple cutting-edge weapons and technologies previously unknown to the public. 

The US-led victory in the Gulf demonstrated the benefits of coalition building and the power of a modernized, joint military operation.

The 1990s

 Chapter 1: Forging a New Agency

Main image: Sarah LeClerc, a 

designer and illustrator at the 

Institute of Heraldry, created the 

NIMA seal design to reflect the 

agency’s “futuristic” concept. 

Source: The Edge, November 1996, p26; DMA Link, 

September 30, 1996, p9.

Other images, clockwise: Donald 

Borja, chief sculptor at the Institute 

of Heraldry, Fort Belvoir, VA, works 

on the prototype of the NIMA seal. 

Source: The Edge, November 1996, 

p26; “Seal is born” pdf. Source: 

The Edge, November 1996, p27.

3 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Chapter 1: FORGING A NEW AGENCY | 4
(DMA), and the Military Services in response to the proposed NIA reorganization, agreeing that solutions to the intelligence shortfalls identified after 

the Gulf War would be sought “a step at a time,” including the “creation of 

a small organization that will become part of this new defense structure.” 

That small organization was the Central Imagery Office (CIO), established in 1992 as a bureaucratic compromise meant to assuage the 

worst of the imagery shortfalls. Throughout its brief existence, however, the CIO compromise failed to consolidate the functions and authorities necessary to enact real change; as the March 1996 Senate Select 

Committee on Intelligence Aspin-Brown Commission report, Preparing 

for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence, detailed: “most 

imagery elements of the Intelligence Community, including the largest 

imagery exploitation organization, remained outside the new office, 

which had limited policy authority and no resource authority over 

outside elements.” CIO became a functional manager without the 

means—for instance, through budget authority—to drive and enforce 

change across imagery elements. Its authority was, in the words of 

CIO Director Dr. Annette Krygiel, a “sponge hammer.”

In 1995, a new voice entered the fray and quickly brought an end to the apparent stalemate surrounding the merger of imagery and mapping capabilities. 

John Deutch, who had been serving as deputy secretary of defense, was named 

the Clinton administration DCI nominee to replace James Woolsey. During his 

confirmation hearings, Deutch made clear his intention to immediately “consolidate the management of all imagery collection, analysis, and distribution.” 

With the May 1995 confirmation of Deutch as DCI, the NIA concept was resurrected, and it became a question of when and how—not if—the consolidation of 

imagery and mapping would take place.

An NIA Steering Group was quickly established, chaired by Evans Hineman, 

a CIA senior who had served on the Burnett Panel and supported the NIA 

concept. Throughout the summer of 1995, this group crafted a series of 

options for how the NIA would operate. The final concept, which would 

Despite this overwhelming success, the Gulf War also highlighted shortfalls—areas where the practice of joint, modernized warfare could not yet 

keep pace with the concept. In testimony given before the Senate Armed 

Services Committee on June 12, 1991, General Norman Schwarzkopf, 

commander in chief of US Central Command, cited intelligence gaps 

related to battle damage assessments, as well as the lack of an “immediately responsive intelligence capability” that could provide the theater 

commander with near, real-time information. These intelligence shortfalls, 

particularly the communication, dissemination, and interoperability of 

imagery and mapping products and capabilities, became the post-Gulf 

War focus for reform.

Several studies were launched in order to understand and mitigate the 

intelligence gaps of the Gulf War, coinciding with broader efforts to eliminate 

redundancies and increase efficiencies in the intelligence community by 

instituting a more corporate structure. One such study was the Burnett Panel, 

established by Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Robert Gates in 1992. 

This panel, tasked with examining the structure of imagery assets across the 

intelligence community, released a final report recommending the integration 

of imagery and mapping, in part due to the convergence of emerging technologies in both fields. 

The driving momentum behind the concept of merging imagery and mapping was Keith Hall, then serving as deputy assistant secretary of defense 

for intelligence, who lobbied hard to convince panel members of the value 

of the concept. He succeeded to the point that the FY 1992 Intelligence 

Authorization Bill included the recommendation to establish a National 

Imagery Agency (NIA). The concept ultimately failed, however, most 

notably due to the objections of Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, who argued that mapping was “not broken” and, therefore, 

should not be integrated with imagery.

In a statement to Congress, DCI Gates acknowledged the “deep reservations” of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Mapping Agency 

5 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Source: Keith Hall.

In their own words 

KEITH HALL

Excerpt from NGA oral history with Keith Hall, recorded July 10, 2006.

“. . . [John Deutch] says to me that he’d like me to come on in on a Saturday 

and meet with him for several hours to discuss my ideas about the 

intelligence community, what’s working, what’s not working, and all the rest. 

So in early January of 1995, I have a Saturday morning meeting with John 

Deutch, and I think one of his aides was in the room, Larry Caviola.

I sit down at his conference table with him, and I step through a number 

of charts on sort of a landscape of US intelligence and my views as to what 

needs to be fixed, what’s working well, and all the rest of that stuff, and in this 

[meeting], I resurrect to him again the idea of creating an imagery agency— 

the name “NIMA” didn’t surface until we were well into the implementation 

plan—but it’s one topic in a number of topics. I might have spent maybe a 

half hour on this idea giving him the background and all the rest, but this was 

a multi-hour meeting, and there was a lot of other stuff in there. 

As was typical with Deutch, he asked a lot of questions. At the end of the 

meeting, “Thank you very much,” and I don’t hear anything else. After that, 

at some point—I don’t know, February-March timeframe—the president 

announced that he’s the DCI nominee. He starts preparing for his testimony 

for confirmation. He forms a sort of a murder board to talk to him, and he 

comes up with his draft DCI . . . statement as a candidate to go before the 

Senate Intelligence Committee for confirmation. 

Lo and behold, what’s in that statement but, “If I am confirmed, I will create 

an agency to do the”—now, knowing Deutch, it was a lot more than what I 

said to him at that January meeting, because he wouldn’t have done that just 

based upon that conversation, but I was also unaware of what else he did. He 

must have talked to Bob Burnett. He must have talked to several people, if not 

a lot of people, about the idea for him to reach, by the March-April timeframe, 

just several months later, that this is one of things he’s going to do if he’s 

confirmed as DCI. But anyway, there it is.” 
Navy Rear Admiral Joseph J. Dantone, Jr., Director of the 

National Imagery and Mapping Agency Implementation 

Team, receives a briefing on the latest technology for terrain 

visualization at DMA’s Defense Mapping School, Ft. Belvoir, 

Va. Looking on is Leo Hazlewood, Deputy Director, National 

Imagery and Mapping Agency Implementation Team.

Source: NGA Historic Research Center

NIMA Implementation Team Director Navy Read Adm. Joseph 

J. Dantone Jr. reports on implementing progress at the DMA 

Executive Board off-site.

7 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
become NIMA, incorporated all of CIO, DMA, the National Photographic Interpretation Center 

(NPIC), and the Defense Dissemination Program Office (DDPO), as well as the imagery 

elements within the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO), the CIA, the National 

Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In December 1995, acting on the findings of the NIA Steering Group, the NIMA Implementation Team was created, with the task of submitting a legislative package to Congress by 

April 15, 1996, and establishing the new NIMA by October 1, 1996. Implementation team 

member Leo Hazelwood, who then served as CIA deputy director for administration and 

later became deputy director of NIMA, recalled that “in the eighteen months from the 

time John Deutch said, ‘Let’s do this,’ some of us nearly died along the way.” 

Despite this breakneck speed, the NIMA Implementation Team met every hurdle and 

objection. For instance, to meet continuing resistance to the NIMA concept within 

Congress, NIMA Congressional Days were regularly held to encourage dialogue and 

transparency. Working groups, led by senior leaders from across the eight organizations 

that would merge to create NIMA, were also formed to tackle everything from infrastructure and strategic planning to organizational structure and human resources. 

