Know the Earth... Show the Way... Understand the World Vol. 9 No. 5 September/October 2011

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On My Mind

NGA at 15: Our Past, the Lodestar for Our Future

This year, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) commemorates 15 years 

of excellence, built on a foundation of solid expertise and strong leadership. Originally 

created as the single agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) with responsibility 

to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of imagery and mapping support, we 

evolved to an agency with responsibility for geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). I congratulate 

those who have served NGA in the past and those who now serve.

Analysts, scientists and all other occupational specialists and support personnel are 

part of NGA’s GEOINT team. These men and women, and the many other GEOINT experts 

whose talent, commitment, skills and abilities have made NGA the GEOINT leader for 

our military, civil, national and international customers, are the reason for our success.

So too are the leaders of this great organization, including the agency directors who 

preceded me, starting with our formal establishment as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency—our immediate predecessor organization—in 1996. These leaders provided 

the vision, and they led the hard work that moved us from eight separate agencies to 

the integrated organization we are today, providing GEOINT products and services for 

combat support, national and international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, 

counterterrorism, homeland security and safety of navigation, just to cite a few of our 

missions.

The merging of cultures, tradecrafts and information technology architectures was 

no simple task. It required leaders from multiple agencies and disciplines to overcome 

barriers to transformation and execute the agency stand-up master plan. Cooperation 

was key to effectively supporting missions and protecting the lives of service members 

in places like Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. These missions required GEOINT, 

not stovepiped tradecraft.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, posed a different set of challenges for our young 

agency; the attacks signaled a devastating new kind of threat—the killing of thousands 

of people, in one place at one time, by militant extremists striking anywhere in the world 

at any time. Where were they? Where were their safe houses, their training facilities? To 

answer critical questions like these, the intelligence, defense and civil communities had 

to collaborate, not just within agencies, but across agency lines.

NGA responded to this challenge by expanding GEOINT tradecraft, increasing GEOINT 

analysis and ramping up support to military operations, including deploying our people 

forward with combat troops and military headquarters. NGA also leaned forward to 

embed more GEOINT specialists inside partner Intelligence Community, DOD and civil 

agency organizations. 

When I became NGA’s director in August 2010, I came to an agency known throughout 

the intelligence and defense communities as a leader in GEOINT collaboration and 

integration. In its short history, NGA has risen to meet the demands of a changing threat 

matrix and the continuing dangers posed by natural and manmade disasters. Looking to 

the next 15 years and beyond, we will continue to build on this tradition.

As we move forward to put the power of GEOINT in users’ hands, we draw on the work 

of those who, from our beginnings in 1996, believed in and worked for a unified agency 

reaching out to deliver the right GEOINT at the right place at the right time. At 15, NGA 

continues to take GEOINT to the next level.

Letitia A. Long

Director

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Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011 ›› Vol. 9 No. 5

3 Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

8

On the Cover

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) marks its 15th 

anniversary in 2011, but naturally recollects the tradecrafts and talent that 

assembled under the aegis of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency 

in 1996. The cover of this anniversary issue recalls not only the recent 

success against Osama bin Laden, but also successes involving the Cuban 

missile crisis, Corona, Medmenham and with Commonwealth partners, 

tsunami relief activities, and the origins of imagery analysis in the photo 

interpretation of World War II. As geospatial intelligence itself emerges 

from a synthesis of many sources, so too NGA’s history must mark both the 

coming together 15 years ago and those skills each professional ancestor 

brought to the new agency. Read more about NGA’s history online at www.

nga.mil. Cover design by Amy Battison using NGA Historical Research 

Center images.

On the Back Cover

At right, first responders stand atop the Pentagon during the Pentagon 

Memorial dedication ceremony Sept. 11, 2008, at the spot where American 

Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 59 

people aboard the flight and 125 in the building. At left is a photo of the 

World Trade Center site, taken on Sept. 23, 2001, at an altitude of 3,300 

feet. The World Trade Center was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. 

Back cover design by Amy Battison using a Department of Defense photo 

of the Pentagon by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Villalovos, and 

a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration image of the World 

Trade Center.

Published by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

Office of Corporate Communications 

Telephone: (571) 557-5460 

DSN 547-5460 

E-mail: pathfinder@nga.mil

Director

Letitia A. Long

Deputy Director

Lloyd Rowland

Office of Corporate Communications, Director

Vonna Heaton

External Communications Branch, Chief

Karen A. Finn

Editor

Susan H. Meisner

Graphic Artist

Amy Battison

The Pathfinder is the National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency publication that promotes awareness and 

understanding of geospatial intelligence. The Pathfinder 

is an authorized Department of Defense publication 

for members of the Department of Defense. Contents 

of this publication are not necessarily the official view 

of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, Department 

of Defense or NGA. Articles in the Pathfinder may be 

reproduced in whole or in part without permission, unless 

stated otherwise. If reproduced, credit the author and the 

“National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pathfinder 

magazine.” Any reproduction of graphics, photographs and 

imagery is subject to the original copyright.

2 On My Mind: Reflecting on Our Past and Moving 

Toward our Future

4 Publications Span the Gap From Past to Present 

5 NGA in the News 

›› FEATURES

6 New Mobile Application Fuses Innovation and 

Technology

7 InnoVision Celebrates 10 Years and a Legacy of 

Improving GEOINT

10 Rich Maritime Tradecraft Heritage Docks at NGA 

Campus East

11 Sept. 11 Revisited

11 A Horrible View from the Washington Navy Yard 

(Reprinted from October 2001 Edge) 

12 NIMA Team at Pentagon Moves into Action 

(Reprinted from October 2001 Edge) 

14 9/11 Remembered by NGA Employees Who Lived 

to Tell the Tale

15 Evolution of the NGA Deployer Program— 

Providing GEOINT Forward

18 The End of an Era, the Birth of a New One

20 The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at 15: 

Coming of Age, 1996-2011

Contents

Urban Terrain Zone maps: depicted here is the Penn State University Campus.

Know the Earth... Show the Way... Understand the World

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Publications Span the Gap 

From Past to Present

Depicted are reproductions 

of the last issues of the flagship 

publications of the National 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s 

(NGA’s) two largest predecessor 

agencies, the National Photographic 

Interpretation Center and the 

Defense Mapping Agency; the first 

issue of the National Imagery and 

Mapping Agency publication; and 

the 10th anniversary issue of the 

NGA Pathfinder. These publications 

provide a snapshot of the agency as 

it was formed, as it grew and as it is 

today.

4 Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

DMA Link, NPIC Update, NIMA Edge and NGA Pathfinder

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5 Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

Army Awards Contract for Child 

Development Center

5

A National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) 

hydrographer became the first American to receive the U.K.’s 

Hydrographic Office (UKHO) Alexander Dalyrmple Award on 

June 27. The UKHO bestows this honor on a person who has 

performed outstanding service in the area of hydrography.

Chris Andreasen, a geospatial intelligence maritime 

analyst in the Maritime Safety Office, received the award 

at ceremonies at NGA’s Bethesda, Md., campus and at 

the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. UKHO named the 

award for the man who established the office in 1795 and 

is regarded as the world’s first hydrographer. 

NGA IN THE NEWS

The Fort Belvoir North Area Child Development Center (CDC)—which will serve 

up to 248 children from 6 months to 5 years old—is under development near 

the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Campus East in Springfield, Va. 

Due to ongoing environmental review and permitting processes, a schedule 

for opening the CDC is not yet available. Originally planned to open in late 

2011, the CDC may now open as late as 2013.

The Army Corps of Engineers awarded the design/build contract for the 

CDC infrastructure (utilities, roads and rough grading) on June 15 to AKHI 

Construction Company LLC. “When completed, this child development center 

will be an important enabler for the critical DOD (Department of Defense) 

missions performed at Fort Belvoir,” said Mike Rogers, deputy chief of the 

programs and project management division.

Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command awarded a 

separate contract for the construction of the buildings and grounds to Atlantic 

Marine Construction Co. last year. Once completed, Army Child, Youth and 

School Services (CYSS) will operate the center, which will be open to all 

eligible DOD personnel.

For additional information, please contact the Fort Belvoir CYSS, Parent Central 

Services Registration Office at (703) 806-0791 or e-mail cer@conus.army.mil.

NGA Hydrographer First

American to Receive UK Dalrymple Award

By Erica Fouche, Office of Corporate Communications

Retired NGA Executive 

Installed as National 

ASPRS President-Elect

The American Society

for Photogrammetry and 

Remote Sensing (ASPRS)

installed Roberta E. 

Lenczowski, a retired 

National GeospatialIntelligence Agency 

employee, as national 

president-elect at their 

national conference in 

Milwaukee in May. 

Lenczowski, who retired as the NGA 

executive director of St. Louis operations 

after 28 years of federal service, will serve 

in this role for one year. She previously 

served as NGA’s technical executive and 

is currently an independent geospatial 

information-intelligence consultant. In 

addition, she is board director for GeoEye 

and Fugro EarthData Inc. and the non-profit 

Leonard Wood Institute.

“Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Lenczowski is a very 

welcome addition to the team of elective 

officers at the national level of the ASPRS,” 

said Gary Florence, ASPRS President. “She 

brings to the Society a wealth of experience 

gained from her years of federal service, 

active participation in the ASPRS St. Louis 

Region, and extensive involvement in 

numerous other organizations within the 

imaging and geospatial profession.” 

Founded in 1934, ASPRS is a scientific 

association serving more than 7,000 

professionals worldwide. Its mission is to 

promote the ethical application of active 

and passive sensors, the disciplines 

of photogrammetry, remote sensing, 

geographic information systems and 

other supporting geospatial technologies; 

to advance the understanding of the 

geospatial and related sciences; to expand 

public awareness of the profession; and 

to promote a balanced representation of 

the interests of government, academia and 

private enterprise. 

NGA is a sustaining member of ASPRS.

Chris Andreasen, at left, receives 

the U.K. Hydrographic Office 

Alexander Dalyrmple award from 

Royal Navy Rear Adm. Nick Lambert.

Roberta E. Lenczowski

NGA Photo by Rob Cox

NGA photo by Larry Franklin

“The U.K. Hydrographic Office believes Andreasen’s success in the field stems 

from his strategic vision that is respected across the globe,” said Royal Navy 

Rear Adm. Nick Lambert, Deputy Chief Executive to UKHO and U.K.’s National 

Hydrographer. “It’s his expertise and dedication to hydrography that has made 

him the sixth recipient of the prestigious Dalyrmple Award.”

Andreasen, a retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

rear admiral, served as the president of the International Hydrographic 

Organization and led negotiations for the bilateral agreements between the 

UKHO and NGA.

The Child Development Center at Fort Belvoir’s North Area will consist of two buildings similar to this 124-person 

center at Fort Story, Va.

Atlantic Marine Construction Company, Inc., photo

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Photo by Bill Molloy using ©DigitalGlobe 2009 NextView imagery

New Mobile Application Fuses

Innovation and Technology

By Erik Norris, Contractor, Vision Implementation Communication Team

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

(NGA)—in partnership with the National 

Reconnaissance Office (NRO)—has developed a new 

mobile application that provides service members 

and others in the field immediate access to imagery. 

The new Enhanced Quality Imagery Search (EQUIS) 

mobile application fuses innovation and technology 

into an easy-to-use solution. 

“The capability to now download and view 

unclassified commercial imagery on the 

Droid and iPhone is a direct result of 

collaboration, innovation and the 

development contractor’s ability 

to cultivate this cutting-edge 

application,” said Lavergne 

White, the Web-Based Access and 

Retrieval Portal (WARP) Program 

Manager. 

“The EQUIS Mobile application is 

definitely value-added and in keeping with 

the NGA vision, ‘Putting the Power of GEOINT in Your 

Hands,’” said White.

WARP system engineers worked very closely with 

the EQUIS Mobile development contractor during all 

phases of the system development lifecycle. After the 

team completed system development, it transferred the 

EQUIS Mobile application to NGA’s WARP Program; it is 

now available for download by users. 

The EQUIS application meets increasing demand 

for in-the-field smart-phone applications, with iEQUIS 

for Apple’s iPhone operating system devices and 

EQUIS Droid for Google’s Android operating system 

devices. Modeled after the previously developed 

EQUIS architecture, EQUIS Mobile allows smart 

phones and other personal electronic devices to 

access and download commercial satellite imagery 

from NGA’s unclassified image library. 

EQUIS Mobile, one of several smart phone 

projects under way across NGA, exemplifies the new 

capabilities supporting the NGA vision of providing 

online, on-demand access to NGA’s GEOINT 

knowledge. EQUIS Mobile empowers users of GEOINT 

with the tools, data and information required to 

meet their needs when and where they need to 

better understand the world. 

Service members on foot patrol in the streets 

of Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else need the 

latest picture of their environment. They need the 

situational awareness that access to real-time 

imagery provides in a constantly changing security 

dynamic. NGA will realize its vision—“Putting the 

Power of GEOINT in Your Hands”— when creativity, 

innovation and technology come together to solve 

complex challenges facing the GEOINT consumer, 

including the warfighter.

NGA and NRO are jointly addressing this 

challenge. Said Rob Zitz, former Director, NRO-NGA 

Support Team and Deputy Director, NRO Mission 

Support, “The NRO and NGA mission partnership is 

stronger than ever, and the results lead to improved 

support for all of our customers.” 

EQUIS is an easy-to-use Web application that 

combines discovery, display and dissemination of 

national, airborne and commercial imagery directly 

to a user’s desktop. EQUIS Mobile builds upon this 

foundation to deliver intelligence to mobile handheld devices.

“Project EQUIS is but one example of the 

technologies emerging from the partnership 

between NGA and NRO,” said Zitz. “NGA has 

placed engineers and analysts inside NRO where 

they are helping to enable NGA’s vision. Other 

examples include innovative and user-friendly ways 

to task satellites via broadband wireless devices, 

extraordinary new processing routines to automate 

image exploitation and inventing methods to gain 

precise geolocational data from video sources realtime,” added Zitz. 

EQUIS Mobile applications for iPhone and Droid 

smart phones deliver a powerful new capability to 

users, literally putting the power of GEOINT into 

their hands and changing their online experience by 

allowing better interaction with content and services 

through online, on-demand access. 

6Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

This iEQUIS application 

displays a detailed image of 

northwestern Afghanistan on 

an iPhone 4, downloaded from 

NGA’s WARP library of commercial 

satellite images. 

An operator 

selects his area of 

interest using the 

iEQUIS application 

on an iPad 2. 

Depicted is an 

NGA commercial 

satellite image 

shown against 

a backdrop of 

Google maps 

hybrid view, which 

overlays map data 

on top of satellite 

imagery.

Photo by Bill Molloy using ©DigitalGlobe 2009 NextView imagery

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7 Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

At the same time, the new organization eyed 

potential game changers in technology and 

business processes. The Technology Office further 

refined the applications used for the O’Grady 

rescue; they developed “NIMA in a Box,” a laptopbased tool suite that helped refine workflow and 

tradecraft through its use in 1999 by air units 

waging the campaign against the Federal Republic 

of Yugoslavia.

Technology Office scientists exploited new 

capabilities of traditional remote sensing 

technologies, including film photography, infrared, 

radar and light detection and ranging (LiDAR). The 

evolution of these sensors led to new tools for 

analysts to detect and characterize objects over 

increasingly larger swaths of terrain. Accordingly, 

neuroscience, cognition and automated target 

recognition were explored for their ability to help 

users move from analyzing discrete objects to 

larger patterns and trends. The terrorist attacks 

of Sept. 11, 2001, challenged the agency and the 

S&T community to contend with new asymmetrical 

threats, while continuing to face traditional ones.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., 

who became NIMA director following 9/11 and 

is currently the Director of National Intelligence, 

established a new organizing principle for the 

agency—the “now, next and after-next.” The NIMA 

S&T Directorate reoriented to include a role in longterm R&D as the after-next, or 10-20 year future 

component. The directorate’s challenge was to 

embrace risk, exploit disruptive technologies and 

transition capability with the potential to provide 

game-changing GEOINT advances. 

