Top of the World 20 / Wearable Tech 24 / Gulf War Anniversary 7

INNOVATIVE LEGACY

NGA predecessors pave way for lunar exploration
2 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 3

The Pathfinder promotes awareness and 

understanding of geospatial intelligence, 

and is published by National GeospatialIntelligence Agency’s (NGA) Office of 

Corporate Communications (OCC).

The Pathfinder is an authorized Department 

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by, the U.S. government, DOD or NGA. 

Articles in the Pathfinder may be reproduced 

in whole or in part without permission, 

unless stated otherwise. If reproduced, credit 

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magazine.” Reproduction of graphics, 

photographs and imagery is subject to 

the original copyright.

NGA Leadership

Director: Letitia A. Long

Deputy Director: Michael A. Rodrigue

Chief Operating Officer: Ellen McCarthy

OCC Leadership

Director: William M. Caniano

News & Information Chief: Christine Phillips

Editor: Glenn Holloway

Designer: Valorie Brinson

Contact us

Telephone: 571-557-5400

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Approved for Public Release, 14-435.

Find out more about NGA

pathfinder@nga.mil

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@NGA_GEOINT

NatlGEOINTAgency

Putting the

power of GEOINT

in users’ hands

IN THIS ISSUE

AT NGA, INNOVATION IS AN EVERYDAY IDEA. 

It is inherent in everything we do. 

Still, we dedicated the month of June 

to innovation to encourage employees 

at every level to deliberately think 

of ways we could do business better. 

Nothing was off the table. From 

technology to morale, we asked, and 

the workforce responded. 

Among the more popular features 

of Innovation Month was the graffiti 

wall displayed in the atrium and 

open for contributions from all 

employees – civilian, contractor 

and military. You responded 

overwhelmingly. Innovation tips 

ran on NGA Today throughout the 

month of June. On flat screens in 

the atrium, we played “Ted Talk” 

videos and prominent quotations on 

innovation from academic leaders. 

Directorates also ran programs and 

events that paralleled these activities, 

such as a 3-D fair, and research and 

development discovery days.

We hosted members from 

four academic institutions who 

demonstrated their schools’ programs 

and innovations in the geospatial 

sciences. The third week of the 

month was designated industry week, 

and private-sector partners joined 

us at NCE and NCW for exhibits, 

demonstrations and panel discussions. 

In this issue of Pathfinder you 

will find examples of our Innovation 

Month activities and interactions, 

which represent just a smidgen of the 

innovative and forward-thinking ideas 

and activities explored during the 

month and just a glimpse of what you 

have been doing all along. 

We have made gains in the 

technological capabilities needed 

to more deeply immerse analysts in 

data. The wearable devices article 

in this issue focuses on those gains 

by looking at Oculus Rift and apps 

we created that work with Google’s 

Glass headset. You will also see some 

of the other ways NGA is already 

breaking new ground, like being 

the first intelligence agency with an 

organizational account on GitHub, 

where we shared code that can help 

first responders and others do their 

Innovation at core of 

NGA’s everyday life

Letitia A. Long

Director

ON MY MIND

24 

Wearable 

electronic 

devices,

augur change for 

NGA operations, show 

'immersive' potential

28 

GEOINTeresting

30 

International 

ambassador: 

NGA employee takes 

STEM education to 

Kosovo students

20 

Agency ready to help 

U.S. DOD execute 

Arctic strategy at 

'top of the world'

26 

NGA Google 

Glass app shows 

potential for field 

operations

4 

NGA Senior Q&A:

Army Staff Sgt. 

Jacob Gulack

4 

'Argo" mastermind 

speaks at NGA 

headquarters

24

16

On the cover: The lunar 

mosaic was created in 

1962 by U.S. Air Force 

Aeronautical Chart and 

Information Center, with 

photographs from three 

different observatories. 

7

5

Coast Guard team at 

agency HQ a boon 

to collaboration, 

customer service

6

Open source 

opens door to 

public innovation 

at NGA

7

Gulf War

shaped NGA operations, 

influenced tradecraft

16 

Innovative 

Legacy:

NGA predecessors 

map moon, pave way 

for lunar exploration 

11

Inspiring Innovation 

Multi-INT, collaboration 

add value to IC 

investments jobs more efficiently and effectively. 

This issue also takes a look at how 

we continue to encourage interest in 

STEM careers internationally and a 

look back out our mapping legacy that 

paved the way for lunar exploration 

in the last decade of the 1960s 

into today.

Sadly, our agency suffered a loss to 

its innovative spirit July 20, when our 

industry innovation advocate, Polly 

Shaffer, passed away. Her legacy to 

our agency is one of ingenuity and 

hope. She looked beyond the current 

state of our mission, our products 

and our services and saw what they 

could be. Polly was the embodiment 

of innovation, and our agency will not 

be the same without her. This issue of 

Pathfinder is dedicated to Polly and 

her tireless commitment to progress. 

May we all – family, friends and 

coworkers – find inspiration in Polly’s 

work and take comfort knowing that 

her efforts and her service will have 

lasting effects on our agency and 

our nation. 

I am proud of the everyday 

innovation I see within our walls. 

You are an amazing workforce that 

regularly challenges the norm and 

brings to light new and creative ways 

of delivering world-class GEOINT to 

our mission partners and customers 

around the world. 

I hope you enjoy this issue of 

Pathfinder. Keep up the good work.

2 Pathfinder • Summer 2014
4 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 5

Salute:

NGA

ARMY STAFF SGT. JACOB GULACK

Coast Guard team at agency HQ a boon to collaboration, customer service

By Rachael Groseclose, NGA Analysis Directorate

IN APRIL AFTER A YEAR OF PLANNING, THE NATIONAL 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency welcomed six embedded 

U.S. Coast Guard members to its headquarters in 

Springfield, Virginia. 

The Coast Guard assistant commandant for intelligence 

and criminal investigations, Rear Adm. Christopher J. 

Tomney, has been a strong advocate for incorporating 

GEOINT into the service’s mission since stepping into his 

role in May 2012.

The team at NGA is a direct result of that advocacy, 

said Lt. Cmdr. Kelly Moyers, head of the new department. 

The service has no cadre of formally trained GEOINT 

instructors and relies heavily on NGA for required training. 

“While we may be taking a few small steps in terms 

of GEOINT capabilities, the Coast Guard sees the 

department’s new environment enabling our members the 

capacity to get up, walk smoothly, run, and soon sprint in 

the world of GEOINT,” said Moyers. 

The Analysis directorate sponsors the team, 

which reports back to the Coast Guard’s Intelligence 

Coordination Center for all service-related requests for 

information for analysis and production, said Moyers. 

Only one team member is a fully trained imagery 

analyst, so most of the team is taking fundamental imagery 

and geospatial analysis courses through the NGA College 

By Regina Galvin, Office of Corporate Communications

Photo by Tony Boone, Office of Corporate Communications

‘Argo’ mastermind speaks at NGA headquarters 

By Jason Moll, Office of Corporate Communications

ANTONIO “TONY” MENDEZ, RETIRED 

CIA officer and mastermind of the 

operation that brought six American 

diplomats out of Iran following 

the 1979 embassy takeover, 

addressed National GeospatialIntelligence Agency employees and 

Commonwealth partners at NGA 

headquarters in Springfield, Virginia, 

June 9 as part of the agency’s 

Distinguished Speaker Series. 

The DSS was created to introduce 

to NGA’s workforce speakers 

who could discuss relevant topics, 

including intelligence, leadership, 

innovation, science and education. 

to build their tradecraft, said Moyers. Since being assigned 

to the department, one intelligence specialist has completed 

the "Introduction to GEOINT" course and is attending the 

"Fundamentals of Geospatial Analysis" course. 

“It’s good to be here because now my team has people to 

lean on and leverage their tradecraft,” said Moyers. “I think 

that is what’s exciting and what will be most useful is the 

analyst-to-analyst interaction. The hope is once the team 

is trained, they can move past responding only to (requests 

for information) from the field and start producing more 

advanced analytic products.”

The partnership is mutually beneficial, said Moyers. With 

a Coast Guard presence at NGA, there is an opportunity to 

educate NGA about the service’s mission. 

This mutual understanding of the needs and capabilities 

on both sides is vital to integrating GEOINT into the Coast 

Guard’s vast mission set, said Moyers. 

“The Coast Guard’s motto is ‘semper paratus,’ meaning 

always ready,” said Lt. j.g. Justin Walters. “Positioning the 

Coast Guard alongside NGA allows both sides to better 

prepare for ever-changing threats and deliver time-relevant 

GEOINT products to our customers. Although we must 

be prepared to respond, we must also be able to anticipate 

security events requiring a Coast Guard response. Being 

here at NCE does just that.” 

Tony Mendez and the "Argo" 

operation have a legendary status 

within the intelligence community, 

said NGA Director Letitia A. Long in 

her introduction. 

Tony and his wife, Jonna, used 

film clips to explain the genesis and 

planning of the ruse that served as 

the basis for the book Tony Mendez 

co-wrote, “Argo: How the CIA and 

Hollywood Pulled off the Most 

Audacious Rescue in History,” and 

the 2012 Hollywood hit “Argo.”

While serving as chief of disguise 

in CIA’s Office of Technical Service, 

which created the gadgets and 

disguises used by officers and agents 

alike, Tony Mendez conceived and 

planned the operation to free the 

diplomats, he said.

The extreme circumstances fueled 

Tony Mendez’s creativity as he 

plotted the operation that led the six 

Americans to safety, he said. He and 

others created a cover story in which 

he and the six Americans portrayed 

themselves as members of a film crew 

that had flown to Iran to scout filming 

locations. The ruse allowed them to 

fly out of Tehran under the watchful 

eye of the revolutionary guards and 

their supporters.

NOT LONG AGO, JACOB GULACK WAS A 

Fresno, California, teenager trying to 

figure out his life’s direction. Today, 

he’s an award-winning Army staff 

sergeant mapping out a career in 

geospatial intelligence.