The team’s work culminated with the standup of NIMA on October 1, 1996. RAMD 

Joseph “Jack” Dantone Jr., who had led the NIMA Implementation Team, was named 

acting director of the nearly nine thousand employees from NPIC, DMA, CIO, DARO, 

DDPO, NRO, CIA, and DIA who now supported the NIMA mission to provide timely, 

relevant, and accurate imagery intelligence and geospatial information products and 

services in support of national security objectives. 

While the hard work of establishing NIMA had been accomplished, the potentially more 

difficult task of making the NIMA concept work lay ahead. As Edward Obloy, who had 

served as general counsel at DMA and was a member of the NIMA Implementation Team, 

later reflected: “We talk as if 1 October was something of an end point. It was really a 

beginning... While we were designing NIMA to be as robust as possible, we also had to 

worry about what we were going to do on 1 October.”

In their own words 

DAVID BROADHURST

Excerpt taken from the preface written 

by David Broadhurst to The Creation of 

the National Imagery and Mapping Agency: 

Congress’s Role as Overseer, Joint Military 

Intelligence College, Occasional Paper 

Number Nine, April 2002.

“During the spring and summer of 1995, 

I served as executive secretary of what 

was then known as the NIA (National 

Imagery Agency) Steering Group, as well as 

coordinator of various NIA Working Groups. 

I was in a unique position to observe the 

processes and politics that led to the decision 

to establish NIMA. Thereafter, I led the 

Integration Team during the implementation 

period from December 1995 until NIMA 

stand-up in October 1996. NIMA was 

formed from eight different agencies from 

throughout the Department of Defense and 

the Intelligence Community. At the outset, 

NIMA leadership decided that above all 

else, the quality and timeliness of service to 

customers would not fail during transition. 

This meant ‘protecting’ imagery intelligence 

and mapping production processes from the 

bureaucratic blizzard of new policies and 

procedures that come with establishing a new 

organization (literally hundreds of policies 

had to be reviewed and either disestablished 

or modified . . .). But perhaps the most 

daunting task was to begin the process of 

creating a NIMA culture and identity.”


In spite of such challenging factors, NIMA 

employees shifted into a wartime stance, working 

24/7 operations in response to the events of 9/11 

and recognizing that NIMA was “in the enviable 

position of being able to do something about the 

situation.”
2Chapter

TWO

BUILDING A REPUTATION

NIMA Production Cell. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.
After establishing a new intelligence agency within a breakneck eighteen months, NIMA leaders and employees had to immediately pivot to the challenge of making that new agency work. 

Sunset ceremonies were held for predecessor organizations, while a 

forward-looking formal celebration of the new agency was held at the Pentagon, and Acting Director RADM Joseph Dantone ceremonially raised the 

NIMA flag over headquarters—then at Fairfax, Virginia—for the first time.

Despite the celebrations, many in the new agency remained loyal to the culture of their 

predecessor organizations, believing NIMA would ultimately fail and employees would revert 

back to the pre-NIMA status quo. The divided loyalties and skepticism of the workforce added 

pressure to the tangible challenge of untangling the day-to-day running of the agency from 

the policies and procedures of its predecessors—a major task. As then NIMA Deputy Director 

Leo Hazelwood reflected: “we inherited 1,200 policy documents from different agencies; 

totally different procedures for hiring people, firing people, moving people, buying things, and 

so on. Eight different agencies just did things differently.”

Integration issues extended beyond policies and procedures. On day one, for instance, NIMA 

leaders planned to share the director’s first morning staff meeting via secure videoconferencing across agency sites to promote a sense of teamwork and unity. This stalled, however, 

1996 – 2001

Chapter 2: Building a Reputation

13 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
NIMA Stand-up Ceremony on the Pentagon Parade 

Ground. Source: The Edge, November 1996, p6.

NIMA is formally established in an outdoor ceremony held October 29, 1996, at the Pentagon’s River Parade Field. Among the two hundred guests in attendance were Director 

of Central Intelligence John Deutch and Army General John M. Shalikashvili, chairman 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were instrumental in the creation of NIMA. Members of 

the Military Services assist Rear Admiral J.J. Dantone in hoisting the NIMA flag. Looking 

on are NIMA Deputy Director of Corporate Affairs W. Douglas “Doug” Smith and NIMA 

Deputy Director for Systems and Technology Dr. Annette J. Krygiel. 
with the discovery that NIMA inherited three incompatible teleconferencing 

systems, a situation that seemed symbolic of the larger problems plaguing 

NIMA in these early years.

Most difficult, arguably, was the development of a single Human Resources (HR) system that could equitably accommodate all NIMA employees, 

regardless of previous affiliation. Predecessor organizations followed widely 

divergent HR practices—for instance, DMA allowed employees to unionize—which meant compromise would be both necessary and unpopular. 

This was an issue that directly impacted the morale of each and every 

employee and, as such, received a heavy investment of NIMA talent and 

resources in support of efforts like Workforce21, which attempted to design 

an effective solution. 

Time and attention was also paid to winning the loyalty and trust of the 

workforce. For instance, Leo Hazelwood embarked on a series of town 

halls meant to connect NIMA leaders directly with the workforce to answer 

questions and hear concerns. These cross-country sessions laid out five 

overarching priorities for the new agency: improved internal connectivity, 

the design and implementation of 

a single HR system, the incorporation of streamlined processes 

and advanced technology, closer 

customer relationships, and the 

establishment of a distinct NIMA 

identity. Supporting these town 

hall efforts were initiatives 

such as manager off-sites 

and the Leading with Vision 

and Values seminar, which 

was meant to explain the 

need for NIMA and provide 

a roadmap for the future that employees 

could understand and support. Additional efforts to unite the 

NIMA workforce included the November 1996 debut of The Edge—NIMA’s 

monthly employee magazine—followed by the launch of the NIMA intranet 

and homepage in December, promoted as a collective “new and powerful 

communications tool” designed to be “friendly, bright and informal.”

Amid the culture clashes of these early years, NIMA immediately took steps 

to explore the opportunities inherent in the merger of imagery and mapping 

capabilities. One such move was the creation of the NIMA Pilot Program in 

... we inherited 1,200 policy 

documents from different 

agencies, totally different 

procedures for hiring people, 

firing people, moving people, 

buying things, and so on. Eight 

different agencies just did 

things differently.”

15 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Congressman Richard Gephardt, NIMA Director Lt. Gen. James King, Army Corps of 

Engineers Col. George Hazel, and FruCon Construction Senior Vice President Dan Frisbee in attendance at the Arnold ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony held September 

27, 1998, in Jefferson County, MO. Source: The Edge, November 1998, p4.

NIMA Director Lt. Gen. James C. King and employees at the Washington Navy Yard. 

Employees applaud the agency’s second anniversary. Source: The Edge, November 1998, p10.

1997, comprised of three imagery analysts and three cartographers, which 

would begin the cross-cultural experiment of blending imagery analysis and 

geospatial information production. 

NIMA employees also remained focused on meeting mission needs. Their 

dedication fostered numerous successes across the new agency, which 

built a reputation for innovation and excellence. In its first year, NIMA 

collaborated with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to create the 

revolutionary Earth Gravity Model (EGM96), which improved GPS readings, 

satellite orbit determination, and geodetic satellite measurements to provide 

more accurate navigation and targeting. The agency also extended its 

disaster response capabilities to the international community for the first 

time, providing imagery-derived maps covering thirteen million acres to 

local authorities and deployed US military reserve units in support of wildfire 

suppression efforts in Indonesia.

On March 13, 1998, NIMA celebrated its first change of command ceremony, welcoming Army LTG James King as incoming agency director. 

The event featured DCI George Tenet, who remarked: “In just a year and 

a half, NIMA has become a thriving member of both our intelligence 

and our defense communities . . . leveraging our extraordinary imaging 

capabilities and the world’s best mapping programs to achieve an 

unparalleled geospatial capability.” 

Despite Tenet’s glowing words, NIMA still struggled to attain internal 

cohesion. Even something as simple as agency help desk services, of which 

NIMA inherited over twenty unique legacy systems, would take years to 

standardize and consolidate. Recognizing what he called the “miraculous 

work” required to overcome legacy issues, LTG King hosted a series of town 

halls advising the workforce that the continuation of NIMA’s organizational 

development would remain a top priority.