Today’s InnoVision Director wears several 

hats: NGA’s director for R&D, community GEOINT 

functional manager for R&D and partner with 

Commonwealth allies. InnoVision continues 

its R&D legacy, exploiting new wrinkles of 

existing GEOINT technologies to deliver nearterm capabilities to users, while seeking new 

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s

(NGA) research and development (R&D) 

component—the InnoVision Directorate—stood 

up after the establishment of the National 

Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) in 2001 

and celebrates its 10th birthday this year. But its 

pedigree dates back three decades to the systems 

and technology (S&T) offices and laboratories of 

NGA’s legacy organizations, including the National 

Photographic Interpretation Center and the 

Defense Mapping Agency.

“The challenges were many,” recalled thenNIMA Technology Office Director Darryl Garrett 

of those early days. They included “bandwidth, 

collaboration, applications like automated target 

recognition and new hardware like high-definition 

monitors. As our world focus expanded, and more 

imagery data became available, we needed to 

surge our ability to rapidly develop tools. We also 

wanted to improve the adoption process and our 

infrastructure.” 

Significant R&D innovation followed the 1991 

Persian Gulf War as U.S. and allied policymakers 

and warfighters challenged the Intelligence 

Community (IC) to improve the timeliness, flexibility 

and accuracy of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) 

products. Analysts crafted software tools so users 

could access and tailor GEOINT capabilities to 

their needs, ranging from situational awareness 

to precision targeting. Marine and Navy combat 

teams participating in the 1995 NATO Operation 

Deny Flight used a new tool suite to successfully 

plan and execute the low-level helicopter rescue 

of downed U.S. Air Force pilot Capt. Scott O’Grady 

from hostile Bosnian territory. Combat-proven 

tools helped inspire new analytical processes 

and tradecraft as users leveraged the power of 

the Internet and broadband communications as 

well as increasing amounts of GEOINT data from 

spaceborne and airborne sensors. 

InnoVision Celebrates 10 Years and a Legacy of 

Improving GEOINT

By Roger Gant, Contractor, InnoVision Communications Team

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 5 10/18/2011 12:55:07 PM
8Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

technologies, processes and concepts to advance 

the potential of geospatial science. InnoVision’s 

users are global, comprising the National System 

for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG), which includes 

NGA, Intelligence Community, Department of 

Defense and other federal agencies, and, through 

the Allied System for Geospatial Intelligence, NGA’s 

Commonwealth partners. 

According to current InnoVision Director Bert 

Beaulieu, the directorate ably juggles its many 

priorities. “InnoVision’s greatest strength is our ability 

to maintain a balance between providing near-term 

innovative solutions, while still investing in the future 

of GEOINT as we look for gamechanging capabilities 

to address enduring challenges,” said Beaulieu.

InnoVision’s major research thrusts have 

always focused on users’ toughest intelligence 

problems. These include detecting homemade 

explosives and illicit narcotics; monitoring 

weapons of mass destruction; tracking suspect 

ships at sea; and detecting objects through dense 

foliage or underground. Research also addresses 

the community’s need to better anticipate and 

determine the damage from natural disasters, 

automate analytical process and workflow, and 

improve mission planning and coordination. 

Helping mitigate the problems of data storage, 

exploitation and fusion are among InnoVision’s 

top priorities. Research with partners in creating 

algorithms for full-motion video processing is 

ongoing; NGA and the Department of Energy have 

demonstrated the ability to provide critical moveintelligence information, while significantly reducing 

the data footprint. Such efforts will enable analysts to 

focus less on discrete events and more on patterns of 

activity and knowledge. 

While developing tools and processing 

algorithms, InnoVision has helped advance 

GEOINT science. Many of InnoVision’s success 

stories supporting the nation’s warfighting 

operations are sensitive. However, some tools 

warfighters use also support humanitarian efforts. 

NGA-provided LiDAR high-resolution, 3-D images 

supported the U.S. response to the 2010 Haiti 

earthquake. InnoVision scientists deployed as 

part of an NGA team that processed airborne 

LiDAR data that delivered first-look, 30-centimeter 

resolution imagery within days of the initial quake. 

Through a technique called change detection, 

LiDAR imagery depicted the movement of persons 

in and out of affected areas and answered critical 

questions on the location of displaced persons. 

The 3-D LiDAR data aided U.S. Southern Command 

and U.N. authorities’ efforts to deliver needed aid 

to quake victims and plan follow-on reconstruction 

of the island’s shattered infrastructure.

A recent cooperative research and development agreement with Penn State University will create both the framework and process for NGA to produce Urban 

Terrain Zone maps; depicted here is the Penn State University Campus.

Penn State University’s Applied Research Lab image

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 6 10/18/2011 12:55:07 PM
The continuing challenge—to seek new solutions 

to enduring problems—leads InnoVision to 

embrace new sciences and skills. InnoVision 

recruits biologists; chemists; computer; Earth and 

other scientists; and mathematicians as part of 

its strategic workforce plan. InnoVision engages 

with the academic community to help grow the 

next generation of geospatial scientists; the 

directorate’s academic engagement focuses on 

areas like compressive sensing, full-motion video 

and human geography. InnoVision’s academic 

portfolio includes a research program featuring 

107 active research grants (total value over $50 

million), research initiatives, a robust post-doctoral 

research program (41 grants with 34 universities) 

and a visiting scientist program.

InnoVision likewise partners with industry. 

Participation in CIA’s In-Q-Tel small-business 

program dates back years; InnoVision sponsorship, 

for example, helped develop fledgling technology 

that now powers Google Earth. Areas of InnoVision 

industry investment include energy cooling and 

economy; desktop visualization; immersive 

environments; cyber security; and mobile 

technologies. InnoVision’s industry engagement 

portfolio also encompasses more than 21 

cooperative R&D agreements to increase creativity 

and synergy with industry and academia. 

InnoVision also partners to focus limited R&D 

resources on common problems of greatest value. 

InnoVision initiated an NSG R&D Forum (NRF) 

in 2008 to increase community awareness and 

networking across the R&D community. This year’s 

NRF, planned for September, will build on the 

knowledge gained from previous forums, which 

discussed topics including weapons of mass 

destruction and human geography.

An R&D legacy that began three decades ago 

continues to inspire InnoVision to discover and 

transition new ways to “put the power of GEOINT 

into users’ hands.” InnoVision’s laboratory 

environment and Geospatial Intelligence 

Advancement Testbed are at the forefront of the 

directorate’s effort to make online, on-demand 

access to Web services and applications even more 

accessible. InnoVision is also helping advance 

NGA’s vision through the development of R&D 

incubators and efforts to incorporate open-source 

technology to a greater extent. 

 “Every day I gain a new appreciation of 

InnoVision and our contributions to GEOINT 

solutions for partners and users,” Beaulieu said. 

As InnoVision prepares to step into its next decade, 

it will leverage its greatest strength—people and the 

unique scientific knowledge they bring to bear on the 

nation’s toughest GEOINT R&D problems.

9Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

NGA’s InnoVision Directorate delivers research and development solutions to put geospatial intelligence in the hands of users. 

“It’s a privilege to be part of this world-class organization,” Beaulieu 

said. “We’re truly putting the future of GEOINT in users’ hands today.”

Fotolia Image

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10Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

Rich Maritime Tradecraft Heritage Docks at NGA 

Campus East

By Howard Cohen, Bathymetry Branch Chief

On June 6, the National Geospatial-Intelligence

Agency’s (NGA) Maritime Safety Office (SH) docked 

at its new home port at the NGA Campus East in 

Springfield, Va. The Maritime Safety Office lives 

up to a proud tradition by providing geospatial 

intelligence in support of NGA’s navigation safety 

mission, national security objectives, international 

obligations, intelligence activities and joint 

military operations. 