Gulack is a cyber-infrastructure 

team squad leader serving in the 

Army GEOINT Battalion at the 

National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency in Springfield, Virginia, who 

embodies the “total solider concept,” 

said his supervisor, Sgt. 1st Class 

David Samuelson. 

“His soldier skills, his training and 

his work as an imagery analyst earn 

him respect,” said Samuelson. 

“Gulack won the National Ground 

Intelligence Center’s Best Warrior 

Competition 2013,” said Samuelson. 

“He was nominated as the 

Geointelligence Midgrade Analyst of 

the Quarter, and he’s received several 

Army commendation medals.”

Gulack’s work on a joint 

intelligence endeavor enabled the 

discovery of valuable opposition 

data on electrical infrastructure and 

power-flow dynamics, according to 

official Army records. The records 

characterized his accomplishment as 

unprecedented for someone of his 

rank and experience.

When he first entered the Army, 

Gulack said he was just another 

solider pushing a broom. Life 

changed for him three years ago when 

he was sent to training to become an 

imagery analyst. 

“I didn’t know what an imagery 

analyst was three years ago,” 

said Gulack.

Today he attributes his success to his 

passion for the job and his coworkers.

“I love what I do and the people I 

work with” said Gulack. “Our team is 

out there doing great things.”

Gulack’s team of imagery analysts 

works with intelligence analysts as 

part of NGA’s Source Directorate 

Fusion branch. “In all-source 

intelligence, we fuse products 

together, make overall products and 

send to the customers,” said Gulack.

No longer a 19-year-old who isn’t 

sure what we wants, at 24, Gulack is 

focused, driven and excited about the 

work he’s doing, he said. 

“We’re supporting national-level 

intelligence products all across 

military and civilian agencies, and 

the team I work on is the best in the 

military,” he said.

“You come in to work and you 

can see the big picture of what 

you’re doing — it makes you want 

to work even harder,” said Gulack. 

“It makes you want to strive harder 

to make these things happen so that 

the products you’re sending to the 

customer have even more of an impact.”

Know a service member worthy 

of an NGA Salute? Send your 

suggestion to Pathfinder@nga.mil. 

"Positioning the Coast 

Guard alongside NGA 

allows both sides to better 

prepare for ever-changing 

threats and deliver timerelevant GEOINT products 

to our customers. Although 

we must be prepared to 

respond, we must also 

be able to anticipate 

security events requiring 

a Coast Guard response. 

Being here at NCE 

does just that."

— Lt. j.g. Justin Walters

Coast Guard assistant commandant for intelligence and criminal investigations, Rear Adm. 

Christopher J. Tomney, and NGA Director Letitia A. Long cut a ribbon July 14, officially opening the 

new USCG detachment at NCE. Photo by Kevin Clark, Office of Corporate Communications
6 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 7

Open source opens door to public innovation at NGA

By Jacquelyn Karpovich, Office of Corporate Communications

THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE 

Agency in April established an 

official organizational account on the 

popular code repository site Github 

and began posting software code for 

open-source development.

NGA Director Letitia Long 

discussed the move during her 

April 15 keynote at the GEOINT 

symposium in Tampa, Florida, noting 

the opportunity it affords the agency. 

“It’s another great example of how 

we can be innovative,” said Long. 

“Most folks might think, ‘You are an 

intelligence agency and you put your 

software code out there?’ Yes. We did.” 

Long’s buy-in on the effort is 

impressive, said GitHub’s Ben Balter, 

a former presidential innovation 

fellow, who watched a video of her 

GEOINT symposium speech in April.

“The director knew what open 

source and GitHub (are, and she) 

spoke passionately about the potential 

at GEOINT,” said Balter. “Not many 

other agencies have that type of topdown buy-in. That's incredible.” 

It’s also noteworthy that NGA 

released something that has value to 

the community, said Balter. It didn’t 

put code out for the sake of putting 

out code.

“It's well documented, issues are 

tracked in the open, and contributions 

are readily accepted from the 

community,” said Balter. 

Code for GeoQ, software 

developed and advanced by NGA and 

the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency, was the first to be shared, 

said Ray Bauer, technology lead 

for NGA’s Integrated Work Group 

Readiness, Response and Recovery. 

GeoQ allows NGA and first 

responders to quickly merge multiple 

sources of imagery, resulting in 

faster damage assessments and better 

resource prioritization in a timesensitive environment.

NGA released code for GeoEvents 

software, developed jointly between 

NGA and MITRE Corporation, in 

May, said Bauer. GeoEvents gives 

users a customizable common 

operational picture for tracking events, 

such as natural disasters, and has been 

used by deployers and first responders 

in over 100 real-world events.

“We are accelerating collaborative 

development efforts to ensure the 

Web application capabilities meet 

essential emergency response needs 

in preparation for the upcoming storm 

season,” he said. 

The goal is for GeoQ to be used 

as a significant analytic tool for the 

local, state and federal response 

communities during this hurricane 

season and other crisis response events.

“This is another first for NGA,” 

said Bauer. “We are continuing to 

expand our development partnerships 

and bonus off a growing pool of 

shared resources while changing 

the business model for software 

development as well as changing the 

standard for crisis response”

The latest NGA releases on Github 

are a Request-for-Information 

Generator and GeoWave, said Bauer. 

The RFI Generator simplifies the RFI 

creation and management process 

for first responders supporting 

relief efforts. It was used during 

hurricanes Isaac and Sandy, flooding 

in Boulder, Colorado, and mudslides 

in Snohomish County, Washington. 

GeoWave is a multidimensional 

indexing layer for searching big data. 

“NGA has at least five more 

code repositories that we plan 

to make available on GitHub 

as they make their way through 

NGA’s release process,” said Chris 

Rasmussen, NGA’s lead for the 

GitHub initiative. 

Releasing open-source code also 

achieves a number of goals for the 

agency, both strategic and practical, 

said Rasmussen. It gives back 

taxpayer-funded projects and helps 

reset expectations between the 

public and the intelligence community. 

It also provides the benefits of rapid 

prototyping, and the code can 

actually end up being more secure 

due to the transparency of opensource improvements.

Open source provides government 

the opportunity to create communities 

around shared challenges, and 

keeps communities from reinventing 

the wheel each time, said Balter. 

“If NGA creates something great, 

and GSA uses it, everyone wins,” 

said Balter. 

shaped NGA operations, influenced tradecraft

By Jason Moll, Office of Corporate Communications

On April 2, 2000, nearly a 

Gulf War

decade after the Gulf War, 

a Marine Corps CH-46 

Sea Knight helicopter from 

Marine Medium Helicopter 

Squadron 166 flies over 

Kuwait City during a special 

operations exercise. U.S. 

forces continue to conduct 

regular training exercises 

with Kuwaiti armed forces. 

U.S. Marine Corps photo by 

Gunnery Sgt. Glenn Holloway

May 2013 Executive Order, Making 

Open and Machine Readable the New 

Default for Government Information —

Openness in government strengthens 

our democracy, promotes the delivery 

of efficient and effective services to the 

public, and contributes to economic 

growth. As one vital benefit of open 

government, making information 

resources easy to find, accessible, 

and usable can fuel entrepreneurship, 

innovation, and scientific discovery 

that improves Americans' lives and 

contributes significantly to job creation. 

WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV

NEARLY A QUARTER CENTURY HAS PASSED 

since the U.S. and other members 

of a multinational coalition began 

assembling forces in Saudi Arabia in 

response to Iraqi President Sadaam 

Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. 

That defensive operation, known 

as Desert Shield ultimately, placed 

three-quarters of a million troops 

between Hussein and the border of 

Saudi Arabia and led to Operation 

Desert Storm, an offensive that began 

Jan. 17, 1991, and within days drove 

Hussein’s invading forces back 

into Iraq.

Analysts at organizations that 

would later become the National 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency were 

among those providing intelligence 

support to President George H.W. 

Bush and other U.S. leaders in the 

buildup, deployment and execution of 

Operations Desert Shield and Storm. 

During Desert Shield, analysts 

with the National Photographic 

Interpretation Center, an NGA 

predecessor, and other agencies 

kept U.S. leaders apprised of events 

unfolding in the region. The Defense 

Mapping Agency – also an NGA 

"We appreciate the 

support of the NGA. 

Our initiative seeks 

to demonstrate how we 

can implement locationbased technology and 

effectively distribute 

information to first 

responders and others 

quickly in the event of 

local emergencies."

— Tommy Battle, Huntsville Mayor
8 Pathfinder 

• Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014

9

1990

1991

DESERT SHIELD/ DESERT STORM TIMELINE

Aug. 2 

Iraq invades Kuwait. 

Aug. 3 

United Nations Security Council, or 

UNSC, calls for Iraq to leave Kuwait. 

Aug. 6 

UNSC imposes a worldwide ban on 

trade with Iraq. 

Aug. 8 

Iraq annexes Kuwait as its 19th 

province. U.S. Air Force jets arrive in 

Saudi Arabia. 

Nov. 29 

UNSC authorizes “all necessary 

means” to expel Iraq from Kuwait 

and sets Jan. 15 deadline. 

Jan. 15 

UN ultimatum to Iraq expires. 

Jan. 17

Coalition forces launch air and 

missile strikes on targets in Iraq 

and Kuwait. Operation Desert 

Storm begins at 3 a.m. The air 

offensive targets Iraqi air defenses, 

communication networks, weapons 

plants, and oil refineries. 

Feb. 24 

(8 p.m. EST Feb. 23) Coalition ground 

campaign officially begins. Desert 

Sabre ground offensive begins. 

Coalition forces invade Iraq and 

Kuwait from northeastern Saudi 

Arabia. “The liberation of Kuwait has 

entered the final phase,” President 

Bush tells nation. At least 200 oil 

wells on fire in Kuwait. 

Feb. 27 

After 43 days of combat, U.S. 

President George H.W. Bush 

suspends offensive military 

operations and “lays out conditions 

for permanent cease fire.” “Kuwaiti 

troops raise emirate’s flag in Kuwait 

City.” Coalition forces suspend 

offensive operations exactly 100 

hours after the ground campaign 

began. 

"During the campaign, analysts viewed enemy forces 

on satellite imagery, then processed the imagery 

with a special measurement technique to identify 

their precise geographic location." 