Opposite page, top right: The Edge, NIMA magazine cover. Source: The Edge, October 

1997. Bottom right: NIMA Production Cell. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

Chapter 2: BUILDING A REPUTATION | 16
Mission needs, however, remained priority one, and NIMA continued to expand its footprint 

and gain recognition by providing support to an array of customers and crises. These included 

visualization products that proved integral to the Peru-Ecuador border dispute negotiations led 

by the Department of State, policymaker and warfighter support to conflicts like Operation 

Desert Fox, reports monitoring international drug trafficking in coordination with the US Drug 

Enforcement Agency, and Landsat imagery that assisted United Nations humanitarian relief 

efforts in places like Rwanda and Uganda. 

In support of Operation Allied Force, NIMA produced over twelve million maps and charts, twelve 

thousand target graphics, one thousand imagery-derived products, and numerous intelligence 

briefings that were utilized not only by US military personnel, but by service members of the NATO 

member states supporting the operation. Among the NIMA products that proved critical in Kosovo 

was the debut of NIMA-in-a-Box, which provided on-the-spot imagery and geospatial information 

to deployed units. This system, which consisted of a laptop capable of accessing approximately one 

Peru-Ecuador border. Source: NGA Historic Research Center Digital File.

Kosovo. Source: Defense.gov News Photos.

Kosovo. Source: Defense.gov News. Photos.

Kosovo. Source: Defense.gov News Photos.

17 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
hundred CD-ROMs of regional geospatial information and other data specific 

to Kosovo, was described by LTG King as “twentieth-century technology 

providing twenty-first-century information.”

This orientation toward the future characterized much of the work being done by 

NIMA in these early years, as the agency struggled to define itself against both 

the rapidly changing technology of the era and the long shadow of predecessor 

organizations. As the new millennium approached, NIMA focused on innovation 

and preparation for whatever might lie ahead. As LTG King stated, the mission of 

the agency at this time was “to ensure the transition from the twentieth century 

to the twenty-first century.”

NIMA met this mission head-on. Future trends, such as proliferation and 

asymmetric warfare, provided a template against which agency modernization 

efforts could be planned, even as the rapidly changing millennial environment 

brought home the difficulties of predicting the next crisis or hot spot. Advancing 

technology was at the heart of this unpredictability, but NIMA was aggressive 

in its response to both the problems and possibilities of the digital revolution. 

For instance, as revelers welcomed the year 2000 across the globe, NIMA 

teammates were standing the Y2K Watch to monitor infrastructure around 

the world for any sign of system failures that could prove catastrophic. This 

three-day effort, which culminated an exhaustive eighteen-month study of all 

internal NIMA systems to ensure Y2K compliance, provided the impetus for 

the innovative Project Nightlights, an automated change-detection system that 

allowed analysts to monitor electric power networks globally by using color-coded images collected before sunrise and after sunset. 

NIMA’s response to the Y2K scare was extensive—program lead Tom Earley 

suggested it was “the first time ever that a single project was able to wrap 

its arms around every system the agency owns and operates”—and provided a precedent for the robust approach the agency would develop toward 

technology. Other groundbreaking efforts in this period included the production and distribution of digital nautical data, part of NIMA’s HydroVision 

program aimed at providing “up-to-date tailored data on demand,” which 

Navy QM2 Dominic Genger and Ensign Tim Shanley on the bridge of the cruiser USS 

Cape St. George (CG-71) use NGA’s Digital Nautical Chart (DNC©) in an electronic 

chart display and information system to navigate during tests off Virginia this spring. The 

Navy is moving toward using DNC© for navigation in all of its ships. Source: Pathfinder, 

May/June 2005, p3.

was hailed as a revolution in maritime navigation. NIMA, and, therefore, the 

United States, was first in the world to provide navigation products, including sailing directions and digital nautical chart data, on CD-ROM. This digital 

evolution promised to reduce space and manning requirements aboard 

Navy ships and submarines and Coast Guard cutters, while significantly 

increasing the frequency of data updates.

Chapter 2: BUILDING A REPUTATION | 18
SRTM Mast. Source: NASA

Also exemplary was the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), a joint partnership 

between NIMA, NASA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to collect the most accurate, 

high-resolution, near-global Digital Topographic Elevation Data (DTED) ever produced. The 

eleven-day mission, which began on February 11, 2000, with the launch of space shuttle 

Endeavour, was NASA’s first Earth-mapping mission of the new millennium, producing DTED 

that was three times as dense and twice as accurate as earlier data and covering approximately 80 percent of the globe. Recognizing the significance of the SRTM, NIMA Director 

LTG James King told the workforce, “We are an agency that has launched ourselves into the 

twenty-first century.”

Each of these technological breakthroughs carried 

the risk of inherent setbacks, particularly if NIMA 

products and services were allowed to push too 

far beyond the reach of the agency’s customers. 

This concern was raised in November 1999 at the 

fourth annual NIMA Customer Conference, where 

the benefit of innovations like NIMA-in-a-Box 

were tempered by the reality that “there were 

not enough people in the field who knew how to 

use the [digital] information.” To mitigate these 

and other potential agency shortfalls, a reorganization effort was announced in June 2000. The 

effort, known as NIMA21, focused on customer 

requirements, tradecraft integration, and modernization—put simply, “taking NIMA into the twenty-first century.” Reorganization plans were 

further refined by the release of the NIMA Commission Report, which condensed a comprehensive review of the young agency into twenty-five findings and twenty-three recommendations. The NIMA Commission, which was established in the National Defense Authorization 

Act for Fiscal Year 2000, found that while NIMA was “an essential component of U.S. national 

security,” it was also at risk from legacy products and processes, recommending that leadership “aggressively seek the sources and means . . . to make NIMA’s mission whole.”

The impact of both NIMA21 and the NIMA Commission Report were quickly evident, with the 

standup of new teams, including GI21—Geospatial Information for the 21st Century—and the 

NIMA-in-a-Box. Source: The Edge, July 1999, p.14.

19 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Source: NGA Historic Research Center. Source: NASA.

SRTM patch. Source: NASA.

Source: NASA.

SRTM astronauts Kevin Kregel, shuttle commander, and Kavandi receive 

the NIMA SRTM challenge coin from Director Lt. Gen. James King. 

SRTM Crew. 

The SRTM would be carried 

out from space shuttle 

Endeavour, seen here on its 

Cape Canaveral launchpad.
Office of the Americas (AM). GI21 initially 

comprised eight centers aligned by region or 

function, as well as two groups focused on 

commercial partnerships and business integration. Designed to have end-to-end responsibility for geospatial information, the GI21 

concept was an attempt to consolidate NIMA’s 

geospatial products, data, and services in order 

to “enhance NIMA’s responsiveness and [its] 

ability to support customers’ readiness needs.”

Just two months later, the Office of the 

Americas—initially, the Americas Center 

within GI21— took the concept for end-to-end 

responsibility a step further by integrating 

imagery and geospatial information into a 

single team. The new office, which would 

serve as a regional issue manager, coordinator, facilitator, and information provider for an 

area spanning nine time zones, was seen to 

represent the future of NIMA. As AM Director 

Bill Carruthers stated, the end goal was a “new 

tradecraft” for the twenty-first century: “We are 

creating a dynamic intelligence environment 

that will involve the creation and implementation of new techniques, processes, and methodologies that will enhance our customers’ 

situational awareness and understanding.”

Throughout these internal modernization 

efforts, NIMA continued to meet and exceed 

customers’ needs. For instance, in 2000, a 

team of NIMA experts collaborated with the 

Department of State to support the United 

Nations in verifying the withdrawal of Israeli 

Defense Forces from southern Lebanon. The 

effort, which drew on expertise from the NIMA 

Production Cell, the Geographic Names and 

Boundaries Branch, and the International and 

Policy Office, was cited as “an example of how 

NIMA’s unique geospatial and imagery capabilities 

[could] directly serve the national strategic goal of 

promoting peace and stability in the Middle East,” 

for which it was awarded a National Intelligence 

Meritorious Unit Citation. 

