At the July meeting of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) in Paris, France, Charles Roswell received an OGC Lifetime Achievement Award, the first ever granted by the OGC. Charles Roswell has been an active participant in the OGC from the Consortium’s beginning. Through his decades of experience in geospatial standards in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and its predecessor organizations, and at NATO, Roswell anticipated the need for interoperability standards like those that have been developed in the OGC, and he has been a key factor in making these standards a reality.
While representing the NGA in the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), working on the NSDI Framework, Roswell became involved with the OGC in the Consortium’s first year and he promoted FGDC involvement. Roswell has continued to serve as ambassador and “connector,” facilitating inter-organizational cooperation.
He was a main contributor to the successful relationships between OGC, ISO TC211 and ANSI/INCITS L1. As the International Representative for INCITS L1 to ISO/TC211, Roswell has led the United States Delegation in ISO TC211, advancing both diplomacy and technology.
Roswell made significant contributions to the development of the abstract model for Coverages. Bridging the conceptual gap between discrete vector based GIS and gridded remote sensed imagery, Coverages has matured into a joint OGC/ISO abstract specification and it also provides the basis for key OpenGIS® Specifications.
Mark Reichardt, president of OGC, said, “In addition to being a consistent advocate for collaboration, Charles has earned the respect and admiration of OGC members for his careful and thorough articulation of interoperability requirements, as well as his authorship of and review of OGC documentation. The framework of OGC and ISO standards has benefited deeply from Charles’ commitment and leadership over the past decade.”
The OGC® is an international industry consortium of more than 340 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.