— Scott Lang

U.S. Marines 

assigned to the 2nd 

Marine Division's 

Charlie Company, 

1st Battalion, move 

out on a mission after 

disembarking from a 

CH-46E Sea Knight 

helicopter during 

Exercise Imminent 

Thunder, part of 

Operation Desert 

Shield. U.S. Air 

Force photo by Tech. 

Sgt. H. H. Deffner

Pallets and containers of equipment sit in a logistics 

support area during Operation Desert Shield. U.S. 

Army photo by Staff Sgt. F. Lee Cockran

257,000 copies of 19 different versions 

of escape and evasion charts.

25,000

Special Desert Storm bloodchits. 

12,000 individual products printed 

on 100 million sheets. 

35 million charts printed. 

600 digital products. 

U.S. Transportation Command moved more 

than 55 C-5s filled with maps from the 

U.S. to the Middle East, enough to fill 130 

18-wheel trucks.

8,000 tactical target locations 

determined during the offensive stage 

of operations. 

1900 unique maps and charts produced 

and over 56 million paper maps printed 

by DMA Aerospace Center. 

PRODUCTS OF DESERT SHIELD/ DESERT STORM

forerunner – created maps and charts 

that helped the U.S. military and 

its partners understand the desert 

terrain, coastal waterways and harbor 

approaches in the Persian Gulf. 

DMA employees worked 10- to 

12-hour days six days a week as the 

agency moved to 24-hour operations 

to update old products and create new 

ones, according to documents from 

NGA’s Historical Research Center. 

DMA also created 19 different kinds 

of escape and evasion charts to assist 

service members behind enemy lines 

and a special “blood chit” that 

guaranteed a monetary reward for 

civilians helping downed aviators 

avoid capture. 

Maps were so important that the 

U.S. Central Command gave them 

equal billing with medical supplies, 

weapons and ammunition, according 

to archival documents. 

DMA maps were the foundation on 

which imagery analysts identified the 

positions of Iraqi forces, said NGA 

GEOINT analyst Dennis Stephen 

Dumain, who was then an Army 

chief warrant officer. Various imagery 

exploitation activities merged with 

NPIC and DMA in 1996 to form 

the National Imagery and Mapping 

Agency, NGA’s direct predecessor. 

During the campaign, analysts 

viewed enemy forces on satellite 

imagery, then processed the imagery 

with a special measurement technique 

to identify their precise geographic 

location, said NGA staff officer Scott 

Lang, also an Army chief warrant 

officer. Once analysts obtained the 

coordinates, they placed a map under 

a transparent overlay, on which they 

marked the enemy’s positions. 

“We used acetate overlays to lay 

down where all of the tanks, artillery, 

trenches, new roads and logistics 

were,” said Dumain. “It was a very 

labor-intensive process, especially 

when we needed to mark the location 

of individual pieces (of equipment).”

While imagery analysis was 

tedious, disseminating the 

intelligence products was even 

harder, said Lang. The early 1990s 

were at the cusp of the digital 

revolution, and transmitting a digital 

image took between 30 minutes and 

three hours. Many products were only 

delivered by classified couriers, who 

traveled throughout Washington and 

the greater Middle East. 

“We didn’t have a good way of 

sending graphics like we do now,” said 

Lang. “So, we would often just send 

(warfighters) a list of coordinates of 

where things were.”

Imagery analysts provided 

insight into the location of military 

equipment, said John Crilley, NGA’s 

Iraq Issues branch chief, who served 

as an Army staff sergeant during the war.

Precision became more important 

than ever as Iraqis hid their weapons 

in orchards and beside mosques and 

other civilian locations and used their 

destruction as propaganda, said Lang. 

Clouds and adverse weather 

limited the capabilities of satellites 

and other imagery assets, said Army 

Brig. Gen. John F. Stewart Jr. in his 

review of military intelligence in 

Operation Desert Storm. Assets were 

likewise constrained in their ability 

to capture wide-area photos with 

high resolution. Military intelligence 

also did not have a robust digital 

transmission system. 

Before offensive operations began, 

some of the Army’s imagery analysts 

were reassigned to the Army’s Digital 

Imagery Transmission System located at 

the in Washington Navy Yard. The Army 

analysts were asked to provide some 

final imagery intelligence requirements. 

“They brought us the big plan for 

the big push, and they said, ‘we need 

these locations,’” said Lang. “And we 

spent the entire weekend producing 

a stack of images, maybe a foot high, 

giving them anything that was forward 

— lines of communications, target 

areas, fuel replenishment locations and 

landing zones.”

The intensity of their work diminished 

once the campaign began, and they 

stood by to provide any additional 

support warfighters requested, said Lang.

Continued on page 10
10 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 11

During the five 

months of Desert 

Shield, the U-2 

flew 284 sorties

and 2726.2 hours, 

averaging nearly 

57 sorties and 

over 545 hours 

per month.

During the six 

weeks of Desert 

Storm, the U-2 

flew 260 sorties 

and 2022.5 hours, 

averaging over 43

sorties and 337 

hours per week. 

Authorities 

estimated that 

the U-2 provided 

about 50 percent 

of all imagery 

intelligence and 

30 percent of total 

intelligence for 

the war.

U-2 BY THE NUMBERS

10

per month

50%

per week

12

UNSC resolutions passed against 

Iraq. 

34

Countries participating in U.S.-led 

coalition. 

300,000

Iraqi troops occupying Kuwait. 

750,000

Coalition troops participating 

in Operation Desert Shield by 

Jan. 1991. 

540,000

U.S. personnel. 

63,000

Iraqi POWs. 

8,000 – 10,000 

Iraqi forces killed in action.

300

Coalition killed action. 

DESERT STORM/ DESERT SHIELD BY THE NUMBERS

“ONCE it started, there really 

wasn’t that much we could do,” said 

Lang. “It was moving so fast and 

furious that we simply sat back and 

watched what was going on. We were 

doing some analysis and (battlefield) 

damage assessments, but we couldn’t 

keep up with them because they were 

moving so fast.” 

Imagery analysts contributed 

greatly to the destruction of enemy 

tanks, said Dumain.

“Our (imagery analysts) had a 

pretty good idea about where every 

other (enemy) tank was,” said 

Dumain. “And (U.S. forces) were 

knocking them out left and right 

because they could reach much 

farther than the Iraqis.”

In the following decade, the rusty 

carcasses of destroyed Iraqi tanks 

prompted pilots to call in reports, 

said Crilley.

“Years afterwards we were still 

plotting those tanks to keep people 

straight,” said Crilley. “There were so 

many tanks out there that pilots would 

sometimes call and say Iraq was 

about to invade Kuwait all over again. 

I ended up doing a big study on that.” 

Military commanders praised 

NGA’s predecessors for helping 

them visualize the battle space 

and pinpoint enemy forces.

“No combat commander has 

ever had as full and complete a 

view of his adversary as did our 

field commander (Army Gen. H. 

Norman Schwarzkopf),” said Army 

Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 

1993, in an historical account of 

the Gulf War. 

The analysts now marvel at how 

far technology and tradecraft have 

evolved since the first Gulf War. 

“Back then, it took a long time to 

get the warfighter our products, but 

now you can clip an image and send 

it forward almost instantaneously,” 

said Crilley. “We all learned a lot 

from the criticisms during that war, 

and I think, in the long run, (they) 

helped make us better.”

Continued from page 8

INSPIRING INNOVATION:

Multi-INT, collaboration add value to IC investments

By Regina Galvin, Office of Corporate Communications

Photo by Tony Boone, Office of Corporate Communications

INNOVATION IS THE PROCESS OF INTRODUCING NEW IDEAS AND METHODS INTO 

the status quo. An intelligence community initiative, the Art of 

Multi-INT, and it’s progeny, the Multi-INT Tradecraft Community of 

Practice, is trying to do just that, said Phil Hwang, technical executive 

for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency support team to the 

National Reconnaissance Office. 

In interviews with the Pathfinder, Hwang and Melissa Pacak, branch 

chief for the tradecraft operations branch in the Office of Analytic Plans 

and Programs, address the origins of AOMI, the evolution of MINT-TCoP and how they hope tradecraft collaboration can bring additional 

value to the IC investments in technology, infrastructure and data sharing.

TO ADVANCE OUR MISSION CAPABILITIES FOR (THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL 

Intelligence’s) intelligence-integration vision. AOMI is about the 

practice and sharing of multi-INT tradecraft. Innovative analytical 

tradecrafts are being invented every day by analysts and collection 

officers to solve some of the most wicked intelligence problems, 

but their creation is only known within their small group. We will 

shortchange our mission if their findings are not captured, documented 

and scaled in a way to be discoverable and shareable. This would 

allow these innovations to solve other problems and drive continuous 

collaborative creation of new tradecrafts.

AOMI IS A GRASSROOTS EFFORT TO IMPROVE INTELLIGENCE THROUGH 

leveraging multi-INT tradecraft. Its objectives are to discover and 

share the community’s best tradecraft of Multi-INT analysis; to foster 

collaboration across functional disciplines; to identify multi-INT 

challenges and solution approaches; and to generate ideas and actions 

for multi-INT opportunities to advance our intelligence mission.

The 2013 AOMI was a huge success and was driven top-down 

by an Integrated Product Team with the senior representation for 11 

IC organizations including ODNI and USD. They saw the value of 

focusing on sharing multi-INT tradecraft in the IC. They selected eight 

AOMI deep-dive round table topics they deemed most critical to bring 

practitioners of multi-INT analysis from across the community to share 

the results of their analysis (and) their knowledge (and) intellectual 

know-how with each other. Seven topics were mission based, with only 

one cross-cutting roundtable on Tradecraft Capture and Documentation, 

which I co-moderated with Eric Vessey from the National Security Agency.

AOMI roundtable moderators spent more than eight hours with the 

IPT on recommendations from the nearly 300 AOMI contributors. The 

IPT organized and ranked all recommendations into 27 actions. They 

voted that the No. 1 priority was the establishment of a grass-root, 

multi-INT tradecraft community of practice. ODNI took the action and 

asked Eric and I to lead this effort and the MINT-T-CoP was born.