Other highlights in this period included the debut 

of digital products in support of the January 20, 

2000, presidential inauguration of George W. Bush. 

Top and bottom images: NIMA Production Cell. 

Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

NIMA Production Cell. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

21 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Innovations, such as a simulated flyover of the parade route and an annotated event map, provided a dynamic common operating picture that became 

the “centerpiece of monitoring operations.” In June 2001, NIMA solidified its 

growing reputation by hosting Vice President Richard “Dick” B. Cheney and 

senior leaders, marking “the first time in NIMA’s history, and in the history 

of any of our predecessors, that . . . the nation’s leadership gathered with 

us.” Shortly after this visit, it was announced that retired Air Force Lt. Gen. 

James R. Clapper Jr. would succeed LTG King as director of NIMA, becoming 

the first civilian to lead the agency—his stated priority was to continue the modernization efforts begun under LTG King and fully realize the 

recommendations of the NIMA Commission Report. The change of director 

ceremony was scheduled to take place on September 13, 2001.

Two days prior to the projected ceremony, the world changed. The terror 

attacks of September 11, 2001, radically altered the trajectory of the 

twenty-first century, immediately focusing all Department of Defense and 

intelligence community efforts on homeland defense and global terrorism. 

At NIMA, the response was swift and deliberate, as suggested by incoming 

Director Clapper’s description of his first day: “I arrived with no ceremony and with my sleeves rolled up, ready to put my shoulder to the NIMA 

wheel.” Members of the workforce were equally eager to get to work, 

even as they mourned the loss of so many lives and sought reassurance 

against emerging local threats, such as the anthrax-laced letters that began 

circulating through Washington, DC, mailrooms. In spite of such challenging 

factors, NIMA employees shifted into a wartime stance, happy to work 24/7 

operations in response to the events of 9/11and recognizing that NIMA was 

“in the enviable position of being able to do something about the situation.”

Top image: David Armstead discusses a map requirement with Air Force Capt. Tara 

Beedle of Air and Space Operations at Headquarters Air Force. Source: The Edge, October 

2003, p13.

Bottom image: Director Clapper in Iraq, 2004. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

Chapter 2: BUILDING A REPUTATION | 22
23 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary

Excerpt taken from The Edge, 

“NIMA Support Team at Pentagon: Ready for What’s Next,” December 2001, p. 15

The parking lots quickly filled with anxious people, fearing another attack but not knowing where to look for the source—above, on 

the parking lot, or in the trees. “People were looking everywhere,” [PIC Chief Peter] Lund said. It was a great moment when some 

F-16 fighter planes flew low over the Pentagon. “Then I knew I didn’t have to look up anymore,” he said. After what may have been 

45 minutes, a three-star general appeared with a megaphone and shouted to the crowd to go home. Lund, after accounting for his 

people, set out with imagery analyst Lew Westfall for the Washington Navy Yard, across the Potomac, to set up operations. Slowed 

by the Pentagon exodus, Lund finally abandoned his truck, and the two set out on foot. Later, he asked a resident to give them a 

ride. “I showed her my badge and said it was a matter of security,” Lund said. “The woman replied that her husband was ex-State 

Department, and ‘Yes, I will.’” John Smith and some of the other staff reported to the NIMA Command Center in Bethesda and 

other sites as a contingency. “By afternoon, I was to reconstitute the office and its key personnel, including several managers, team 

leads and systems people,” Lund said. . . . “Coming back the next morning, working my way through the disaster scene, the smoke 

and fire still going on, was pretty unbelievable,” said imagery analyst Lyle Schrumpf. “But the most impressive thing I saw was the 

sheer commitment of our people.” “I never thought I’d be calling people to come to work in a burning building,” Lund said. “The 

fact that they came speaks to the people that work here.”

Excerpt from NGA oral history with Lynne Puetz, 

recorded February 22–23, 2006. Ms. Puetz was chief, Transnational Center, in 2001.

“[After September 11] . . . I was working eighteen to twenty hours a day with the group I had, because we were working around 

the clock doing all of the things that are needed for targeting support. We were doing things, escape and evasion charts, to give to 

flyers before they went into the air. We were doing all the other kind of prep work, so people could operate, and we were trying to 

make sure that we had postured ourselves to be ready to respond instantly, as opposed to our normal—if you give us a requirement, 

it will take us a few weeks or whatever to get done. So we were going off, meeting daily with all of our supervisors. Who is doing 

what? How are we covered? What are the issues? I was spending a lot of time on all of the shifts, checking in with the troops and 

making sure they were okay, because we were working round the clock. I would spot first, second, third shift to make sure people 

were all right and talked to them about what was happening.

Sort of like Desert Storm had been earlier, morale was as high as it could possibly be, certainly in my group, because everybody 

there knew that what they were doing was absolutely essential. Beyond just making a difference, it was absolutely essential and 

critical for everything else that was happening. They had a chance to feel good about doing their jobs and knowing they were 

contributing. . . . That’s how we spent the next six months.”
Source: US Coast Guard.
On November 24, 2003, NIMA’s transformation continued with its 

renaming to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). 

This change, signed into law as part of the fiscal 2004 Defense 

Authorization Bill, was seen as a way to both “educate our many 

customers and publics as to who we are and what we do” and 

“[lay] to rest our legacy names and missions, further enabling our 

transformation and our future.”
3Chapter

THREE

PUTTING GEOINT ON THE MAP

NIMA’s name change to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

is signed into law as part of the fiscal 2004 Defense Authorization Bill. 

Source: Defense.gov news photo.
Rather than override the need for NIMA modernization efforts, the events of 9/11 only “increased 

the momentum and degree of change” that would occur across the agency. This was evident within 

two weeks when, in a video address, newly arrived Director Clapper announced a sweeping reorganization motivated by the need to make NIMA as “responsive and as agile” as possible in the post9/11 world: “We in NIMA have a huge role to play, a crucial role to play, in the campaign against 

global terrorism.” The reorganization, designated Task Force NIMA, would be structured against the 

principles of “Now”— meeting current obligations; “Next”—managing complex and costly acquisitions; and “After Next”—discovering the “new paradigm” for NIMA. 

2001 – 2010

Chapter 3: Putting GEOINT on the Map

27 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Main image: Hurricane Katrina. Source: NGA Historic Research Center 

Digital File. 

Additional images on opposite page (clock-wise from top): Hurricane 

Katrina; NCE groundbreaking; Operation Iraq Freedom, 2003; Haiti 

Earthquake, 2010 (both images); Director Murrett traveling to theater 

in support of the warfighter. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

Bottom image: Director Clapper in Iraq, 2004. Source: NGA Historic 

Research Center.
Much of the immediate effort focused on NIMA’s 

interface with its military customers, including 

the introduction of standardized NIMA support 

teams (NSTs), as well as the appointment of 

Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Lee as director of 

support to military operations, to ensure that “our 

senior uniformed military officer has the complete 

overview and can draw on the resources at large 

throughout NIMA to support military operations.” NIMA also recognized the need to expand 

its domestically focused partners, combating 

national threats that were “hardly on our horizon” 

before 9/11. Initiatives like the standup of NIMA’s 

Homeland Security Office sought to increase the 

interoperability and releasability of NIMA products 

through partnerships, such as the National 

Coalition for Geospatial Assurance. The agency 

also obtained two new billets to serve as Situation 

Room duty officers at the White House. This 

was a first for the agency, although personnel 

had served at the White House previously in 

non-NIMA billets, and was said to reflect that 

White House officials “recognized the need for 

NIMA analysts, who quickly can pull together 

information that’s needed to understand rapidly 

evolving situations.” 

In January 2002, senior leaders met with DCI 

George Tenet to review the challenges and 

opportunities facing the agency. This resulted in a 

revised mission statement, “NIMA provides timely, 

relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence in 

support of national security”; a new vision, “Know 

the Earth ... Show the Way”; and a new HR plan 

meant to resolve some of the worst of NIMA’s 

legacy problems. It also produced a revised statement of strategic intent, which was expected to 

“serve as the apex, or pinnacle, of our strategy for 

the future.” Among its key concepts, geospatial 

intelligence (GEOINT) was introduced as a term 

that would encompass and identify “NIMA’s 

unique blend of capabilities” across imagery 

intelligence and geospatial information. 