“We have moved several times over the past 25 

years and this is the most satisfying,” said Peter 

Doherty, office Deputy Director. “Our new home 

brings together cohesion amongst the workforce 

in a state-of-the-art facility. We’ve come a long 

way since the beginning from a rented house near 

the White House in 1830, and the dedication from 

our maritime workforce to the safety of navigation 

mission has never faltered.”

NGA’s maritime tradecraft professionals—

including maritime analysts and bathymetrists—

work cooperatively with their counterparts in the 

National Ocean Service, the Naval Oceanographic 

Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, contractor partners 

and nearly all foreign hydrographic offices 

worldwide. Their duties are 

performed in fulfillment of 

NGA’s marine navigation 

obligations under U.S. 

Code, Title 10 and other federal and international 

laws and regulations in support of national security 

goals, concerns and strategies.

The Maritime Safety Office’s tradecraft dates 

from Dec. 6, 1830, when the U.S. Navy established 

a depot of charts and instruments to collect 

navigational charts, publications and instruments. 

This was the government’s first attempt to assume 

responsibility for hydrographic surveying and 

charting. 

By the early 1850s the depot had gained global 

recognition as an observatory and a hydrographic 

office, largely through the dedicated work 

and contributions of noted scientists Louis M. 

Goldsborough, Charles Wilkes, James M. Gilliss 

and Matthew Fontaine Maury. They specialized in 

the fields of navigation, hydrography, astronomy 

and oceanography, respectively.

When Commodore Matthew C. Perry negotiated 

a treaty in 1854 that established the U.S. presence 

in Asia, the depot composed Sailing Directions for 

the new ports that facilitated future trade. Now, 

37 volumes of this publication provide expanded 

foreign coastal and port information that cannot be 

portrayed on mariner’s charts. Knowledge of pilot 

channel frequencies, currents, local weather, port 

regulations and descriptive views of the area is 

vital when entering a port. 

A new related product series, Planning Guides, 

based on ocean basins, came into existence 

in 1971 to assist the mariner in planning a 

transoceanic voyage. Five volumes provide 

worldwide coverage of information about nonU.S. countries, governments, 

buoyage systems, military 

exercises and mined areas to 

be avoided.

The Safety Office’s most 

noted publication is the 

U.S. Notice to Mariners, 

which has maintained a 

NGA photo by Larry Franklin

Ryan Samuel adds a new Notice to 

Mariner’s correction.

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 8 10/18/2011 12:55:11 PM
11Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

continuous weekly production cycle since 1869. First published by the Bureau of Navigation, it is the oldest 

continuously running U.S. government publication. Until it went online only in January 2005, it retained a 

government publication’s printing priority second only to the Congressional Record. 

NGA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Ocean Service and the U.S. Coast 

Guard jointly produce the weekly U.S Notice to Mariners. U.S. military forces and civilian mariners worldwide 

use it to update and correct their U.S. charts and navigation publications. The U.S. Notice to Mariners 

informs the military and civilian maritime community about corrective information regarding hydrographic 

discoveries, changes in channels, navigational aids and other important data. It is the only publication 

officially authorized to update and maintain our nation’s portfolio of nautical products. 

The Maritime Safety website can be accessed via the NGA home page (www.nga.mil) under the products 

and services link or directly at http://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.portal.

Sept. 11 Revisited

By Susan H. Meisner, Office of Corporate 

Communications

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

(NGA) celebrates 15 years of geospatial intelligence 

as the nation remembers 9/11. NGA—then the 

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)—was 

a youthful organization in 2001, still developing its 

processes, procedures and culture. The events of 

Sept. 11 supercharged those changes and launched 

a new era for the Agency, for the Department of 

Defense and for the Intelligence Community.

Following are two of the stories from the October 

2001 Edge, the precursor to today’s Pathfinder 

magazine. 

A Horrible View from the Washington Navy Yard 

By Paul Hurlburt, Edge editor (abridged version 

from the October 2001 issue of the Edge)

Gail Betts-Anderson and her staff, Lyndell 

Walker and Barry Harrelson, have a commanding 

view from their 6th-floor offices in Building 213 at 

the Washington Navy Yard. In Betts-Anderson’s 

office, the view is across a widening Potomac 

toward America’s military center, the Pentagon. 

As symbols of freedom and power, these 

buildings normally provide an inspiring and 

reassuring sight, but the morning of Sept. 11 the 

view across the river horrified NIMA employees. 

In the words of Betts-Anderson, Chief of the 

NIMA Research Division Washington operations 

(DSRW), what they saw was a sky full of “pitch 

black smoke.” 

Earlier that morning, Betts-Anderson was 

providing feedback to promotion applicants. 

Michael Betts, a division chief in the Imagery 

Analysis Office and her brother, had knocked on 

her door with the New York news.

“Terrorists have attacked the World Trade 

buildings. Keep your eyes open,” she recalled 

him saying.

It wasn’t long before Betts-Anderson’s branch 

chief, Barry Harrelson, knocked. “Look out the 

window!” he exclaimed.

“Everything fell apart when the black smoke 

appeared,” said Betts-Anderson. “I said, ’Oh, 

my, what’s going on?’ Somebody said, ‘It looks 

like the Pentagon’s been hit!’” 

Almost immediately, Harrelson reappeared to 

report the news the Pentagon had been struck.

Minutes later, employees began evacuating 

the upper floors, as supervisors notified them. 

They regrouped on the windowless first two 

floors, but were soon told they could leave the 

building. None of Betts-Anderson’s people did, 

she said, except for a worried employee located 

at a remote site in the Information Services 

Branch, Reggie Carver. His sister, Sharon Carver, 

worked at the Pentagon as an Army civilian. She 

was missing and later listed as a victim.

“They had the option to go, but we are a 

family,” Betts-Anderson said. With responsibility 

for the NIMA Map Library at the Pentagon and 

providing support to imagery analysis operations 

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 9 10/18/2011 12:55:11 PM
Photo by John Iler

Gail Betts-Anderson and her staff Lyndell Walker, left, and Barry Harrelson saw a horrible scene from the 6th floor of Building 213 on Sept. 11.

“NIMA personnel are located all over the Pentagon,” 

notes Air Force Lt. Col. Ted Barco, NIMA Liaison to the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. As members of the 

NIMA Support Team Pentagon, led by Navy Cmdr. Roland 

de Jesus, these personnel provide on-the-scene support 

to the National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC), 

Joint Staff and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. 

When the hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon 

on Sept. 11, the NIMA Support Team immediately moved 

to a crisis mode, while the tragedy unfolded around 

them. “Commander de Jesus remained in the building 

and began calling in personnel [to meet the crisis],” 

said Andrew Mason, Chief of the NIMA Support Team 

Pentagon Operations Desk. The NIMA Support Team is 

made up of the Pentagon Imagery Center (PIC) and the 

Pentagon Support Center (PSC). 

Mason said he deployed with elements of the J2 (Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, Intelligence) to an alternate facility, 

as a contingency measure, as did NIMA Technical 

Representative Jerry Hiller and Imagery Liaison Officers 

Brent Guernsey and Lyle Schrumpf. The Director, J2 

and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 

remained at the Pentagon. 

NIMA Team at Pentagon Moves into Action

By Paul Hurlburt, Edge editor (reprinted from the 

October 2001 issue of the Edge)

there, she and her staff were concerned about 

colleagues across the river. They also knew 

there was much work to be done. Contacting the 

Pentagon staff, of course, was top priority but 

keeping operations going, they knew, would be 

essential.

When Harrelson finally got through to the 

Pentagon Map Library senior team lead, David 

Armstead, about 4 p.m., he learned that all NIMA 

personnel were safe. 