PHIL, WHY IS THE ART OF 

MULTI-INT IMPORTANT TO THE 

INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY?

MELISSA, YOU WERE ONE OF THE 

FIVE LEADERS OF THE SECOND 

ART OF MULTI-INT COMMUNITY 

INNOVATION EXCHANGE IN 

MAY. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE 

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE 

AOMI AND MINT-T-COP?

U.S. Air Force U-2 Dragon 

Lady, photo by Master Sgt. 

Rose Reynolds

Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 11
12 Pathfinder 

• Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 13

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE 

BETWEEN INTEGRATED WORKING 

GROUPS AND THE MINT-T-COP?

IT SOUNDS LIKE 

CROWDSOURCING.

HOW DOES THE MINT-T-COP 

ACCELERATE THE GOAL 

OF BROADENING AND 

DEEPENING TRADECRAFT? 

WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT AOMI 

AND MINT-T-COP, AND WHY 

SHOULD PEOPLE CARE?

 HOW CAN MANAGEMENT HELP?

WHAT ARE THE CURRENT 

OBSTACLES TO CO-CREATING 

AND SHARING EFFORTS?

ANY SUCCESS STORIES SO FAR?

WHAT’S NEXT?

ALTHOUGH MINT-T-COP IS AN ICWIDE ENDEAVOR, PHIL HAS SAID 

GEOINT SHOULD BE THE CATALYST 

TO ADVANCE MULTI-INT. WHY?

HWANG: MINT-T-COP IS ABOUT SOLVING PROBLEMS THROUGH THE EXCHANGE 

of knowledge and crafts. It seeks to share and document tradecraft, 

going beyond learning to collaboratively creating new tradecrafts 

and best practices in real time. In the IC, the multi-INT community 

members share two important characteristics: 1) they work on very 

hard intelligence problems that do not yield to (single) INT approaches, 

and 2) they proactively reached outside of their silos to other INT 

experts to solve these problems. Multi-INT practitioners are a coalition 

of the passionate and one of intelligence integration and all-source’s 

best friends.

The MINT-T-CoP extends the concept of an integrated working 

group into open, self-organizing working groups at the grassroot level. 

The idea is a community that’s porous where people can come in, learn, 

share, collaborate and even leave. Mentoring is one of the best ways to 

share, learn and invent tradecraft. Traditionally, mentoring is practiced 

on a one-to-one basis where I learn more from Melissa than she does 

from me.

MINT-T-Cop is a group of the willing — IC-wide analysts coming 

together (with a) common cause and need to improve tradecraft 

practices to solve mission problems. While the focus is on sharing and 

capturing multi-INT tradecraft, single INT tradecrafts are 

always welcome.

HWANG: IT IS FOCUSED CROWDSOURCING ON KNOW-HOW (AND) TRADECRAFT. 

People within the different INTs will start recognizing that they have 

similar problems with similar fundamental characteristics. You’re 

trying to solve a timeline problem. I’m also trying to solve a timeline 

problem. We have totally different objectives, but the timeline is the 

underlying commonality. Once we recognize that, we can start building 

taxonomy between them. Many cognitive tradecrafts transcend the 

domain for which they were invented. By documenting and sharing 

tradecraft, we envision applying tradecraft invented for one issue to 

solve other problems – and even classes of problems.

HWANG: BY EXPOSING INNOVATIONS TO OTHERS IN THE MINT-T COP, 

tradecrafts will be critiqued ... by peers. But they don’t just critique. 

They also suggest ways to refine the ideas with wider application, 

resulting in new tradecraft. This is tradecraft co-creation. The director 

means broadening and deepening by continuously advancing tradecraft.

PACAK: THE SPARK OF CREATIVITY IS OFTEN BORN IN TIMES OF CRISIS – WHEN 

circumstances force individuals, organizations, and (communities) 

to do great things. Yet, when the smoke clears and the sweat dries, 

we walk away usually without capturing the critical “ah-ha” analytic 

breakthrough moments the crisis illuminated — those instances of 

lightning in a jar. 

If we don't capture and share tradecraft knowledge, those “ah-ha” 

cinders turn to ash without our notice. As part of tradecraft, we need to 

introduce urgency into the routine, to discover the lightning in the dayto-day business analysts, scientists and collection managers routinely 

conduct without notice. 

The MINT-T-CoP shares analysts' “ah-ha” moments by illuminating 

solutions that work for individuals and others with similar problems in 

processes and methods that capture best practices through collaboration 

by making tradecraft wisdom discoverable and sharable. These sparks 

become available to analysts in other mission areas and across the IC 

and Department of Defense. 

PACAK: PROFESSIONALLY, WE LACK VENUES TO EXCHANGE AND DISCOVER 

innovative ideas new analytic methodologies across mission and/or 

organizational boundaries. Technically, we do not have an easy, nonevasive way to capture our tradecraft knowledge, so we rely mostly 

on direct mentoring. The MINT-T-CoP is attacking these issues at 

the grassroots level and working bottom-up to help with the DNI’s 

Intelligence Integration objective. Intelligence integration is the sum 

of all-source, multi-INT and integrated tasking and collection.

HWANG: BY UNDERSTANDING, ALLOWING, ENCOURAGING AND EVEN REWARDING 

the sharing and capturing of tradecraft. For AOMI, analysts and 

collection officers are enthusiastic. They say, “This is great. We’d 

love to share. We have things that we have done that could help others 

and we’d love other people to know about it.” But almost in the same 

breath, they ask, ‘Would you mind smoothing it with my management? 

Otherwise, I’m not going to be allowed to participate.” I spend a lot 

of time talking to people’s management (so) people (are) allowed to 

share. It’s a new way of thinking. Once they understand the value, they 

generally are very supportive. This is why the community of practice 

is truly something that we need to help nurture and help establish.

PACAK: EVEN THOUGH THE COP IS IN ITS FORMATIVE INFANCY WITHOUT FORMAL 

documentation and metrics, we do have anecdotal successes. One 

analyst said they heard the solution for a problem they had been 

struggling with for years at a discussion for a totally different 

intelligence issue. It was the similarity in intelligence reasoning process 

that gave them the breakthrough. Another example from 2013 was the 

common complaint in several roundtables that analysts were “wasting” 

time foraging, organizing and conditioning data and workflow. When 

the same tool was offered by their peers as workable solutions for their 

own problems, the (use of) that tool quadrupled in a few months. 

PACAK: (FROM THE MAY EVENT) WE’RE LOOKING AT WHAT ACTIONABLE ITEMS 

we, as the MINT-T-CoP, can take action on. In August, we’re looking 

at holding some leadership/organizational meetings. We have a skeleton 

structure now — we’re looking at solidifying our structure in the 

August timeframe. We’re also looking at a MINT-T-CoP kickoff and 

another AOMI forum in November.

HWANG: MULTI-INT IS STEEPED IN GEOINT. THE MULTI-INT COMMUNITY IS STILL 

small, but every one of these groups has a need for GEOINT expertise 

— because you’ve got to know where, you’ve got to know when, 

and you want to anticipate intent early enough to allow our clients to 

take actions. Otherwise, it’s not actionable intelligence. GEOINT is 

foundational to multi-INT. GEOINT should help advance it. 

AOMI is sponsored by the MINT-T-CoP to encourage analysts and collection 

managers to share and exchange tradecraft knowledge in a roundtable 

Socratic discussion. At the inner circle of the roundtable are practitioners 

from across the community, selected based on mission or topic. The 

outer circle includes observers charged with listening and receiving. 

The observers represent supporting or enabling communities, such as 

R&D, technology, training and education. The forum allows communities 

represented by the observers to gain insights from the grassroots level of 

their customer or constituent base.
14 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 15

14

Common products lead to analytic innovation

By Dale Lehner, Office of Corporate Communications

THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE 

Agency’s Advanced Visualization 

Branch, known as ASCSV, is taking 

imagery to new heights of usefulness 

for the warfighter and customer, and 

they are doing it with commonly 

used off-the-shelf software.

The branch uses advanced 

geospatial and 3-D modeling tools 

to perform precise measurements, 

feature extraction and high-resolution 

terrain generation using available 

geospatial data and imagery, said 

Dave Bonner, ASCSV chief. The 

branch created a geo-referenced 

3-D PDF, known as Geo3D 

PDF, to give customers highly 

detailed, geospatially accurate 3-D 

visualizations based on imagery, 

“For our interactive visualization 

products to be useful, they must meet 

three criteria,” said Bonner. “They 

need to be easy to use, deliverable 

via email and require no specialized, 

extra software on our customer’s 

computer. More importantly, the 

products needed to be geo-referenced 

— after all, that’s the ‘G’ in NGA.” 

Adding geo-referenced 

information to the 3-D PDFs image 

models virtually places the model in 

the same position on earth as the real 

object, allowing accurate coordinates 

to be reported, said Bonner. This 

gives the user the feeling of being 

“on-scene” at the actual location and 

allows them to derive defensive and 

offensive locations for the area. The 

branch has had the ability to produce 

rudimentary 3-D PDFs that met the 

first three criteria for some time, but 

were not able to geo-reference 

their products. 

“My branch has always taken 

painstaking steps to ensure 

the geospatial accuracy of our 

interactive products,” said Robin 

Kang, a software developer and 3-D 

visualization specialist with ASCSV. 

“However when our products were 

packaged into 3-D PDFs, all the georeferencing information was lost.” 

Kang found a promising software 

solution that was compatible, but the 

licensing cost was a show-stopper, 

he said. The software also needed a 

plug-in — a plug-in customers may 

not have. The next step for Kang 

was to look for software that allows 

implementation of new functionality 

within 3-D PDFs without the need 

for plug-ins. 

“I was able to leverage (the 

software) to develop the new georeferenced 3-D PDF capability,” said 

Kang. "The Geo3D PDF features 

mouse-over, geo-coordinate readout, 

dynamic compass and azimuth 

reporting, and basic point-to-point 

distance measurements.” 