NIMA also advanced more tangible modernization 

efforts in this time, including a proposal to “research 

and develop a plan for a new NIMA campus.” 

The projected site, required to be located within a 

fifty-mile radius of the Pentagon, was deemed necessary to increase “collocation, interoperability and 

geographic efficiencies in NIMA operations,” while 

reducing facility vulnerabilities and enhancing 

force protection. With consolidation efforts already 

DCI George Tenet visit to NIMA, 2002. Source: NGA 

Historic Research Center.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Lee, USCENTCOM AOR 

Visit, April 12-22, 2002. Source: NGA Historic Research 

Center Digital File, BG. Lee.

29 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
underway, including the planned closure of Building 

213 at the Washington Navy Yard, pursuit of a new 

campus would provide a “designed-for-the-purpose, 

modernized facility . . . that [would] serve NIMA and 

its customers for the years to come.”

Amid these changes, NIMA continued to provide 

exceptional customer support. For instance, in 

February 2002, the Olympics NST—unofficially 

dubbed NIMA “Way West”—deployed as part 

of the first national intelligence support team 

operating within the continental United States 

in support of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake 

City, Utah. Innovative technology, such as the 

Integrated Exploitation Capability (IEC), “[showcased] NIMA’s capabilities to an emerging set of 

customers, validating NIMA’s ability to add value 

to homeland security.” The IEC was NIMA’s first 

acquisition of a large information system that 

relied on commercial-off-the-shelf technology, 

allowing analysts worldwide to “receive, manage, 

store, and access digital imagery and data from 

all national, theater and commercial sources.”

One of the test beds for NIMA innovations like 

the IEC was Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). 

NIMA began deploying volunteer personnel to the 

Central Command NST immediately after 9/11, 

with the first units living “in ‘open’ camps—

sleeping on the ground, eating cold rations and 

going weeks without showers.” By mid-2002, 

almost one hundred NIMA teammates had 

deployed, serving in two-to-five-person teams 

for anywhere from sixty days to a year in the 

MIGS. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

Chapter 3: PUTTING GEOINT ON THE MAP | 30
A.

B. C.

D.
In their own words 

JEROME HOBART

Excerpt taken from The Edge, “NST Members 

Describe Experiences,” June/July 2002, p. 10.

“It was the trip of a lifetime,” says 

geospatial analyst Jerome Hobart. Part 

of a Quick Response Team supporting 

Operation Enduring Freedom, Hobart 

worked initially with the 10th Mountain 

Division and then with the 101st Airborne 

Division in Kandahar.

“As you might expect, living conditions 

were not plush,” he adds. He has a photo of 

his sleeping area, a cot with an air mattress. 

Overhead, his socks, washed the day before, 

are drying.

And there were other challenges. He was 

in an area subjected to perimeter ground 

fire. Demolitions experts were clearing 

land mines in the vicinity by exploding 

500-pound bombs. “It was a different 

situation for me,” Hobart says. But he 

adapted quickly. 

The products and techniques he used 

varied widely. “We had to do a lot of ad 

hoc requests and it was hard to define 

what they wanted,” said Hobart. “But the 

results were impressive. They would come 

back and say, ‘I want it done the same way 

you did it before.’”

A. Director Clapper in Iraq, 2004. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

B. NIMA deployers in the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility, April 2003. Source: NGA Historical Research Center

C. NIMA deployers in the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility, February 17, 2003. Source: NGA Historical Research Center.

D. NIMA deployers in Baghdad, Iraq, April 16, 2003. Source: NGA Historical Research Center.

All other images taken from an Operation Iraqi Freedom PowerPoint created by NIMA deployers.

Source: NGA Historical Research Center.
region. NST direct support to campaigns, such as Operation 

Anaconda, which constituted the largest ground force action 

to that time in OEF, provided timely imagery and mapping 

products in a demanding 24/7 planning and operation 

environment. According to Army Col. Frank Wiercinski, Task 

Force commander, this support was a “tremendous combat 

multiplier” that “could not be replicated from outside the 

area of operations.”

With the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in March 

2003, NIMA took the NST concept a step further, deploying 

Brig. Gen. Mike Lee—NIMA’s most senior military officer—to 

oversee agency support to the CENTCOM area of operations. 

From his deployed position, which was an agency first, Brig. 

Gen. Lee “orchestrated the rapid build-up of [NIMA] teams 

deploying to a variety of military headquarters ranging from 

the CENTCOM Forward Command Post in Qatar to the forces 

deployed in Kuwait that were eventually sent into Iraq.” In 

another first, NIMA NSTs were assigned to Army maneuver 

elements, “including the 3rd Infantry Division that helped 

lead the ground attack in Iraq.” NIMA innovations conceived 

during OEF and OIF included the Mobile Integrated Geospatial-Intelligence System (MIGS), known as “NIMA in two 

Humvees,” which was designed to make all NIMA products 

and services available in one fully integrated, air-transportable unit. Initially deployed as a “one-and-only prototype 

system,” it quickly became the “nucleus of NIMA support to 

all customers in and around Baghdad” during OIF. 

Even as NIMA’s combat support reputation grew in the field, 

transformation efforts continued at home. This included the 

January 2003 renaming of NIMA’s employee magazine from 

The Edge to Pathfinder, which “better connotes the Agency’s 

vision . . . [and provides] a new purpose—to show NIMA 

In their own words 

MAJ. STEPHEN KAHN

Excerpt taken from Pathfinder, “GEOINT’s Evolution Energizes 

Military Capabilities,” July/August 2008, p. 5.

“As a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, I [Maj. Stephen Kahn] have 

used geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in all of my assignments, 

from mission planning through tactical execution. During my last 

tour with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, I observed firsthand how 

GEOINT has progressed from a tool primarily used by top-level 

planners to a tool utilized by tactical operators in the everyday 

conduct of their missions. The evolution of GEOINT has improved 

its effectiveness over the past four years. The interconnected 

reasons for this progress form a cycle that continues today. First, 

the expansion of GEOINT in the planning of operations—from 

the strategic level to the operational level to the tactical level—has 

increased. Second, the reproduction capability and ability to get 

products down to the “last tactical mile” for use by the tactical 

executor have significantly improved. Third, the number of people 

who are aware that GEOINT exists, what it is, what it can do for 

them and how to procure it has increased, and end users now 

request the specific GEOINT products that they need instead of 

relying solely on their intelligence sections to provide them. I 

noticed these developments during my time with 1st Battalion, 

8th Marines, while executing three distinct operations: Operation 

Phantom Fury in Fallujah, Iraq, in the fall of 2004; relief operations 

following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 

September 2005; and during the assisted departure of American 

citizens during the Levant crisis in Beirut, Lebanon, in July 2006. In 

particular, I noticed three trends: better-quality GEOINT reached all 

operational levels, GEOINT was reproduced and distributed more 

effectively, and the military’s demand for GEOINT increased.
responders and government agencies. Director of National Intelligence John 

Negroponte expressed the significance of NGA’s support: “. . . you truly put 

yourselves on the map with support for Hurricane Katrina.” Efforts like these 

also spurred further innovation. For instance, the deployment of MIGS to the 

Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina led to the development of a “civilianized” 

Domestic Mobile Integrated Geospatial-Intelligence System—DMIGS. NGA 

Earth, which provided internet access to geospatial data, including an unclassified “public access tab,” was also a direct response to Hurricane Katrina that 

significantly improved future support to crisis operations.

On July 7, 2006, NGA welcomed VADM Robert B. Murrett as its third 

director. The agency, now in its tenth year, had built an impressive reputation but recognized the need to “stay agile” in order to stay relevant. 