That afternoon Research Division staff led by 

Chief David Kraus, who also works at the Navy 

Yard, met with counterparts from Customer 

Operations, Imagery Analysis and other NIMA 

offices to formulate contingency operations. 

Immediately, the Research Division began a 24/7 

schedule for NIMA East sites, with personnel from 

Bethesda and the Navy Yard supplementing the 

Pentagon Map Library. The next day Armstead 

resumed operations at his normal location in the 

Pentagon after Betts-Anderson determined that 

there was connectivity and no damage.

A normal workday Sept. 11 turned out to be their 

last on Earth for many. It turned out to be a long and 

traumatic day that lasted into the night for Research 

Division employees and staff.

12Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 10 10/18/2011 12:55:11 PM
interests. As a result 9/11 changed how I saw the 

world, reignited my intellectual curiosity and renewed 

the strength of character I needed to comprehend and 

challenge the Gordian Knot (intractable problem) of 

assumptions within my own profession. 

“Though the agency has also significantly changed, 

in many ways it has come full circle. Leading up to 

9/11 we were piloting the design of a narrow class 

of very contextually rich geospatial intelligence 

products for senior Office of the Secretary of Defense 

decision makers. By Sept. 11, working with P (Analysis 

and Production Directorate), we had proactively 

developed almost 30 such products, which enabled 

the nation’s policymakers to quickly respond to 

emerging developments in a post-9/11 world. 

“Fast forward 10 years and today the agency has 

got it about right; only by broadening and deepening 

analytic expertise can we hope to put GEOINT in the 

hands of the user when and where it is required. At 

the heart of this calculus lies profound questions 

relative to how we hire, develop, certify and posture 

our workforce with the insights and technical 

acumen needed to address today’s challenges and 

tomorrow’s opportunities.” 

Gail Betts-Anderson, chief of the NIMA Research 

Division Washington operations in 2001: “My 

children at the time were ages nine and three; my 

daughter is now entering her last year of college 

and my son is entering high school this fall. Sept. 11 

changed their lives forever. They are now part of the 

world where passengers are lined up—taking off their 

belts and shoes so strangers can run their hands 

around their waists. Signs warn them to report any 

suspicious activity. Dealing rationally with the risks 

of terrorism is hard; catastrophes are not supposed 

to happen to us (Americans). For the first time we 

have this fear factor in our lives. This is one of the 

reasons I volunteered to support my country—leaving 

my family for six months to support our troops in 

Afghanistan. I had life experiences there I will never 

forget, including visiting the hospital and seeing 

personnel severely wounded from a suicide bomber. 

We need to be proactive and use a more rational 

approach to protect ourselves from terrorism, as well 

as use our technology and intelligence to outsmart 

the bad guys.”

Says Barco, “The Ops Desk in the NMJIC is one of the 

best examples of NIMA personnel working together to 

get the information edge to the customer”—evident 

in the Pentagon’s response to the terrorists. “This 

outstanding teamwork and support includes NIMA’s 

Pentagon Map Library, Remote Replication Service 

and tech reps and imagery analysts” assigned 

elsewhere in the Pentagon, Barco added. “We are a 

big closely interrelated team here.”

The NMJIC is the central body for the management 

of national military intelligence operations. With ties 

to DIA, the NMJIC supports the intelligence needs 

of the Joint Staff and unified commanders, focusing 

on global indications and warning, operational 

intelligence and national targeting support.

Sept. 11 Revisited

Following are updates from Paul Hurlburt, who wrote 

these stories back in 2001 and retired from NGA in 

2007; Ted Barco, on duty at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 

and now with NGA’s Inspector General’s Office; and 

Gail Betts-Anderson, then chief of the NIMA Research 

Division at the Washington Navy Yard and now senior 

staff officer to the Enterprise Operations Directorate 

technical executive. They reflect 10 years later on 

events of the day and changes since.

Paul Hurlburt, editor of the NIMA Edge magazine in

2001: “Arriving at the Pentagon two weeks after it was 

struck, I discovered our map library operating 24/7 to 

meet the demand for our products from an ‘insatiable 

military community.’ This was just one example of how 

our agency scrambled to meet the demands of our 

customers fighting back in the ensuing global war on 

terrorism, as it was then called. In the next six years 

as editor, I had the thrill of helping to track and share 

with readers breakthrough advances from every corner 

of the agency. So, it was no surprise when I read in 

the national media of the key role NGA played in the 

capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. While we can 

never forget what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, 10 years 

later we can say we have come a long way.”

Air Force Lt. Col. Ted Barco, NIMA liaison to the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in 2001: “9/11 

provided us a wealth of opportunities to confront 

assumptions we understood to be examples of 

common sense wisdom, which in reality often worked 

against our national, organizational and/or personnel 

13Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

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14Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

At 9:37 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, as

people inside the Pentagon watched the news and 

saw an airplane hit the second twin tower in New 

York City—American Airlines flight 77, a Boeing 

757 airliner, struck the southwest portion of the 

Pentagon’s E-ring. 

Cindy Wright, then Deputy Chief of the National 

Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) Analysis 

and Production Operations Center (NOC-P), and 

colleague Amy Joe Bizub were traversing the 

bridge that spans Route 110 from the Pentagon to 

the North parking lot when the plane hit. Luggage 

in hand, they were supposed to be on their way to 

St. Louis.

“We didn’t see anything at first,” said Wright, 

now deputy director of the Office of Americas. 

“We just heard two loud thumps, like the sound 

of tractor trailers hitting metallic plates on the 

highway. Moments later we saw smoke and 

smelled the sweet-sour odor of burning jet fuel.” 

Wright recalled that after several seconds of 

silence, alarms rang out and floods of people 

came running from the building yelling, “Get out 

of here and don’t go back in the building.” Said 

Wright, “Some appeared to be in shock, others 

were crying and still others wore looks of sheer 

fear. Everyone knew at this point we were at war.” 

One of the most memorable and moving 

moments for Wright was witnessing the evacuation 

of the Pentagon’s Day Care Center; the magnitude 

of what was happening really hit home when she 

saw the staff rush the children out of the area at 

break-neck speed.

Until all air traffic was grounded shortly after 10 

a.m., there were thought to be as many as six to 

eight additional planes aloft and ferrying suicidal 

hijackers. With the fear of additional strikes 

looming, Pentagon security forces directed the 

crowds amassed at their rallying points to move 

further away, almost to the Potomac’s waterline.

At about 1 p.m., 

as Wright, Bizub 

and another NOC-P 

colleague, Army 

Sgt. Joelle Jackson, 

approached the 

building hoping 

to retrieve their 

car keys, security 

representatives asked 

if they would aid in 

search and recovery 

efforts. They returned 

to the burning 

building and stayed until 10:30 p.m., laying out 

body bags delivered to the center courtyard and 

waiting to assist with recovery of the dead or 

injured. 

During the initial chaos, taking accountability 

for all NOC-P personnel proved a great challenge; 

it took the staff four hours to determine everyone 

was fine. As they located each other, employees 

embraced and gave thanks for being alive.

Once fire and rescue personnel gave the “all 

clear,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld 

declared the terrorists were not going to close 

down the Pentagon. He was determined the 

building be reoccupied the next day. It was.

On that bright, beautiful fall morning, incoming 

NIMA Director retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James 

R. Clapper Jr. (now the Director of National 

Intelligence) arrived in Bethesda for his second day 

of transition to his new job. By Friday of that week, 

Clapper was squarely at the helm—reorganizing the 

agency to more effectively address the clear and 

present threat.

Three women from NOC-P experienced a day they 

will always remember, a defining moment for both 

them and the nation.

9/11 Remembered by NGA Employees Who Lived to 

Tell the Tale

By Kathi Ghannam, Contractor, Office of Corporate Communications

Cindy Wright

NGA Photo by Rob Cox

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 12 10/18/2011 12:55:12 PM
15Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

its business at home and abroad. In October he 

created NIMA Support Teams (NSTs) and deployed 

personnel with the first wave of special operations 

forces for Operation Enduring Freedom. In March 

2003 he sent more than 100 military, government 

and contractor personnel to the Central Command 

(CENTCOM) area of responsibility. NIMA personnel 

accompanied all of the major elements into Iraq. 