Kang then tackled the problem of 

presenting Web-based, large scale, 

real-time 3-D scene visualizations to 

a broad customer base, he said. 

Though the technology is primarily 

geared toward the manufacturing 

industry for archiving parts and 

other assets in 3-D, there are many 

distribution advantages to using 3-D 

PDFs for NGA customers, said Kang. 

Looking for the next level of 

product that gives NGA’s customer 

the advantage is always at the 

forefront of the branch’s mission, 

said Bonner. 

There are a lot of gaming engines 

that could make NGA’s products 

more effective for customers, said 

Kang. Unfortunately, customers can’t 

always run the executable programs 

or install the special software these 

products need.

After extensive research, Kang 

found that a common platform on 

computer systems would work 

without specialized software, he 

said. He used the accelerated graphic 

capabilities of the program with 

Away3D, an open-source, scriptbased, real time 3-D engine for 

Adobe Flash. He leveraged Away3D 

to bring the capability to NGA’s 

systems without installing software. 

Kang added many innovative 

advantages to Away3D for the end 

user, including a new workflow 

for optimizing and loading 3-D 

geometry and texture assets into 

the framework, he said. The 

enhancements also include intuitive 

3-D navigation controls, dynamic 

compass display and a mouse-over 

geo-coordinate readout, an interface 

to facilitate scene navigation, 

interactive map legends, annotations 

within the 3-D scene, and a Webbased 3-D visualization product 

to accompany an official NGA 

intelligence report. 

The immediate prime beneficiaries 

of the Web-based, 3-D visualization 

product are NGA analysts, said 

Bonner. It can be highly customized 

with layers of intelligence, icons, 

links, etc., and some customers are 

already feeling the benefits. 

The accomplishments are just the 

beginning, said Kang, who has more 

ideas for future Away3D products.

“The Away3D product will enable 

higher fidelity visualization of 

larger footprints, better interactive 

performance and unlimited 

customization which will be highly 

beneficial for all customers,” 

said Bonner. “Browser-based 

3-D visualization, requiring no 

specialized browser plug-in, is the 

product of the future — Robin is 

making this a reality.”

Exercise helps beat blahs, stimulate noggin

By Regina Galvin, Office of Corporate Communications

WANT TO BE INNOVATIVE? TRY HITTING 

the gym.

Dowell Davis, a personal trainer 

for the fitness center at the National 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s 

Springfield, Virginia, campus, touts 

the benefits of a physical workout as 

a good way to bring innovation to 

your work endeavors.

“Fitness isn’t about aesthetics,” 

said Davis. “If you feel good, you’re 

going to perform well in your 

personal and professional life.” 

Davis’s colleague and fellow 

personal fitness trainer, Collette 

Mason, agrees. A workout in your 

work day offers a much needed 

mental break, she said.

“I definitely think the gym can 

be an outlet for innovation,” said 

Mason. “A workout can take your 

mind off of the problem or project. It 

helps free up your mind. Afterward, 

you feel refreshed and ready to go 

back and tackle the situation.”

Stress is an innovation obstacle, 

said Ronnie Hinton, a strength 

conditioning coach at the center.

“Stress can inhibit performance,” 

said Hinton. “Studies have shown 

that exercise relieves stress. If you 

work out you’ll feel better about 

yourself — you recharge your 

batteries and your brain.”

While the benefits of exercise and 

stress reduction are well known, 

cognitive psychology research in 

the last decade has found links 

between exercise and increased 

creativity, according to a study by 

Professor Lorenza Colzato of Leiden 

University in The Netherlands. The 

findings of her study were published 

in 2013 in the scholarly publication 

"Frontiers in Human Neuroscience." 

Colzato found that those who 

exercised at least four times a week 

thought more creatively than their 

more sedentary counterparts. 

NGA police Sgt. Shawn Beachley 

agrees with the idea that if you need 

some creative inspiration, you need 

to get moving. 

“Absolutely nothing beats oxidized 

blood to the brain to perform at a more 

optimal level,” said Beachley. “When 

(I’m) stressed out, it’s hard to focus 

on the task at hand. After a workout, 

(I) get an endorphin boost, which can 

lead to a burst of inspiration.”

A change in routine via a trip to 

the gym helps Steve Craig, a 

technical data integration analyst, 

be more innovative, he said. 

“Sometimes you can get caught 

up in going to meetings and reading 

the email streams,” said Craig. “I 

find that even the walk from the 

workplace to the gym is beneficial.” 

The change in environment and 

the physical exercise has multiple 

benefits, said Craig.

A screen shot of a 3-D PDF of an area of Sochi, Russia, created in support of the 2014 Winter 

Olympics. NGA Image

“When I’m here working out, and 

I’m thinking about an objective I’m 

trying to reach, I think differently,” 

said Craig. “And the workout allows 

me to stay in shape.”

As a personal fitness trainer, Davis 

is aware that getting people to walk 

away from their desks and into the 

gym requires motivation, he said.

“Everyone has a different way 

to get motivated,” said Davis. 

“Everyone has a different story. I am in 

the business of selling optimism. One 

way I do that is through quotes.” 

Davis created a motivation wall 

at the fitness center and populated 

it with random quotes, encouraging 

the reader to “Savor Every Victory,” 

“Expect Success” and “Embrace 

and Conquer Failure.” 

An Elvis Presley quote on the 

wall, “Ambition is a dream with 

a V-8 engine,” is his favorite, 

said Davis. 

Employees who want to try to 

drive their own innovative ideas 

into high gear through exercise, 

can hit the fitness centers at the 

NGA’s Springfield and St. Louis 

locations, which are open to all 

NGA employees 24 hours a day, 

seven days a week. 

The centers offer a variety of 

classes, including cardiovascular, 

strength and flexibility, and weight 

management and lifestyle change. 

CAREERS, INTERNSHIPS & SCHOLARSHIPS 

FOR EXPLORERS, INNOVATORS & PROBLEM-SOLVERS

AND WE’LL SHOW YOU WHAT THE 

NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

CAN DO FOR YOU.

NGA WILL BE ACCEPTING INTERNSHIP AND 

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS SEPT. 2 – OCT. 10. 

www.nga.mil

ASK WHAT 

YOU CAN DO 

FOR YOUR COUNTRY

Pathfinder • Summer 2014 15
16 Pathfinder 

• Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 17

A LITTLE MORE THAN 45 YEARS AGO, 

astronauts Neil Armstrong and 

Buzz Aldrin stepped out of the 

Apollo 11 spacecraft and onto 

the moon’s surface. When they 

and fellow astronaut Michael 

Collins returned to Earth 

four days later, they fulfilled 

President John F. Kennedy’s 

promise of eight years earlier 

to put a man on the moon and 

return him home safely by the 

end of the decade. 

A relatively new government 

agency known as the National 

NGA predecessors 

map moon, pave way 

for lunar exploration

By Jessica Daues, Office of Corporate Communications

NGA Archive images

Aeronautical and Space 

Administration played a 

major role in the mission, 

but NASA didn’t do it alone. 

Cartographers from predecessor 

agencies of the National 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

created detailed maps and charts 

of the lunar surface, which 

provided NASA scientists and 

technicians precise coordinates 

and optional landing sites. 

Formed in 1958, NASA 

faced some constraints on its 

capabilities, including a lack of 

personnel and expertise to map 

the surface of the moon, said 

Raymond Helmering, Ph.D., 

former lunar mapping technical 

project manager for the U.S. 

Air Force Aeronautical Chart 

and Information Center, or 

ACIC. The administration also 

was prohibited from duplicating 

the capabilities of other 

federal agencies.

So, in 1959, NASA funded 

a joint effort by ACIC of St. 

Louis and the U.S. Army 

Map Service, or AMS, of 

16 Pathfinder 

• Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 17
18 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 19

Family donates historic personal collection to NGA

By Jessica Daues, Office of Corporate Communications

THE FAMILY OF THE LATE THOMAS 

C. Finnie, former technical 

director of the Aeronautical 

Chart and Information Center 

and Defense Mapping Agency, 

recently donated about 30 

items from Finnie’s personal 

collection to NGA.

The items included a 

collection of 23 moon 

photographs presented to Finnie 

by the NASA for the assistance 

provided by ACIC and DMA to 

the moon landing efforts. 

“We are incredibly proud of 

our dad and what he did for our 

country,” said William Finnie, 

Thomas’ son. “The history here 

is just incredible. I knew more 

people would be able to see 

these items at NGA.”

The collection, which 

also includes awards, 

acknowledgements, 

photographs, lithographs and 

certificates, was stored at the 

Finnie home, said William 

Finnie. It will now be catalogued 

and become part of historical 

exhibits at NCW and NCE.

Thomas Finnie was one of 

the initial eight DOD planners 

who helped organize DMA 

in 1972. He retired from the 

federal government in 1974 and 

was inducted into the National 

Imagery and Mapping Agency 

Hall of Fame in 2001. He passed 

away in 2003.

The U.S. Geospatial 

Intelligence Foundation 

recently renamed its lifetime 

achievement award, the Arthur 

C. Lundahl–Thomas C. Finnie 

Lifetime Achievement Award, 

to honor Finnie.

Thomas Finnie's collection includes awards, photographs, 

certificates and more. 

Among the 23 photographs 

presented by NASA to 

Thomas C. Finnie in 

recognition of the ACIC 

and DMA’s help with 

moon landing efforts is a 

photograph of astronaut 

Buzz Adrin saluting an 

American flag on the 

moon. Image courtesy 

of NASA

Washington, D.C., both NGA 

predecessor agencies, to collect 

data to map the surface of the 

moon. Both ACIC and AMS 

had anticipated the need for 

lunar maps to support moon 

exploration and were already 

working hard at the task.

The tools available to 

cartographers then were much 

better than the telescope used 

by English mapmaker Thomas 

Harriot, who in 1609 created 

the first known maps of the 

moon. Astronauts on Apollo 

missions 8 and 10 had collected 

detailed stereo photography of 

the moon from about 100 miles 

above the surface, according to 

NASA.gov. 

The Apollo moon orbits 

also allowed cartographers to 

photograph and map the dark 

side of the moon, the side that 

always faces away from Earth, 

for the first time. 

