Army Appoints Services First Geospatial Information Officer
March 24, 2008 7 Comments
I had REST on my mind when this happened, but thanks to a valued contributer I was reminded about this event.
Robert Burkhardt, director of the Engineer Research and Development Center’s Topographic Engineering Center, was recently appointed as the Army’s first Geospatial Information Officer (GIO) by Headquarters, Department of the Army’s Geospatial-Enterprise Governance Board. As GIO, Mr. Burkhardt serves as the Army’s central manager responsible for coordination, assessment, and synchronization of all Army policies and standardization requirements for the geospatial information enterprise, which will help enable interoperability across battle command systems, bringing the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines closer to the realization of a unified common operational picture (COP). This COP allows the Department of Defense to deploy assets efficiently and effectively by providing the warfighter with the integrated capability to receive, correlate, and display a common tactical picture, including planning applications that may include location of friendly, hostile, and neutral units, assets, and reference points.
While I think many joke about the title of GIO, this is a huge deal for anyone involved with Army or DoD work as the integration of these autonomous systems that both warfighters and support staff use with geospatial information is critical to the mission. While I’m sure things won’t change overnight, the significance of the Army creating such a position cannot go unnoticed by others.
The original press release is here for those who like such reading
About James Fee
“Army Appoints Services First Geospatial Information Officer”
Actually, the Marine Corps has had a GIO since last June, when Ms. Frances Railey was appointed. The Marine Corps has been developing it’s enterprise system over the last couple of years, which includes regional data centers, with their own GIOs.
I am glad to see the Army following our lead.
Great post, thanks James.
@DToney – Finally catching up to our USMC bretheren. More layers of tape. I think the title may be misleading in that it is this ‘services’ first GIO while not the first of all the ‘Services’. Might sound strange to say Army appoints Army’s first GIO. (??)
Following this news link, and browsing aroung the USACE TEC website – on the GIS Internet Resources page (http://www.tec.army.mil/gis) we find that Planet Geospatial is listed first under Blogs.
Thanks for all the effort James. You make my job of keeping up with the information firehose that never turns off so much easier!
David B – I think we’re just missing an appostraphie, and it’s all good.
I’d debate the ‘more red tape’ part. Having a GIO, and merging into an enterprise environment, has saved taxpayers money and allowed us to leverage our knowledge base much better. We’re not fielding servers are each installation anymore – we have our servers in two centeralized locations.
For contractors, it makes data calls much simpler. Working on a Marine Corps-wide project – you just go to the GIO for data, rather than going to 20 different installations.
Anyway, thanks as always for getting the news out, James. I’m glad to hear the Army following suit.
GIO offices exist throughout the Air Force as well. The fact that GIS is percolating to the top of the organizational chart within the DOD or elsewhere speaks volumes. I’ve speculated that it may eventually be swallowed by the IT industry but it appears to be holding it’s own. Interesting….
Now if the Marine Corps actually trained the officers who fill geospatial billets, that would be something.
JOD – I would be happy to discuss those issues with you, if you email me directly – david.toney@usmc.mil.
There are many different geospatial functions, and you’re not very specific – are you speaking military or civilian? Are you speaking of I&E functions, or some other function?