Upon his arrival, VADM Murrett laid out a vision focused on advancing 

collaboration to meet the needs of an ever-changing environment: “This 

is not the tradition in which we have grown up, but this is the new 

reality in this asymmetric era.” Looking to the future, partnerships and 

technology would be key to securing NGA’s position as the global leader 

in GEOINT.

stakeholders where the Agency is going and how we will lead customers 

on the path to success.” This was followed in March 2003 with the release 

of the Geospatial Intelligence Capstone Concept, NIMA’s “first attempt” to 

explain GEOINT and develop a doctrine around its use. The document, which 

defined GEOINT as “the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial 

information to describe, assess and visually depict physical features and 

geographically referenced activities on the Earth,” was intended to serve 

as a kind of draft that would be “critically evaluated and refined” together 

within the wider geospatial community.

On November 24, 2003, NIMA’s transformation continued with its 

renaming to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. This change, 

signed into law as part of the Fiscal Year 2004 Defense Authorization 

Bill, was seen as a way to both “educate our many customers and 

publics as to who we are and what we do” and “[lay] to rest our legacy 

names and missions, further enabling our transformation and our 

future.” Even after the name change, the agency continued to prioritize modernization, with a focus on “convergence”—replacing legacy 

stovepipe systems with modernized capabilities in a single operating 

environment. Emerging capabilities, such as the NGA Portal, a common 

framework that could be personalized by users across the globe, began 

to meet this challenge. NGA also pursued cutting-edge solutions to 

developing customer needs. This included efforts to expand and integrate nontraditional sources, such as commercial and airborne imagery, 

as well as the establishment of a new 3-D Model Production Facility that 

would utilize “advances in rapid prototyping, numerical machining and 

image printing” to provide GEOINT visualization via equipment, facility, 

and terrain models of national security interest.

Innovations like these enhanced NGA support to unfolding world events 

that increasingly relied on collaboration to succeed. In August 2005, 

more than two dozen analysts and two MIGS deployed to the Gulf Coast 

in response to Hurricane Katrina, providing GEOINT products like 3-D 

models, based in part on commercial and airborne imagery, to first 

DMIGS. Source: NGA Historic Research Center Digital File.

Chapter 3: PUTTING GEOINT ON THE MAP | 34
of critical domestic infrastructure for use in “developing and exercising 

response plans to acts of terrorism, natural disasters and other homeland-security events.”

On September 25, 2006, NGA celebrated the New Campus East groundbreaking at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. This momentous step was considered 

emblematic of the broader work being done to modernize, revise, and 

advance GEOINT to meet the evolving needs of the nation. According to 

VADM Murrett, the new site would fuse together the essential elements 

within NGA to “accelerate the development of new technologies and products” necessary to maintain the geospatial advantage. One way to maintain 

this advantage was to incorporate an agile mindset regarding agency 

innovations, thus finding outside-the-box uses for many purpose-built capabilities. One example, the Geospatial Intelligence for Operations Support and 

the Battlefield (GIB), was designed for—and initially used solely by—the 

warfighter. Consisting of a laptop loaded with GIS capabilities and multiple 

DVDs of NGA data that were easily customizable, GIBs greatly enhanced 

situational awareness in the field. However, NGA quickly recognized its 

To meet these goals, NGA began moving to a service-oriented architecture 

that utilized “portal services, Web-based collaboration and network-centric 

reusable services” in order to facilitate greater access and discovery of 

GEOINT. Similarly, as part of its functional management responsibilities for 

the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG), NGA developed the 

concept of Unified GEOINT Operations. This “collaborative and coordinated 

effort to assess, align and execute” GEOINT analysis and production was 

meant to “enhance overall GEOINT situational awareness and collaboration” 

across the NSG. 

NGA also developed numerous collaborative tools, leading the way in the 

cultural shift called for by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell 

to move “beyond the ‘need-to-know’ and ‘need-to-share’ philosophy to a 

‘responsibility-to-provide’ mindset.” These included the Global Area Reference System, which provided the first “worldwide standard for Department of Defense mission planning and operations,” allowing warfighters 

to deconflict “any place on Earth in seven keystrokes.” Another tool, the 

Homeland Security Infrastructure Program, provided a “common store” 

Director Murrett views an NGA model shop display. Source: NGA Historic Research Center.

35 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
crossover value to homeland 

security applications and 

began sharing the product 

with customers ranging from 

the Army National Guard to 

the Las Vegas Metropolitan 

Police Department to the US 

Coast Guard, who came to 

view the GIB as integral to 

maintaining their operational 

advantage. 

Partnerships like those 

formed by GIBs helped to raise awareness of GEOINT, while simultaneously 

proving its value and extending its reach. For instance, GIBs helped cement 

NGA’s collaborative partnership with the US Coast Guard, with operations 

spanning from the Middle East deployment of the Coast Guard Cutter 

Midgett—which relied on NGA products and expertise to gain meaningful 

situational awareness of an operating area encompassing the Red Sea, Gulf 

of Aden, and Somali Basin—to the Arctic, where NGA assisted in determining “economic rights to newly exposed Arctic resources” of interest to 

nations, including Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark. NGA products 

included geospatial depictions of temporal Arctic ice extents, as well as a 

3-D topographic model of the Lomonosov Ridge that provided a “unique 

bird’s-eye view” of the undersea ridge at the heart of the discussions.

NGA also cemented and expanded relationships with foreign partners during 

this period. By 2008, NGA had formal arrangements with over 120 countries 

worldwide and maintained a leadership role in such significant international 

initiatives as the Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program (MGCP). 

Conceived in 2003, the MGCP represented an agreement between twenty-eight countries to co-produce geospatial data that would reside in the 

NGA-sponsored International Geospatial Warehouse. 

By this time, NGA’s evolution from its early fragmentation into the 

recognized world leader in GEOINT was making the difference to customers and partners around the world. In July 2008, President George 

W. Bush signed amended Executive Order 12333, which formally recognized GEOINT as an intelligence discipline and designated the director of NGA as its functional manager—thereby “affirming NGA’s place 

within the IC [intelligence community].” As VADM Murrett remarked, 

this was “further evidence of the central and critical role that imagery, 

geospatial information and analysis play in national and homeland 

security.” Soon after this, VADM Murrett announced the creation of 

a new work role: the GEOINT analyst. This “single, overarching” job, 

which would fuse together an array of analytical occupations throughout the agency, was viewed as a “change [that] further solidified NGA’s 

move towards cultural and logistical solidarity.”

NGA was now providing critical GEOINT support to missions across the 

nation and around the globe. In one year alone, this included support to 

flooding in the Midwest; natural disasters in Burma, the Philippines, and 

China; humanitarian relief planning and implementation in Darfur, Sudan; 

and special security events, including the Super Bowl. One of NGA’s major 

contributions in this period came in response to the January 12, 2010, 

Haiti earthquake. The agency utilized cutting-edge partnerships and 

technology to speed relief and recovery efforts in the devastated country, 

including a collaboration with the US Air Force to expedite full-motion video data provided by airborne collection platforms, which allowed analysts 

to “provide GEOINT analysis and products within 24 hours of collection.” 

As NGA matured, the increasing demand for GEOINT was evidenced in the 

number of deployed teammates—for instance, in 2009, nearly one-third 

of the workforce was deployed to over 150 sites worldwide, a number that 

had “grown 175 percent since 2007 alone.” 

Destroyed villages in Darfur, Sudan. Source: DigitalGlobe.

Chapter 3: PUTTING GEOINT ON THE MAP | 36


Pushing the boundaries of GEOINT also meant 

embracing technology that increased “exposure 

of and access to geospatial information, data and 

intelligence,” challenging NGA to balance the need for 

secrecy with the need for discoverability.
4Chapter

FOUR

GEOINT FRONTIER

NGA analysts discuss details in Ethiopia, 2011. 