But even the most detailed 

photographs couldn’t convey 

the moon’s surface features 

as accurately or usefully 

as cartographers could on 

their maps, Helmering said. 

Cartographers first identified 

and compensated for distortion 

in the moon photographs. By 

comparing many different 

photographs of a particular 

feature, such as a crater, they 

determined the feature’s true 

qualities, including height, 

diameter and depth. 

That precision was vital for 

NASA to land a spacecraft on 

the moon, said John Unruh, 

Ph.D., former cartographer 

and scientist with ACIC. 

The first of two main 

steps to create a lunar map 

is assembling the disparate 

“snapshots” of moon territory, 

said Helmering. It is similar to 

piecing together a jigsaw puzzle 

– only more exacting.

“You have to make sure 

whatever territory appears in 

one photograph appears again 

in an adjacent photograph,” 

he said. “The process to relate 

all the photographs is not 

trivial. It’s a mathematical 

process done with the help 

of computers.”

Cartographers then used 

photo-viewing equipment 

and computers to make 

measurements of the details 

of the photographs, ultimately 

creating a map, said Helmering.

“There was a cursor we could 

move, using levers, across 

the photos,” Helmering said. 

“The computer would record 

points and determine distances 

and shapes. It was computerassisted, but everything was 

captured by a cartographer.” 

ACIC and AMS produced 

hundreds of maps for NASA 

throughout the 1960s and '70s. 

During the 1969 fiscal year, 

ACIC created more than 300 

different cartographic products 

in support of five Apollo flights, 

and in FY'70 about 200. 

As many as 200 people at 

ACIC worked lunar mapping 

during its peak in the early 

1970s, including cartographers, 

geodesists and personnel from the 

photo lab, negative engraving 

and printing, said Unruh.

Included in the hundreds 

of products made by ACIC 

and AMS were 3-D plastic 

topographic maps of potential 

moon landing sites. 

“We would make several for 

each mission,” Helmering said. 

Cartographers first identified 

and compensated for distortion in 

the moon photographs. By comparing 

many different photographs 

of a particular feature, such as a 

crater, they determined the feature’s 

true qualities, including height, 

diameter and depth. 

The U.S. moon mission was a shared national priority. The Army Map Service created the chart above 

in support of that mission. NGA Archive image

“Astronauts would study them 

and evaluate which would be 

the best one for landing, and 

the best for doing whatever 

experiments they wanted to do. 

Maps we made were used to 

evaluate those sites and make 

those final selections.”

Unlike many analysts today 

at NGA, lunar cartographers at 

ACIC and AMS in the 1960s 

and '70s were able to talk about 

their work with their family and 

friends, said Helmering. At 

the time, many Americans were 

captivated by the idea of 

space exploration. 

The Apollo program was 

well publicized,” Helmering 

said. “The idea of putting a man 

on the moon was something 

everyone was talking about.”

With his part of the mission 

complete, Helmering was at 

a training course with fellow 

ACIC team members at Ohio 

State University in July 1969 

when Armstrong took his 

historic first steps on the 

moon, he said. Helmering 

remembers watching the 

event from a TV with about 

10 other ACIC trainees in the 

front room of a small house in 

Columbus that he and his 

wife were renting. 

“I had been involved in 

lunar work for a long time,” 

Helmering said. “But I wasn’t 

thinking about that. I was 

thinking about those guys 

up there and what that must 

have been like. It’s hard to 

figure out how someone has 

the courage to do that, to walk 

on the moon, something that 

had never been done before.

“We were just amazed 

that we were able to do that 

— that we were there,” 

said Helmering. “It was 

such a great achievement for 

the country.”
20 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 21

By Jason Moll, Office of Corporate Communications

Agency helps 

U.S., DOD execute 

Arctic strategy at

WHILE THE U.S. HAS HAD AN INTEREST IN THE ARCTIC SINCE IT 

purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, climate change 

has caused national leaders to develop new policies and 

strategies for the region. 

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has a key 

role in fulfilling the nation’s Arctic strategies because of its 

mission and ability to understand the land, sea and human 

activity, said Alan Goldberg, a scientist in the agency’s 

Source Directorate.

Warmer temperatures are causing the region’s ice to melt, 

which is exposing areas of land and water that have been 

covered for eons, said Goldberg. 

Canadian Coast Guard 

Ship Louis S. St-Laurent 

approaches U.S. Coast 

Guard Cutter Healy 

in the Arctic Ocean 

during a 2009 survey 

of the region. Photo by 

Petty Officer 3rd Class 

Patrick Kelley 

20 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 21
22 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder Pathfinder • Summer 2014 • Summer 2014 23

NGA’s Arctic activities 

include mapmaking, 

electro-optical and radar 

imagery to monitor natural 

and human activity, and 

products and services that 

enable safe navigation.

“It’s not melting at a steady rate, but actually is 

accelerating,” said Goldberg. “Less ice means less light and 

heat is being reflected back into space. The ocean ends up 

absorbing all of that energy, which causes more ice to melt.”

The melting of the polar ice has created newly navigable 

waterways and provided access to virtually untouched 

fisheries and large deposits of minerals, including 

petroleum, said Michael Parke, a senior technical analyst 

with the Frontier Studies and Analysis Group in NGA’s 

Office of Geospatial Intelligence Management. 

New access to the region’s resources has sparked a mad 

dash among Arctic countries and others hoping to profit, 

said Parke. Along with the U.S., the eight Arctic countries 

are Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and 

Denmark, through its association with Greenland.

Calling the Arctic one of the planet’s last great frontiers, 

President Barack Obama commissioned a policy paper in 

May 2013 that defined the nation’s interests and objectives 

in the polar region. The national strategy was followed by 

Department of Defense and Navy strategies in November 

2013 and February 2014. Together, the strategies outline 

U.S. government plans to protect its interests and achieve 

its objectives in the region. 

NGA’s Arctic activities include mapmaking, electrooptical and radar imagery to monitor natural and human 

activity, and products and services that enable safe 

navigation, said Goldberg. Commercial synthetic aperture 

radar, or SAR, is particularly helpful since it can peer 

through clouds and capture imagery during the region’s 

long nights. Commercial SAR coverage is also relatively 

robust, with each satellite making 14 passes per day over 

the high Arctic.

“Space-based remote sensing and communication 

systems are ideal for the region, given its remote 

location, sparse population and limited infrastructure,” 

said Goldberg. “These systems allow us to maintain an 

understanding of the Arctic’s land and water without 

having to physically be there.”

NGA’s expertise in safety of navigation will be needed 

as the region becomes what Secretary of Defense Chuck 

Hagel called “an evolving navigable ocean” when he 

introduced the DOD Arctic Strategy. 

Traffic in the Northern Sea Route, which links Russia’s 

Far East with Europe, has increased dramatically since 

mariners completed the first commercial crossing in 

2009. Seventy-one vessels transited the route in 2013, 

compared to 46 vessels in 2012, according to information 

from the Northern Sea Route Information Office, a private 

organization based in Norway.

NGA works with the National Ice Center, or NIC, a joint 

activity of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric 

Administration, Navy and Coast Guard, to advise mariners 

about where it is safe to travel in the Arctic, said Goldberg. 

NGA supplies NIC with SAR imagery that identifies 

regions of sea ice. NIC passes the information to mariners 

through bulletins and posts on its website.

NGA also responds to requests for information during 

special circumstances, like when the Coast Guard 

dispatched an ice-breaking vessel to Nome, Alaska, after 

the city’s port and approaches froze in the winter of 2011-

12, said Goldberg.

“NGA’s provision of SAR and (electro-optical) imagery 

was critical to helping the Coast Guard reach Nome and 

allow much-needed fuel and supplies to get in,” said 

Goldberg. “Ice breakers don’t travel in a straight line, but 

zigzag through whatever route is easiest—and fastest—to 

break. Time is of the essence during emergencies like this.”

NGA also uses underwater depth data, called bathymetry, 

to help produce charts the Navy and other mariners use to 

navigate, said Whitney Anderson, a bathymetrist in NGA’s 

Maritime Safety Office. NGA obtains raw bathymetric data 

from ships operating single and multi-beam sonars that 

ping the ocean floor to determine the depth and produces 

comprehensive maps with the information it obtains. 

“We have seen a marked increase in requests for 

information in the Arctic,” said Anderson. “And as the 

waterways expand, we’ll need even more bathymetric 

data to make sure our charts are as accurate as possible.” 

The value of safety of navigation goes beyond 

helping ships travel from one place to another, 

said Anderson. 

“Safety of navigation is a fundamental component of 

what we call ‘safety of life at sea,’” said Anderson. “The 

safety of navigation mission supports the preservation of 

life and commerce and supports the nation’s defense and 

the Navy’s dominance of the high seas.”

Policymakers also will increasingly rely on NGA’s 

mapping expertise to help define boundaries and settle 

disputes, said Anderson. 

“As the ice recedes and more areas of the Arctic 

become navigable, you’re seeing more debate among 

international parties and others about who has the rights 

to the area’s navigable sea lanes and minerals above and 

below the ocean floor,” said Anderson. 

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the 

Sea captures customary law as it relates to the world’s 

oceans, said Parke. The law states that a country has 

sovereignty rights extending 12 miles from its 

shoreline. A country also has exclusive economic rights 

up to 200 nautical miles from its shoreline. A country 

has rights to resources on or below the bottom on parts 

of the continental shelf beyond its exclusive economic 

zone. Since this includes oil, gas and minerals, this 

latter right has become contentious in many places 

including the Arctic.

The international community has yet to universally 

recognize all of the territorial agreements nations 

have made with each other, said Parke. The U.S. and its 

citizens have a direct interest in how these disagreements 

are resolved.

NGA’s work will be essential in helping the U.S. stay 

informed about what other nations and non-state actors 

are doing, said Parke. 

“It’s necessary for the U.S. to maintain a leadership 

position in the region,” said Parke. “At the same time, 

NGA and its partners are well-positioned to play a key 

role in informing (the nation’s) leadership about the 

changing nature of the Arctic.”

Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent and U.S. Coast 

Guard Cutter Healy work together in the Arctic Ocean Aug. 15, 2009. 

The two ships took part in a scientific effort to locate the outer edge of 

the North American extended continental shelf. Photo by USCG Petty 

Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley

Images acquired July 17 (right) and 

Aug. 3, 2012 (above), show changes in 

the ice coverage of the Parry Channel 

in the Northwest Passage. Though 

the images, captured by the Moderate 

Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer 

on NASA’s Terra satellite, show reduced 

ice cover, the ice may still be too thick 

for ships to navigate the channel, 

according to NASA Earth Observatory. 

Images by NASA Earth Observatory

BEFORE

AFTER

Melville Island

Victoria Island

Parry Channel

“The United States is an Arctic Nation with broad and fundamental 

interests in the Arctic Region, where we seek to meet our national 

security needs, protect the environment, responsibly manage resources, 

account for indigenous communities, support scientific research, and 

strengthen international cooperation on a wide range of issues.” — 

National Strategy for the Arctic Region, May 2013 (Originally 

published in National Security Strategy, May 2010)

Melville Island

Victoria Island

Parry Channel

Pathfinder • Summer 2014
24 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 25

DEVELOPERS AT THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIALIntelligence Agency are creating applications for 

wearable electronic devices that place analysts 

and customers in virtual and augmented-reality 

environments to help them do their jobs better.

The prototype applications created for Google 

Glass and Oculus Rift could serve as gateways 

to the immersive intelligence experience being 

advanced by NGA leadership, said Matthew 

McNerney, a visualization engineering subject 

matter expert in InnoVision, the agency’s research 

and development arm.

Google Glass allows users to see their 

surroundings while interacting with the device, 

creating an augmented reality. The device projects 

digital information on translucent spectacles 

and obtains Internet connectivity from a nearby 

smartphone. Oculus Rift is a pair of opaque 

goggles that allows users to visualize virtual 

environments while connected to a computer or 

gaming device. Google Glass received its mass 

market release in May, while Oculus Rift is only 

available as a development kit. 

“Immersion is touted as the next major phase 

of intelligence, while wearable (electronic) 

devices are seen as the next big thing in mobile 

computing,” said McNerney. “Putting them 

together seems like a natural fit.”

Wearable electronic devices are projected to 

eventually displace smartphones as the preferred 

mobile technology used by consumers, according 

to a January 2014 article in Wired magazine. 

Wearable electronic devices augur change for NGA 

operations, show ‘immersive’ potential

By Jason Moll, Office of Corporate Communications

Oblique view 

of the Ottawa, 

Canada LiDAR 

point cloud with 

points colored 

by elevation 

and intensity 

(screenshot 

from within QT 

Modeler)

Besides eyewear, mobile electronic devices 

include rings that facilitate mobile payments, 

bracelets that serve as fitness activity trackers, and 

Internet-enabled watches with integrated cameras. 

InnoVision is charged with executing the 

immersive intelligence vision outlined by 

NGA Director Letitia A. Long at the GEOINT 

symposium in April. Long characterized 

immersive intelligence as a world where 

practitioners will live, interact and experiment 

with data in a multimedia and multi-sensory 

experience. The immersive experience will help 

break down barriers between collectors, analysts, 

customers and decision makers, she said.

Immersing analysts and operators in data and 

information will help them generate new insights 

as they view and interact with source material 

from different perspectives, said McNerney. 

“By giving analysts a different kind of 

perspective, we’re hoping they will be able to 

more rapidly derive information from it and obtain 

meaningful intelligence from the imagery and 

other products they’re analyzing,” said McNerney.

NGA’s Google Glass application is designed 

to enhance the situational awareness of field 

operators working special security events or 

sensitive law enforcement investigations, said 

Zachary Swain, who wrote the application while 

working in InnoVision. It allows the user to 

send and receive information to another NGA 

application that creates a common operational 

picture, or COP, over the Web. Working together, 

the applications help others understand what the 

operator is observing in the field. 

Wearing Google Glass also limits many of 

the common distractions users experience when 

holding smartphones or other handheld devices, 

said Ben Tuttle, Ph.D., who created the COP 

application as the mobile apps team lead for 

NGA’s Geospatial Intelligence Advancement 

Testbed in Denver.

Originally conceived for gamers, Oculus Rift 

allows users to visualize and navigate virtual 

environments in three dimensions, or 3-D.

An NGA prototype application created by Tim 

Hattenberger, a visualization subject matter expert 

in InnoVision, lets users navigate 3-D “point 

clouds” created by light detection and ranging, or 

LiDAR, scans. Fundamentally similar to radar, 

each LiDAR point in a point cloud was obtained 

by scanning an area with pulses of laser light that 

identify an object’s range, or position in space. 

When coupled with a LiDAR city scan, Oculus 

Rift lets users virtually fly over a city or walk 

along its streets. The 3-D point cloud creates a 

city scene replete with trees, power lines, light 

poles and buildings.

Analysts primarily view LiDAR point cloud 

products on their computer screens, which gives 

them a top-down, or two-dimensional view, said 

Eric Aasted, an InnoVision project scientist. 

Oculus Rift could change that by providing users 

with a 3-D perspective, while also facilitating 

collaboration in a way similar to multiplayer 

online games.

“By immersing themselves in the same data, 

Oculus Rift could let two analysts see (their 

avatars), walk across the landscape, annotate what 

they see and communicate what they’re seeing—

all in real time—and even if they are in different 

(physical) locations,” said Aasted.

While wearable electronic devices like Google 

Glass and Oculus Rift could serve as gateways 

to the immersive intelligence experience, that 

experience is only likely to occur when devices 

work in concert with each other, said McNerney.

“When you have two devices communicating 

with each other, the sum becomes greater than 

each part working alone,” said McNerney. 

“That’s the idea of convergence, where two or 

more devices can provide capabilities that weren’t 

possible before.” 

"The prototype applications created 

for Google Glass and Oculus Rift could 

serve as gateways to the immersive 

intelligence experience being advanced 

by NGA leadership." 

— Matthew McNerney 

Screenshot of what is rendered to the Oculus Rift from the 

perspective of the marker in the middle of the intersection. 

The Oculus Rift allows the viewer to be immersed in the 

data, and get a first-hand perspective of what is visible 

from any given location. 
26 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 27

APPLICATION DEVELOPERS AT THE NATIONAL 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have 

created a unique application for Google 

Glass that enhances situational awareness 

for operators in the field.

Developers believe the application 

could be used during special security 

events and sensitive law enforcement 

investigations where having a common 

operational picture is critical to success, 

said Zachary Swain, who wrote the Glass 

application while working in NGA’s 

InnoVision directorate.

Glass is a wearable computer developed 

by Google and features an optical headmounted display that operates similar to 

a smartphone. NGA’s proof-of-concept 

application uses Glass to display relevant 

digital information in the user’s field of 

view while allowing interaction with 

another NGA application, said Swain. 

“The (Glass) user sees an augmented 

reality view,” said Swain. “The lenses are 

translucent, so they are able to see what 

they’re doing, while also being able to view 

instructions or field observations sent 

their way.”

The application uses the device’s 

multiple sensors when interacting with the 

Web-based common operational picture 

application known as the Mobile Analytic 

GEOINT Environment, said Ben Tuttle, 

who developed MAGE as the mobile apps 

team lead for NGA’s Geospatial Intelligence 

Advancement Testbed in Denver. 

“MAGE provides rapid awareness about 

what people are doing in the field, where 

they are and what they’re observing,” 

said Tuttle.

The Glass application is able to use the 

device’s camera to take photos and video, 

record audio via the embedded microphone, 

and harness the compass to obtain 

directional bearings or tag images with 

geospatial coordinates, said Tuttle.

“That information can be transmitted 

back to a central server, where it is posted 

to MAGE and shared with the operations 

center and the rest of your team in the field 

— (who) may also be using Google Glass,” 

said Tuttle. 

Glass has the potential to streamline the 

MAGE user’s workflow and limit common 

distractions, said Tuttle.

“The real benefit of Glass is that it gets 

things out of your hands,” said Tuttle. 

“It’s annoying having to take out your cell 

phone every time you get a notification. 

When something pops up with Glass, you 

can either ignore it or respond with a voice 

command or a quick swipe of your hand.”

NGA wrote the Glass application to 

explore the capabilities of wearable 

electronic devices, said Eric Finnen, 

a developer with NGA’s Xperience 

directorate, who acquired the device 

from Google’s Explorer Program in June 

2013. Google is using the program to 

distribute the device to select users before 

launching it to the general public. 

“Wearables are the future (of mobile 

technology), so it’s good to get something 

in-house and start developing against it and 

start thinking about how they can be used,” 

said Finnen. 

NGA Google Glass app shows potential for field operations

By Jason Moll, Office of Corporate Communications

Photo by Kevin Clark, Office of Corporate Communications

NGA’s decision to use Glass as a proof 

of concept for wearables was based on the 

device’s design, the ease with which it can 

be customized and Google’s commitment to 

users and application developers, 

said Finnen. 

Multiple federal agencies have already 

expressed interest in NGA’s Glass 

application even though it is still being 

developed and tested, said Tuttle. NGA 

developers are working with their customers 

to discover their needs and understand how 

they might use the device.

“That’s the exciting part about developing 

this,” said Tuttle. “Rather than making it 

up and hoping we got it right, we can ask 

whether what we’re designing is useful 

or not.”

NGA developers are considering 

designing several applications for Glass, 

including one that allows users to visualize 

the location of teammates scattered 

around a building, said Finnen. Another 

application could allow users to “see” 

infrastructure below ground 

or behind walls.

“When you’re out in the 

field, it’s often difficult to 

know what you’re looking 

at with any given certainty,” 

said Finnen. “Let’s say I 

see a pipe or some sort of 

electrical line. It would 

be nice to know whether I 

can cut into it or whether 

I’ll cause an explosion, or 

end up shutting down the 

neighborhood’s power supply.”

It is still too early to tell whether NGA 

and its customers in the field will select 

Glass or another wearable device as their 

technology of choice, said Tuttle.

