When striving to communicate information, we all have to be speaking the same language. Otherwise, we doom our efforts from the start. If we only have a partial understanding of each other’s language, we manage to communicate, but we slow and hinder our understanding. When it comes to sharing geospatial information, we must adhere to the same standards, or we risk garbling our communication.
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) continues to be a bastion supporting open standards to facilitate efficient communication of geospatial information. And no award more closely exemplifies their dedication to their mission than the Kenneth D. Gardels Award.
The Gardels Award 2016
The Board of Directors of the OGC awards this gold medallion to an individual who has made exemplary contributions to the OGC’s consensus standards process. Prior Gardels Award winners make the award nominations which the Board of Directors approves. The recipient must demonstrate the spirit of Kenn Gardels, “a man who dreamt passionately of making the world a better place through open communication and the use of information technology to improve the quality of human life.”
This year, Stan Tillman received the Gardels Award 2016. Stan has worked tirelessly for the OGC for many years, and led many initiatives. He currently chairs both the Point Cloud and the Workflow Domain Working Groups, all while also shouldering huge responsibility for integrating the OGC standards into Hexagon Geospatial products and solutions.
Stan Tillman Honored with Award
Hexagon Geospatial President Mladen Stojic had this to say about Stan and the occasion.
“I am extremely honored that the OGC is recognizing the dedication of Stan Tillman by selecting him to receive this year’s Gardels Award 2016.
Stan exemplifies many of the values that define our company. He is professional, innovative, and entrepreneurial. He is focused on the customer, engaged with them and their needs, and seeks to deliver the best solution to them. Those of you who have worked with Stan know that he brings all of those values to his contributions at the OGC.
I am honored to work with Stan and the OGC as we continue to shape smart change throughout the world, and even though I cannot be there in person to see Stan receive this most prestigious award, I hope he knows how much his contributions have been valued, not just by his company, and not just by the OGC, but by the geospatial industry and all of the customers we serve.”
Hexagon Geospatial is proud to continue the legacy of Intergraph Corporation, one of the founding members of the Open Geospatial Consortium. The standards developed by the OGC have been instrumental in helping agencies around the world integrate geospatial data into their daily workflow. So many of the things we take for granted today, such as the ability to use our smart phones to check the weather or find the quickest way home from work, are derivative technologies built upon the OGC standards.