Source: NGA Historic Research Center Digital File.
As NGA approached its fifteenth anniversary, efforts were underway to build on the momentum of the post-9/11 

years, during which the workforce had achieved greater cohesion and gained a global reputation for GEOINT excellence. A new director, Ms. Letitia “Tish” Long, would oversee this effort. Her appointment was historic, marking the 

first time a woman would lead a major intelligence agency. The pioneering spirit of this change was reflected in the 

formal change of command ceremony held on August 9, 2010, at the site of the future NGA Campus East (NCE), which 

was still under construction. The site established NGA as “one of the first agencies in the Intelligence Community” to 

build a completely modernized facility. 

Director Long capitalized on this future focus by quickly unveiling a new vision—to put the power of GEOINT in your hands—meaning that NGA’s employees 

and customers would “have the GEOINT they want when and where they need it.” To accomplish this vision, two near-term goals were announced. First, NGA 

would move to provide online, on-demand access to its GEOINT knowledge, services, and content, which would “fundamentally change our users’ experience,” requiring innovative use of current and emerging technologies and to-be-created tools in order to facilitate the user’s ability to “interact with and 

update [NGA] data and information in near-real time.” The second goal, to “create new value by broadening and deepening our analytic expertise,” would rely 

on enhanced tradecraft to expand contextual and predictive analysis.

2010 – Present

Chapter 4: GEOINT Frontier
Photo collage. Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; Satellite image. Source: Adobe Stock.
Achieving these goals would require pushing the boundaries 

of NGA and the GEOINT discipline. In part, this would mean 

prioritizing nontraditional data in order to provide a more holistic, contextualized GEOINT. Human geography—the analysis 

of cultural and activity-based factors, including language, 

religion, transportation, and land use—was at the core of this 

tradecraft evolution. By integrating human geography analysis 

with more traditional geospatial data, NGA would be better 

able to understand and anticipate the next hotspot or crisis. 

Pushing the boundaries of GEOINT also meant embracing 

technology that increased “exposure of and access to 

geospatial information, data and intelligence,” challenging 

NGA to balance the need for secrecy with the need for discoverability. To speed this effort, NGA created integrated work 

groups (IWGs), which brought together developers, customers, and 

other experts to develop and test innovative capabilities directly 

related to real-world needs. 

However, initiatives like the IWG were not always easy to institute, as reflected by comments from one IWG-Iran teammate: 

“All the technical solutions exist. Changing the NGA culture is 

the biggest challenge.” Despite this, NGA accumulated a diverse 

array of innovative successes in record time. Examples included 

the Disaster Atlas, which provided “instantaneous, refreshed 

data” to first responders via a suite of applications and allowed 

NGA to produce “more than 6,000 pages [of data] per hour 

compared to the previous 200 per hour” by transitioning from 

hard copy to digital. Another example, the Aeronautical Kneepad 

app, allowed pilots to “replace pounds of hard-copy references” 

with digital data that could be updated instantly. 

Murrett/Long Change of command on the roof of the NCE 

parking garage. Source: NGA 

Historic Research Center.

43 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
NGA achieved another milestone on September 26, 2011, with the official 

opening of its new headquarters at NCE, which was celebrated as ushering 

“NGA and geospatial intelligence into a new era.” NCE provided a secure, 

collaborative work environment and state-of-the-art information technology 

infrastructure that would support NGA’s efforts to evolve as a twenty-first-century agency. Among its advantages, NCE collocated NGA’s 24/7 “watch” centers—

including the NGA Operation Center and the new Time Dominant Operations 

Center—enhancing NGA’s ability to provide “dynamic” mission effectiveness.

Even as NGA evolved its tools, tradecraft, and facilities, it was expanding its 

mission focus to support emerging twenty-first-century concerns, such as environmental conservation, including participation in the first census of emperor 

penguins in the Antarctic. Utilizing NGA commercial imagery, equivalent in scope 

to “the contents of three Libraries of Congress,” scientists from the University of 

Minnesota’s Antarctic Geospatial Information Center (AGIC) were able to utilize 

the penguin census to assess environmental changes in Antarctica. NGA data 

was critical, as noted by AGIC; without NGA, “science of this type could not 

be accomplished.” Similarly, NGA played a crucial role in combating wildlife 

poaching and trafficking—in coordination with partners, such as the Department of State—through innovative tools like the “African Elephant Poaching 

Threat Map,” which allowed users to track and contextualize incidents in order 

to predict and disrupt future activities. 

NGA also continued to support a variety of natural disasters, including Operation Tomodachi, the US government’s response to the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011. The earthquake—powerful enough to shift 

the Earth’s axis—

and resulting 

tsunami caused 

extensive damage 

that included the 

Fukushima Daiichi 

nuclear plant. Given its high nuclear 

stakes, one NGA 

teammate considered this the “fastest moving and most complex disaster mission” he had ever 

worked. As NGA supported increasingly complex natural disasters, the agency 

continued to prioritize innovation. For instance, lessons learned from support to 

Hurricane Sandy in 2012 led NGA to “change the way we operate.” As a result, 

when a deadly EF5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, in May 2013, NGA was 

able “for the first time in our history” to offer “unclassified online, on-demand 

support to FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and first responders” during rescue and recovery efforts.

Source: Adobe Stock.

Source: Adobe Stock. Source: Adobe Stock.

Chapter 4: GEOINT FRONTIER | 44
NGA’s critical support to increasingly complex missions was, 

perhaps, best epitomized by its role in the May 2, 2011, raid on 

the Osama bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The 

search for bin Laden, terrorist leader of al Qa’ida and suspected 

mastermind of the 9/11 attacks against the United States, had 

been ongoing for years. NGA’s capabilities were used to help 

pinpoint his location and, in the fall of 2010, to build a scale 

model of the compound—buildings, walls, infrastructure, and 

surrounding environmental features—which allowed US forces 

to successfully plan and execute their mission.

In a variety of fields, NGA was proving the value of GEOINT 

and leading the evolution to meet twenty-first-century 

paradigms. As NGA’s then-Chief Operating Officer Ellen 

McCarthy noted: “NGA is at the forefront of bringing all of 

the -INTs [intelligence disciplines] together ... [the] future 

lies in finding the unknowns — predicting targets, and 

utilizing new technologies and training to identify new 

threats.” Achieving that future would require immersion, a concept introduced by Director Long in April 2014 as the “next phase of intelligence”—the breaking 

down of barriers—“between collectors, analysts, customers and decision makers.” For NGA, it seemed “change and evolution ... [were] in our DNA.”

On October 17, 2014, NGA entered this next phase of intelligence under a new director, Mr. Robert 

Cardillo. Upon his arrival, Director Cardillo immediately built on the theme of evolution and immersion, introducing new concepts into the NGA lexicon. First among these was customer “consequence”—described as a “shift in culture consciousness” that would encourage members of the 

workforce to measure the success of their work against the direct value it brings to their customers. 

This focus on consequence would allow NGA, in the words of Director Cardillo, to “make better 

use of our mistakes. They are our greatest learning opportunities.”

Another core tenet was transparency, a revolutionary call to create “an open-source environment [that allowed] citizens to participate in the tradecraft and business of NGA.” The concept 

emerged from the agency’s unprecedented response to the Ebola epidemic ravaging Western 

Africa, which involved “the first time that NGA set up a publicly available website for disaster 

support.” Similar initiatives, such as GEOINT Pathfinder, unveiled in the spring of 2015 and 

Osama Bin-Laden compound 3-D model. 

Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

NGA Director Robert Cardillo at the Worldwide Threat Assessment briefing, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Worldwide Threat Assessment briefing, May 11, 2017.

Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

45 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
NGA quickly demonstrated its commitment to this power shift, with efforts 

ranging from the purely symbolic—such as when members of NGA’s 

leadership wore “Team GEOINT” t-shirts during their formal appearance 

at the 2015 GEOINT Symposium—to significant investments of NGA talent 

and resources. Examples of these investments include the standup of NGA 

Outpost Valley in 2016, which established an NGA presence next to industry 

leaders in Silicon Valley, intended to “provide exposure to a new set of 

skills, research and technology, which will be sent back into larger NGA, 

driving a cultural change in the way we acquire, develop and implement 

solution.” NGA also invested in the emerging small satellite capabilities of 

commercial industry providers. By taking the lead in partnerships like these, 

NGA was able to partner in a rapidly maturing field, promoting a symbiotic 

growth between the agency and industry: “At the same time that Planet has 

continued to mature their capability to where they can now offer weekly 

global coverage, NGA and our many customers have been learning how 

to use it across our varied mission sets in numerous locations so we truly 

understand where we get the bang for our buck.” 

described as “an experiment to transform NGA into a mostly open-source 

agency,” sought to build on this momentum but continued to face “the 

deep-seeded desire to keep information close to the vest that [came] from 

years of working the secret environment of an intel agency.” 