“Google Glass is somewhat delicate 

and may even be too conspicuous for our 

customer set,” said Tuttle. “I think we’ll see 

more robust and ruggedized form factors 

as time goes on. When the right device 

does come along, it will be good to know 

that we’ve already figured out how to use 

(wearable devices) and integrate them.”

26 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 27

Eric Finnen, a developer with NGA's Xperience 

directorate, explains how the agency's Google 

Glass application works using Glass and NGA's 

Mobile Analytic GEOINT Environment.

"The application uses the device’s multiple 

sensors when interacting with the Webbased common operational picture 

application known as the Mobile Analytic 

GEOINT Environment." 

 — Ben Tuttle 

Pathfinder • Summer 2014
28 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 29 WWW.SCI-NEWS.COM

ACRE, BRAZIL 

The best way to safely track 

uncontacted indigenous 

societies? Scientists 

observing a tribe in Brazil 

are recommending remote 

surveillance and satellite 

imagery to track population 

movement and health 

without disrupting the fragile 

tribal ecosystem. Using 

the information gathered 

via satellites, government 

policies and boundary zones 

can be developed to mitigate 

extinction threats, such as 

deforestation, mining 

and colonization. 

Image: Government of Brazil

WWW.NBCNEWS.COM

TELL RIFAAT, SYRIA 

Everything old is new again 

and retro satellite imagery is 

all the rage. Or, in this case, 

pics of previously unknown 

archaeological sites in the 

Middle East. Researchers 

examining the CORONA Atlas 

of the Middle East, a database 

of Cold War imagery from a 

spy satellite in operation during 

the 1960s and 1970s, have 

uncovered the remnants of 

ancient cities and settlements 

now lost to expanding modern 

development. Researchers 

hope to take a closer, in-person 

look at some of these sites and 

identify distribution patterns 

for settlements.

WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UKLOCH NESS LAKE, SCOTLAND 

What’s next, Sasquatch with 

an iPad or the Abominable 

Snowman sporting Google 

Glass? Amateur “Nessie” 

hunters recently spotted a 

curiously-shaped wake in 

satellite imagery used by Apple 

for its smartphone maps and 

claimed it was the famous lake 

monster. Detractors note the 

photos could also be showing 

underwater currents or a boat 

wake, but members of the 

Official Loch Ness Monster Fan 

Club will not be dissuaded. 

WWW.GIZMAG.COM

QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA 

What? Emoticons aren’t good 

enough? A new tool, We 

Feel, uses English languageprocessing algorithms to 

analyze 27 million tweets per 

day for 600 specific words, 

which are then mapped to 

emotions including love, joy, 

surprise, anger, sadness 

and fear. The tool can be 

searched in real-time, 

by geographic location 

and gender. The tool was 

developed for researchers 

treating mood disorders to 

figure out if tweets could 

indicate poor mental health 

and observe emotional 

shifts based on time of day, 

breaking news or weather. 

Map is for illustrative purposes only. WWW.WIRED.COM

HAWAII 

Kowabunga! This is whale 

watching for couch potatoes. 

From the comfort of your home 

computer, a new online map 

allows you to interactively 

track whales around Hawaii, 

while also giving you a view of 

ocean and wind currents. The 

engineers who built the map 

hope to draw attention to the 

more than 20 different whale 

species that migrate 

to the area every October 

through May and raise 

consciousness for dangers 

such a net entanglements 

and sonar pollution. 

Image: Smartmine 

28 29

GULF OF GUINEA 

Sadly, this isn’t a story about 

the long-awaited return of TV's 

SeaQuest DSV. Until recently, 

the lack of a common radar 

picture left Gulf of Guinea 

nations with few resources 

for sharing information on 

suspicious vessels. Enter 

SeaVision, a U.S. Navy Webbased vessel tracking system 

using ships’ transponders to 

draw a real-time picture of 

marine traffic on a common, 

unclassified interface. This 

tool will help the military keep 

an eye on issues like drug 

trafficking and illegal fishing 

and enable the sharing of that 

information with Gulf partners. 

Coupled with satellite imagery, 

a better picture of ships 

operating illegally and “under 

the radar” emerges. 

Image: U.S. Navy

ENGLISH CHANNEL

Good to know before you go 

below. Large concentrations 

of jellyfish may be on the rise 

due to recent warm weather 

and effects of global warming. 

To globally track the bloom 

locations, researchers created 

the open-access Jellyfish 

Database Initiative, or JeDI, for 

experts and the public to map 

jellyfish sightings. Scientists 

hope to use the database to 

learn more about jellyfish 

ecosystems and identify future 

population spread. 

WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

Pathfinder • Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014
30 Pathfinder 

• Summer 2014 Pathfinder • Summer 2014 31

NGA AT THE BALLPARK International ambassador 

NGA employee takes STEM education to Kosovo students

By Kristen Mackey, Office of Corporate Communications

WHEN A NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

employee heard from a friend in 2013 that 

children in Kosovo needed education more than 

utilities, he took leave from his NGA job at the 

National Air and Space Intelligence Center, left his 

five children with their grandparents and used his 

vacation time to help others. 

Christopher Sultan, chief of the technical 

analysis division for the NGA support team at 

NASIC, which is located at Wright-Patterson Air 

Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, flew to the heart 

of war-torn Kosovo to inspire fourth through 

ninth graders there through education in science, 

technology, engineering and math.

“I heard about 

a woman who has 

worked with widows 

and orphans in the stilldevastated Albanian 

section of Kosovo since 

2000, and I was called 

to action,” said Sultan, 

who volunteered to 

lead students from 

Cedarville (Ohio) 

University to Mitrovica, 

Kosovo, to teach 

STEM-based education. 

“She recognized the 

lack of foundational 

training for students who must be able to create 

their own jobs, invent something or make 

themselves invaluable in a country where rare 

jobs go to the politically connected, the corrupt or 

the grown children of wealthy families.”

Sultan, his wife Holly, Cedarville University 

staff and six university students began 

collaborating in October 2013 to develop hands-on 

projects and lesson plans for students in Mitrovica, 

in the northern most part of the country. 

With no teaching background, Sultan used 

management experience gained at NGA to 

provide direction to the college students, he 

said. This helped with lesson planning, deadline 

management and logistics. 

Preparations for the two-week trip became a 

full-time effort outside of work, said Sultan. He 

attributes his ability to accomplish the mission to 

an alternate work schedule and a supportive boss.

In Kosovo, the team introduced parents, native 

teachers and the local community to STEM, 

taught three different classes of children every 

day for two weeks and hosted a community 

STEM fair with interactive exhibits, said Sultan. 

His managerial experience again became 

critical in his role as representative to Kosovo 

government education officials, said Sultan. 

The officials embraced the concept and plan to 

implement accredited STEM training.

The primary goal was not just to teach, but to 

get the students and community to think about 

ways to use their education to create jobs and 

stimulate the economy, said Sultan.

“This is a country where the schools that were 

not blown up entirely are still in shambles, they 

can only hold school for hours at a time in shifts, 

and utilities like electricity and water come and 

go,” said Sultan. “We wanted to provide hope 

through actionable education, not just come in to 

teach and leave these children behind.”

"The primary goal was not 

just to teach, but to get the 

students and community 

to think about ways to use 

their education to create 

jobs and stimulate 

the economy." — Christopher Sultan

Sultan and university students work with Kosovar 

children during a STEM class in Mitrovica. Photo 

courtesy of Christopher Sultan

NGA’s Tim 

Christenson sings 

the national anthem 

May 31 during NGA 

Day at the Ballpark 

at Nationals Park 

in Washington, D.C. 

Christenson, from the 

Human Development 

directorate, was 

selected from 27 

auditions through 

NGA's East Civilian 

Welfare Council. 

NGA’s Color Guard 

presented the flag 

before the national 

anthem. Photo by 

Paul Frommelt, 

Office of Corporate 

Communications

NGA employees 

unfurl the American 

flag while the NGA 

honor guard presents 

the colors during 

the singing of the 

national anthem 

at the St. Louis 

Cardinals game May 

22 for NGA Night 

at the Ballpark at 

Busch Stadium. Photo 

by Dave Schaefer, 

Office of Corporate 

Communications
NGA

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

am

I

nga.mil | FB: NatlGEOINTAgency | @NGA_GEOINT

KEN FOLEY IS A CARTOGRAPHER, A TEAM CHIEF ASSIGNED TO 

the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s support 

team at U.S. Strategic Command, and a volunteer who 

drives a red, white and blue 2014 Ford Mustang Shelby 

as part of the Wounded Warrior Family Support program’s 

“High Five Tour.” 

The High Five Tour is a four-month road trip across 

America that covers more than 26,000 miles and visits 60 

cities in 48 states to raise money, awareness and support for 

WWFS, according to its website, highfivetour.com.

WWFS Program provides support to the families 

of service members wounded, injured or killed 

during combat operations, according to its website, 

woundedwarriorfamilysupport.org. 

“The High Five Tour is unique way for Wounded 

Warriors Family Support to raise awareness of issues that 

face our wounded veterans and their families and to raise 

funds to address those issues,” said Foley.

Photo by Kevin Clark, Office of Corporate Communications

NGA team chief pays it forward mile after mile

By Kristen Mackey, Office of Corporate Communications

Foley has been with NGA and its predecessor, the 

Defense Mapping Agency, since 1991. He volunteered 

in 2013 for a one-week drive across parts of the Midwest 

and arranged the July 7 visit to NGA’s headquarters in 

Springfield, Virginia, to engage the workforce and promote 

the tour’s commitment to help “treat the wounds that 

medicine cannot.” 

“By putting the Shelby on a 14-week, 48-state tour, 

Americans (can) give back to those who have given so 

much,” said Foley. 

The car stops for fundraisers along the drive, and in a 

year’s time, has helped the WWFS raise enough money to 

build two custom smart homes for wounded veterans and 

fund respite and retreat programs. 

“I got involved because it is a tangible way to repay our 

military men and women for what they do, especially those 

who have been wounded,” said Foley. “Participating in the 

High Five Tour is a rewarding feeling.”