In August 2003 Clapper consolidated several of 

the various customer support elements throughout 

the agency to create the Office of Deployed and 

Externally Assigned Personnel (ODP). ODP prepared 

personnel for deployment, eventually establishing 

the NGA Volunteer Deployment Team (NVDT) in 2004 

to manage the ever growing demand for a cadre of 

trained volunteers who could be ready to support 

contingency operations anywhere in the world.

“He (Clapper) inverted the model (of the CSTs),” 

says Bramow. In addition to serving as customer 

service liaisons, analysts were now out in the field 

producing GEOINT on site. 

NSTs provide a different type of forward 

support, however, than do NVDT deployers. 

NSTs are more established—if not permanent—

teams of NGA analysts and support personnel 

embedded within mission partner and customer 

organizations. They support GEOINT requirements, 

serve as the representative of the National 

System for Geospatial Intelligence, manage all 

NGA resources on site, and act as an advocate 

for customer needs. NGA currently has NSTs at all 

combatant commands headquarters; within each 

of the military services and service intelligence 

centers; inside other Intelligence Community 

and federal agencies such as NSA, DIA, the 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the 

State Department; as well as in international 

locations to support NGA’s GEOINT relationships 

with other countries. The work of the NSTs is as 

varied as the organizations they support, and 

individual assignments can last up to three years. 

The war in Iraq, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and

the last Presidential Inauguration all have one thing 

in common: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

(NGA) analysts on the ground, side-by-side with the 

customer, providing direct geospatial intelligence 

(GEOINT) support. From helping the warfighter find 

the enemy, showing relief workers where people 

need help, or mapping potential trouble spots 

for the Secret Service, NGA and its predecessor 

organizations have provided forward support inside 

their customers’ footprints since well before the 

1996 standup of the National Imagery and Mapping 

Agency (NIMA). 

Using the Defense Mapping Agency’s (DMA’s) 

service and command team model as a starting 

point, NIMA stood up its first Customer Support 

Teams (CSTs). In addition to working with the 

military services and joint commands, CSTs also 

supported national customers, such as the State 

Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 

and the National Security Agency (NSA). CST liaison 

officers worked on policy and planning issues with 

these customers, while technical representatives—

Tech Reps—provided technical support in the field. 

“Tech Reps were out there to teach the customers 

how to fish,” said Steve Bramow, who began his 

career with DMA and was part of NIMA’s original 

Customer Support Office. “The goal was to educate 

the customer about GEOINT, but tech reps became 

so popular with customers that they ended up 

whetting their appetite,” he said, for more GEOINT 

support in the field. The program depended upon 

a robust reachback system, which bridged the gap 

between in-house analysts and deployed personnel.

A Turning Point

Sept. 11, 2001, was a turning point for both the 

country and the agency. Not only did terrorists 

attack the United States, but two days later, retired 

Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. assumed 

leadership of NGA. Clapper spearheaded major 

changes in the agency, including how it conducted 

Evolution of the NGA Deployer Program—Providing 

GEOINT Forward

By Sara Fiske, Contractor, Office of Corporate Communications

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 13 10/18/2011 12:55:12 PM
16Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

While NVDT deployers perform many of the 

same functions, their missions are temporary, and 

individuals typically serve for four to six months at 

a time. They provide crisis and contingency support 

for disaster recovery and relief efforts, National 

Special Security Events (NSSEs) and warfighting 

efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. 

NSTs and the NVDT collaborate on joint missions. 

For example, the CENTCOM NST has been heavily 

involved in NGA’s NVDT support to the wars 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the DHS NST is 

heavily involved when NVDT deployers respond to 

domestic missions. 

NIMA to NGA

In 2003 NIMA became NGA with passage of the 

2004 Defense Authorization bill, ODP became 

the Office of Global Support (OGS), and Clapper 

increased NGA’s forward support inside the 

United States. NIMA analysts surveyed the World 

Trade Center site after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 

and began supporting the Olympic Games in 

2002. In 2004 the agency began sending teams 

to support NSSEs, beginning with the national 

political conventions of that year. These teams 

collaborated with the NSTs at DHS, the FBI and the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 

NGA now supports numerous NSSEs each year 

from pre-event planning through deployment of 

GEOINT analysts on site, always at the request of 

a lead federal agency. NGA also supports disaster 

readiness and recovery operations. In 2005, the 

White House cited NGA for its outstanding and 

timely support to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. 

Agency deployers have always been volunteers, 

willing to leave the comforts of home and family 

and work in difficult and sometimes dangerous 

locations. Sometimes even getting to their 

deployment locations could be a challenge. 

NGA analyst Lou Halbert, who estimates he has 

deployed at least 20 times in his career, says, 

“Early on, you were on your own. You had to find 

your own military transport from Europe, and 

you were dependent on the host unit for all your 

communications. You even had to set up your own 

tent and camouflage netting.”

Today an entire logistics team is in place to get 

deployers where they need to go and house them 

once there.

Training for deployers has improved, too. 

Producing GEOINT in the field is much different 

from producing it at home. A deployed analyst 

needs to be more of a jack-of-all-trades than he 

or she is at NGA, where specialization is more 

common. Training now provides real-life exercises 

that simulate what deployers might encounter in 

the field. 

By 2006, when Vice Adm. Robert B. Murrett 

took the helm of NGA, the United States was 

fully engaged in two wars, and NGA had more 

people in the field than ever before. The agency 

had shifted its focus from an internal or national 

mission to an external, combat-support mission. 

Murrett believed that NGA could be much more 

responsive if NGA personnel were alongside 

mission partners and military customers in 

the war zone. “We could better understand 

their mission, and anticipate requirements 

much faster, sharing their hardships and their 

successes,” says Gary Dunow, former Deputy 

Director of NGA’s Expeditionary Operations office.

NGA analysts discuss details for mission operations in Ethiopia.

NGA photo

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 14 10/18/2011 12:55:13 PM
The Road Ahead

With the arrival of new agency director Letitia A. 

Long in 2010, Dunow says the pendulum is starting 

to swing back to a more balanced approach 

between warfighter support and the national 

security mission. 

Forward-deployed NGA teams vary in size and 

makeup—each team customized to support the 

unique needs of the specific mission partner 

or customer at a given time, says Bramow. As a 

result, some teams are quite large, and include 

a diverse mix of NGA personnel, in addition to 

the typical GEOINT analyst and staff officer. NGA 

forward support has been praised as a model 

for embedded support across the Intelligence 

Community. Most NGA employees who deploy or 

take an NST assignment find it to be a highlight of 

their NGA career. 

But the new agency vision to “put the power 

of GEOINT in your hands” means NGA’s forwarddeployed support will continue to evolve as the 

agency provides more self-service capability for its 

customers. The customer now understands GEOINT 

much better and has more advanced technology 

to access it. But no one sees the deployed mission 

going away anytime soon says Dunow. “Because 

we’ve educated the warfighter, they’re not going 

anywhere without us.”

17Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

In January 2007, Murrett created the Combat 

Operations Support Team to help manage the 

growing GEOINT support required by the U.S. 

military surge in Iraq. Country team leads were 

responsible for all NGA personnel in country, 

and were familiar enough with NGA’s products 

and services to be able to market them to the 

customer, who often had little or no knowledge 

of NGA or GEOINT. By “leaning way forward into 

the customer’s footprint,” says Dunow, “we also 

educated them on the power of GEOINT. This 

model was the right model for the time period. The 

country was on a war footing, and our presence in 

theater saved lives.” 

Dunow believes GEOINT played a critical role in 

the success of the 2007 surge in Iraq and “directly 

contributed to our ability to safely draw down the 

United States’ presence from Iraq this year.”