For many, however, the difficult transition to greater transparency was 

necessary to maintain relevance; it was “the way we have to do business to 

stay competitive in the future.” This mindset was being driven by what was 

described as a “seismic shift in geospatial intelligence,” related to factors 

like the rise of small satellites, the explosion of data, and the impact of 

social media and mobile devices, all of which accelerated the “democratization” of GEOINT. In order to harness the power of these changes, NGA would 

once again have to adapt and evolve. GEOINT was at an “inflection point,” 

and NGA could either respond to the challenge or be overwhelmed by it. 

NGA chose to respond, formalizing its approach with the release of the 2015 

NGA Strategy, which called for a shift away from “old power”—defined 

as “closed, inaccessible and leader driven”—to the emerging “open, 

participatory and peer driven” power mold necessary for the twenty-first 

century. At the heart of this strategy was “Team GEOINT,” a “partnership of 

government, industry, academia and international partners led by NGA” that 

would together shape and harness the future of GEOINT. 

... the difficult transition 

to greater transparency 

was necessary to maintain 

relevance – put simply, it 

was... ‘the way we have to do 

business to stay competitive 

in the future.’”

Dr. Stacey Dixon presenting at Geo-Resolution.

Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Chapter 4: GEOINT FRONTIER | 46
These investments were underpinned by the creation of new offices and 

facilities that would support the hard work being done to transform NGA for the 

twenty-first century. One such effort was the Office of Ventures and Innovation, formed in 2017 to “help steer NGA towards disruption and technological 

advancement.” Much more substantial was the effort initiated in this period 

to relocate NGA Campus West in St. Louis, Missouri, to a new state-of-the-art 

facility that would utilize modern IT capabilities and provide proximity to community partners in fields like industry and academia. Considered a “test case 

for all of the IC,” the site—designated Next NGA West or N2W—would prioritize collaborative spaces and a flexible IT infrastructure in order to demonstrate 

the power of transparent, immersive intelligence.

In February 2019, NGA welcomed VADM Robert Sharp as its seventh 

director. In his first year, NGA continued to push the boundaries of 

GEOINT. This included a greater focus on the role of artificial intelligence, automation, and augmentation (AAA) in the future development 

of geospatial technology and tradecraft. The initiative, spearheaded by 

NGA’s Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Augmentation Executive Ms. 

Tara Bradburn, was meant to drive the integration of cutting-edge AAA 

by instilling a sense of urgency: “We talk a lot about AAA being an 

important part of our future mission, but we can’t wait until tomorrow. 

We have a requirement to deliver today.”

This same urgency was brought to the significant mission pivot toward 

a renewed great power competition. Echoing the 1960s space race 

between the US and Soviet Union, NGA began sounding the alarm on 

increasing investments in GEOINT capabilities by adversaries like China—a development that could challenge NGA’s competitive edge and 

jeopardize the security of the nation and its allies. In May 2020, VADM 

Sharp released the Director’s Intent and Moonshot initiative, focused 

on taking “all necessary actions to sustain GEOINT supremacy and hold 

our adversaries at risk.” This would require a concerted effort by NGA 

and its partners to “take urgent and decisive action to reorient and 

realign the GEOINT community.” 

Breaking ground at N2W in St. Louis, Missouri. Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

47 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
In the midst of this forward-focused momentum, a new threat was emerging 

that would bring the world to a standstill. Cases of the novel coronavirus that 

would become known as COVID-19 were first reported in December 2019 

and quickly spread throughout the world. NGA’s response to the pandemic demonstrated the depth and breadth of the skills developed over the twenty-five years 

the agency continually adapted and evolved to meet rapidly changing needs. 

In 2020, this included an unprecedented shift to telework capabilities that 

would allow NGA to meet mission needs while keeping its workforce safe. Through 

their dedicated skill, hard work, and creativity, NGA teammates developed the 

necessary unclassified tools and procedures to keep the mission critical work of 

the agency running. Others answered the call to serve as rotating members of the 

COVID Incident Response Team, whose selfless work to track the disease 

and update the workforce 

provided a guidepost against 

which Team NGA could 

continue to function.

Despite the extraordinary and 

all-encompassing impacts of 

COVID-19, NGA continued to 

meet and exceed its promise 

to be a leader in GEOINT. In 

September 2020, this included the formal signing of an 

Education Partnership Agreement with Harris-Stowe State 

University (HSSU), allowing “NGA professionals and HSSU faculty, staff and 

students to work together to develop the next generation of science, technology, 

engineering and math educators” needed to grow the future GEOINT professionals, 

who will be essential to national security. In January 2021, the agency announced 

its trailblazing Neurodiversity Pilot program, aimed at increasing “opportunities 

for neurodiverse individuals, including those on the autism spectrum.” And in 

July 2021, NGA celebrated the opening of Moonshot Labs, its “first-ever unclassified, collaborative space,” located in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. 

Throughout its first twenty-five years, NGA has met the rapidly evolving 

needs of each era with innovation, determination, and resilience. As its history proves, whether the adversary is a great power or a global pandemic, 

the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency always stands ready to “know 

the earth, understand the world, show the way.” 

Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Chapter 4: GEOINT FRONTIER | 48
UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED
Afterword

For two and a half decades, NGA has shown the way—for our nation and our allies. We have 

changed as the needs of our mission partners have changed. We have adapted as new technologies have threatened our GEOINT advantage over our adversaries.

Through it all, we have remained convinced that our people and partnerships provide a competitive advantage over our strategic competitors – and we are committed to expanding and 

strengthening those relationships in the challenging years ahead.

We remain committed to providing classified and unclassified products to meet the mission requirements of today AND tomorrow.

And we remain committed to modernizing our IT infrastructure, our collection services, our 

networks, our training, and our business practices. 

So, in recent years, we’ve defined a Moonshot for the agency—a shared vision that unites our 

workforce, much like President John F. Kennedy did in 1962 with the actual quest to land a 

man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. 

Through our Director’s Intent, we’ve stated very clearly that we will deliver trusted GEOINT 

with the speed, accuracy, and precision required to hold at risk the strategic forces our adversaries use to project power and threaten the United States and our allies. 

We’re very passionate about where we’re going, as an agency and a community. We think that 

by working together, we’re on the cusp of even greater things.

Obstacles and challenges remain, but we are focused on our Moonshot and our goal to maintain our GEOINT advantage, today and for years to come.

It has been a long and winding road from 1996, when eight disparate organizations first came 

together to find new ways of supporting our warfighters and our national decision-makers. 

However, as Team NGA has demonstrated time and again over these past twenty-five years, by 

working together as part of the larger GEOINT enterprise, we can and will achieve our Moonshot and our mission imperatives—and by doing so, help keep our nation safe. 

VADM Robert Sharp

Director

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

51 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
NIMA/NGA Directors

Rear Adm. Joseph J. Dantone Jr., 

US Navy

National Imagery and Mapping Agency 

October 1996–March 1998

Letitia Long

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

August 2010–October 2014

Lt. Gen. James C. King, US Army

National Imagery and Mapping Agency 

March 1998–September 2001

Robert Cardillo

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

October 2014–February 2019

Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., 

US Air Force (Ret.)

National Imagery and Mapping Agency 

September 2001–November 2003

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

November 2003–July 2006 

Vice Adm. Robert D. Sharp, US Navy

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

February 2019–Present

Vice Adm. Robert B. Murrett, US Navy

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

July 2006–August 2010
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55 | National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 25th Anniversary
Source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE, 21-957

OCC 210708-006