Another benefit of embedding GEOINT analysts 

into a customer’s footprint is the opportunity for 

true multi-intelligence (multi-INT) collaboration 

with analysts from other Intelligence Community 

agencies who also have embedded support. 

Breaking down the proverbial stovepipes between 

agencies, this multi-INT support has led the way in 

the kind of interagency collaboration mandated by 

the 9/11 commission. “In the field, it just happens 

naturally,” says Halbert. 

NGA employees participate in a planning session at Headquarters, 

Southern Command in Miami, Fla.

NGA photo

putting the 

power of 

GEOINT in 

your hands

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 15 10/18/2011 12:55:14 PM
18Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

The End of an Era, the Birth of a New One

With this issue, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) marks the end of an era. Legacy 

facilities in the East—at main post, Fort Belvoir, Va.; the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.; Reston, 

Va., and Bethesda, Md.—close as NGA Campus East celebrates its grand opening at Fort Belvoir’s North Area 

in Springfield, Va.

The completion of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure-mandated consolidation of NGA’s East facilities 

at Fort Belvoir by Sept. 15, 2011, completes the physical transformation that began with the birth of the 

National Imagery and Mapping Agency in October 1996. NGA bids farewell to the structures that housed the 

agency, from its first World War II-era buildings in Bethesda and Fort Belvoir, to its Cold War-era building at 

the Washington Navy Yard to its 1980s-era and later buildings at Reston, Va.

Clockwise from left are Erskine, Abert, Maury and Roberdeau Halls. Facilities in Bethesda, Md., included Erskine Hall, named for Col. Robert Erskine, 

geographer and surveyor general in George Washington’s Army (note: Erskine Hall housed the NIMA and NGA director’s suite), and opened in 1945; Abert 

Hall, named for Army Col. John James Abert, head of the Corps of Topographical Engineers and opened in 1961; Roberdeau Hall, named for Army Maj. Isaac 

Roberdeau, head of the Topographical Bureau of the War Department in 1818, and opened in 1965; Maury Hall, named for U.S. Navy Cmdr. Matthew Fontaine 

Maury, who developed a system of recording the oceanographic data of naval vessels, and opened in 1989; and Emory Hall (not depicted), named for Army 

Maj. William Hemsley Emory, foremost authority of the trans-Mississippi Southwest in the United States and opened on an unknown date as part of Army Map 

Service facilities. The Warren Building (not depicted), adjacent to the Ruth Building, opened in 1943 and was named for Army Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Kemble 

Warren, who was chief topographical officer in Gen. William S. Harney’s expedition against the Sioux in the southern Nebraska Territory. 

Facilities in Bethesda, 

Md., served as agency 

headquarters from 1996 to 

2011. Buildings included 

the Ruth Building, at left, 

opened June 15, 1942, as part 

of the Army Map Service and 

named for Army Capt. Charles 

H. Ruth, first commanding 

officer of the Army Engineer 

Reproduction Plant

The Fremont Building, 

opened in January 

1944, was named 

for Army Maj. Gen. 

John C. Fremont, an 

explorer and surveyor 

and a member of 

the Army Corps 

of Topographical 

Engineers

NGA photos

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 16 10/18/2011 12:55:15 PM
19Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

The NGA College at Fort Belvoir included Building 214, Bagley Hall, 

built in 1940 and named for Army Lt. Col. James. W. Bagley, Chief 

of the Intelligence Section of the Chief of Engineers; Building 220, 

Marshall Hall, likely named for former Secretary of State Army Gen. 

George C. Marshall; Building 211, depicted; and Building 215. 

Buildings 211 and 215 have no historical names. These buildings 

originally formed part of Army Engineer School facilities.

 The Washington Navy Yard (above), known as Building 

213, was home to the National Photographic Interpretation 

Center and became part of National Imagery and Mapping 

Agency (NIMA) facilities in 1996.

The Reston complex—which eventually included three buildings—opened 

as part of Defense Mapping Agency facilities on Feb. 16, 1988, and then 

became part of NIMA facilities in 1996. Reston 1 is depicted below.

NGA photos

Sep-Oct_Pathfinder.indd 17 10/18/2011 12:55:19 PM
20Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

We began with a passing of the flag. 

On Oct. 1, 1996, Deputy Secretary of Defense 

John White handed the new National Imagery and 

Mapping Agency (NIMA) flag to Acting Director 

Rear Adm. Joseph J. Dantone Jr. As an idea first 

suggested by Robert Gates when he served as 

Director of the CIA/Director of Central Intelligence 

(DCI), but refined and developed in a more 

receptive political atmosphere by DCI John Deutch, 

full collaboration between imagery analysts and 

geospatial specialists within a dedicated agency 

seemed ideal as the 20th century ended and new, 

more asymmetrical threats emerged around the 

world. For Dantone, directing the new agency 

meant breaking down cultural barriers between 

analysts and scientists who did not have a history 

of easy, regular communication. 

The previous year, Dantone assumed the 

chairmanship of the transition team that 

established the mission, function, organizational 

structure and program plan for NIMA. During 

his tenure, he focused attention on transferring 

resources from eight different agencies into 

the new agency after winning the approval of 

Department of Defense (DOD), the Intelligence 

Community and various oversight congressional 

committees. In the meanwhile, the agencies that 

would become NIMA, especially the Defense 

Mapping Agency (DMA), provided phenomenal 

geospatial and imagery support to the success 

of the Dayton Peace Accords, sealed at WrightPatterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in 1995, clearly 

exhibiting the potential of the proposed NIMA 

collaboration.

From its beginning on Oct. 1, 1996, NIMA faced 

extraordinary internal and external responsibilities. 

Outwardly, DOD looked to the new agency for 

direct analytical combat support in aerial and 

space-based reconnaissance and cartography. 

In addition, its founding statutes required NIMA 

to support national-level policymakers and 

government agencies. NIMA also became a 

member of the Intelligence Community and the 

central authority for access to the best imagery 

and geospatial information as well as the ultimate 

arbiter of standards for these critical sources. The 

primary creators of the agency, White and Deutch, 

sought to form NIMA around the concept of a 

single, national geospatial information system, 

linking the existing imagery and cartographic 

exploitation functions as they emerged into the 

digital world.

NIMA absorbed four agencies at its birth in 1996 

and took imagery and cartographic functions from 

four others. The new agency consumed DMA, the 

National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), 

the Defense Dissemination Program Office and 

the Central Imagery Office. It also took control of 

various aspects of the intelligence mission once 

performed by CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency 

(DIA), National Reconnaissance Office and the 

Defense Aerial Reconnaissance Office.

We took our first significant steps learning to 

communicate and collaborate.

Army Lt. Gen. James C. King assumed command 

of NIMA in March 1998 and began the process 

of practical growth and development. One of the 

most revealing advances of his tenure emerged 

from the production cells established by NIMA 

and dedicated to understanding the potential 

power of combining geospatial techniques with the 

seasoned imagery analysis developed at NPIC, now 

part of NIMA. The Eurasia Branch production cell 

at the Washington Navy Yard’s Building 213 began 

issuing collaborative products that drew applause 

from the entire community, prompting then DCI 

George Tenet to examine their “Wall of Fame” while 

on a visit to NIMA. This kind of collaboration and 

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at 15: 

Coming of Age, 1996-2011

Dr. Gary E. Weir, Office of Corporate Communications

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21Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

experimentation provided the magic ingredient 

that brought the effort and the output to another 

level. Intellectual insight into a crisis situation 

expressed in a tight, complementary symphony of 

image, geospatial reference and idea quickly set a 

new standard for professional achievement.

On the eve of Sept. 11, 2001, NIMA had clearly 

begun to define and satisfy its customers with 

timely and specific solutions, but the obstacle of 

internal integration persisted, holding the agency 

back from fully realizing its possibilities. The major 

internal tradecraft cultures, whether imagery 

analysts or cartographers, feared that one mission 

or the other would disappear in the process of 

integration, with one group eclipsing the other. 

Both cultures greeted any effort to integrate with 

profound suspicion. As the Report of the NIMA 

Commission established by Congress in 2000 

noted, these cultural distinctions even emerged 

in the agency’s mission statement: The NIMA 

mission—to provide timely, relevant and accurate 

imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial 

information in support of national security 

objectives—shows the same multiplicity. 

While responsive and expert, in September 2001 

the agency still had a long way to go. However, it 

would soon travel much of that long road in a very 

short period of time. For NIMA, the Sept. 11 terrorist 

attacks on the United States acted as a very potent 

catalyst. The agency response in the days after 

the attacks propelled reforms in organization and 

practice forward at a truly breathtaking rate. The 

terrorists had unwittingly provided the reason 

and opportunity for significant changes inwardly 

which almost immediately manifested themselves 

outwardly in tradecraft developments and 

warfighter support.

Sept. 11 defined us.

The terrible events of that day enabled our 

predecessor command, NIMA, both to master 

its mandate more effectively and to integrate 

its components more thoroughly. Opportunistic 

leadership and internal expertise used the 

terrorist threat to unite the agency as never before, 

allowing its community to respond with creativity 

and energy to the national need. 

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. 

became the director of NIMA just as the attacks 

took place in 2001. Lamenting the lack of a 

blueprint to DIA when he became its director, 

just before his retirement from the U.S. Air Force 

in 1995, Clapper arrived at his new assignment 

with the NIMA Commission Report under his 

arm, finding in its conclusions the compelling 

vision of those who created NIMA in 1996 from 

multiple agencies and missions. He saw a clarity 

and completeness in their effort that gave him a 

sense of the best way ahead. When appointed to 

lead NIMA, he embraced their plans and then saw 

in the 9/11 attacks the opportunity both to fulfill 

quickly the commission’s ambitions for NIMA and 

to bring the agency to the front line against the 

terrorist assault. 

For Clapper the image of a world held in the grip 

of terrorism recalled the weeks he spent on the 

commission investigating the 1996 bombing of 

the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. In the absence 

of the Cold War superpower rivalry, Clapper 

envisioned “a much more lawless world” of 

multiple decentralized threats. He walked through 

the wreckage at Khobar and hoped he did not see 

what the future would bring. 

Said Clapper, “And I’ll never forget walking 

up the stairwell, which was completely covered 

in blood; blood all over the walls of the place ... 

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22Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

You know, I’d never been exposed to that. So it 

made a tremendous impression on me, and it 

was a graphic example to me of what terrorism 

is all about. And as a consequence, I got deeply 

involved in that even when I was retired and the 

whole subject of terrorism and homeland security 

and homeland defense ...” 

Every aspect of NIMA that an incoming director 

would want critically revealed in a constructive 

way appeared in the commission’s report. It 

discussed outsourcing especially repetitive 

cartographic tasks to free civil servants for more 

essential work. This independent view also 

suggested that NIMA should look hard and long 

at commercial imagery collection and some 

partnerships with private industry in that realm. 

The commission also emphasized the need to 

collaborate across boundaries of office, geography, 

culture and agency. If, for example, the best 

signals intelligence informed imagery intelligence 

and visa versa, collaboration with the National 

Security Agency seemed natural. However, 

in the Intelligence Community at large, such 

collaborations did not occur with frequency or very 

naturally. Above all, as Clapper read the report, he 

saw that the commission had no illusions about 

limited funds and resources. The armed forces 

needed to define as precisely as possible the 

nature of the products it needed and they had to 

define the meaning of information superiority. 

Clapper could not have hoped for a more 

thorough blueprint or more informed set of 

constructive criticisms when he took over 

at NIMA in a country reacting to attack and 

preparing for war. 

In many cases the attitudes toward the changes 

and reforms Clapper envisioned would have taken 

years to address, and implementation would 

have required even more time. The events of 

Sept.11 permitted him to suspend a comfortable 

reality within the Intelligence Community and 

to implement changes as part of the national 

emergency. Not long after the attacks he 

commented, “Some would argue that the worst 

time you want to make changes is during a crisis. 

My experience here tells me that’s the best time 

to make changes. Because basically it minimizes 

the resistance. It’s a lot easier to make changes 

in the name of doing things more efficiently in the 

case of a war. It makes it a lot simpler, a lot more 

sellable. So we didn’t, you know, we didn’t take 

all the delivery time you would normally take to 

have offsites and focus groups and handholding 

employees—and we didn’t do that. We said we’re 

gonna do it—you know; as a consequence, we got 

a jump start on making a lot of changes.” 

As NIMA director, Clapper reshaped the agency 

into what would become NGA in 2003. 

Clapper used America’s determination to 

counter the terrorist threat to advance the 

reach and role of NGA at home and abroad. 

Mobilization for the war in Afghanistan 

provided ample motivation and reason for the 

tradecraft communities within NIMA to come 

together, bringing greater unity to the agency. 

He then projected NIMA/NGA into the theater 

of operations by setting the stage for the NGA 

support teams (NSTs) to become the face of 

our agency with the warfighter. The NIMA/NGA 

leadership also adopted a scheme of “now, next 

and after next” to make sure that agency thinking 

always looked beyond the present and tried to 

anticipate the future needs and achievements 

that would arrest the terrorist threat. This new 

unity of thought and tradecraft matured into 

GEOINT, a term for NGA’s primary intelligence 

product that Clapper took from the dialogue 

within the agency and made official in both work 

and in the agency’s name. 

This work laid the foundations for our activity 

in Afghanistan and Iraq, our domestic homeland 

security and disaster relief functions, as well as 

the potent messages sent to the terrorists both by 

our success in the field and the recent welcome 

elimination of Osama bin Laden. When Vice Adm. 

Robert B. Murrett succeeded Clapper in 2006 the 

emphasis he chose for his tenure through 2010 

rested upon the early initiatives taken by Clapper 

to project NGA forward. Placing GEOINT into the 

hands of the warfighter, encouraging NGA staff 

and leadership to deploy and work alongside 

those doing the fighting, and expanding the size 

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23Pathfinder ›› September/October 2011

and role of the NSTs became daily reality. Murrett 

himself spent significant time in theater, working 

on collaborative arrangements with allies, visiting 

NSTs and making NGA a reality to those who 

needed to use GEOINT. 

He also led the NGA domestic staff into the NGA 

Campus East (NCE) project, which would provide 

NGA’s physically scattered staff with a very capable 

home that would help the entire NGA community 

work together more closely and productively. 

As NCE opens for business, the corporate vision 

currently emerging from discussions among the 

NGA leadership, with an emphasis on placing 

GEOINT into the hands of the warfighter, clearly 

builds on the policies and initiatives of both 

Clapper and Murrett. As it should, our past has 

informed the present. At 15, NGA has clearly come 

of age as a leader in the American Intelligence 

Community. 

Editor’s note: Quotes from retired Air Force Lt. 

Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. stem from his oral history 

interview with former NGA historian Dr. Martin 

Gordon.

NIMA Director Army Lt. Gen. James C. King presented the NIMA Medallion 

for Excellence to John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense. King praised 

Hamre for his support of NIMA and called him a “significant part of the 

legacy of NIMA.” NGA photo

Alumni Organizations Keep the NGA Spirit

Did you know there are private organizations whose membership is made up of current and former 

employees of NGA and its legacy organizations? These associations support social interaction, 

recreation, education and other benefits for their members. 

In late July 2011, the Association of Aerospace Charting Seniors (ACS), located in the West, and the 

National Geospatial Intelligence Alumni Association (NGIAA), located in the East, combined to form 

the National Geospatial-Intelligence Alumni Association (NGAA). NGAA has chapters in the East and 

West, with a membership of over 500. Their websites are at www.ngaaeast.org and www.ngaawest.org, 

respectively.

Current and former NGA employees may also join the Association of Mapping Seniors (AMS); their 

website is at www.mappers.org.

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www.nga.mil

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