246
April 2019
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
When we survey the damage done by a hurricane to find
collapsed buildings and damaged infrastructure, we save
lives. When we develop an image processing method to
distinguish buried land mines from the surrounding soil, we
save lives. When we can inspect satellite images to identify
refugee camps and estimate the number of people there, we
help to bring food, water, medicine, supplies, and shelter
they need to survive. We help save their lives.
We must never doubt that what we do is important and has
meaning. That what we do has impact on everyone in the
world. This is us. This is who we are in the American Soci-
ety for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
Over the years, ASPRS has gone through organizational
changes and financial challenges, and continues to evolve in
response to changing situations. We have always worked
to be at the forefront of our field. We have always been the
organization that other mapping groups around the world
have looked to for leadership and we have always tried to
lead by example.
We have strong and flexible leaders – both staff and volun-
teer board members – who believe in ASPRS. As President
Hillyer has stated, we are streamlining our business and
financial operations though our partnership with P&N As-
sociation Management Company. This gives our staff more
time to develop the programs that will add value to our
members. Programs like Certification – we are strong here
with almost 600 certified professionals in Photogrammetry,
Remote Sensing, GIS, Lidar and UAS. Programs like our
publications, including PE&RS and the books and manuals
we publish to support our work. We provide workshops and
webinars on a variety of subjects and we intend to provide a
higher level of material for our members’ continuing educa-
tion through the development of on-line training classes.
Above all, we need to continue to add value to being mem-
bers of ASPRS. We need to make membership a necessity
for professionals and students in the geospatial field. And to
do this we all – everyone of us - need to be advocates. When
we meet local GIS people, we need to ask them if they know
about ASPRS. If not, point them in the right direction to
find out more, then invite them to join ASPRS. When we
give talks or demonstrations to clients and students, we
need to talk about ASPRS. We all need to do this. We all
need to help grow the membership of ASPRS. Especially
with the recent growth of the UAS industry, there is a whole
new class of professionals who need us as much as we need
them. ASPRS is where these operators need to go for train-
ing. After all, mapping is not just about flying a drone and
taking pretty pictures. We can provide that training to take
them to the next level of professionalism with standards,
workflows, and certification.
Over drinks the other night several of us were talking about
how ASPRS, over our entire careers, has been our profes-
sional home. And how valuable the lasting friendships and
contacts we have made have been to our lives.
I have been coming to the ASPRS Annual and Fall Confer-
ences since 1979, my first year as a graduate student at the
University of Georgia working with Roy Welch and studying
close-range analytical photogrammetry. I have attended
this meeting as a learner and to present about a million pa-
pers. I have spent many, many hours talking to vendors in
the exhibit hall -- and I have been an exhibitor myself. Now
I come as a board member and officer. It’s been an evolu-
tion. One I owe in large part to my graduate advisor, boss
and business partner, Roy Welch, who became president of
ASPRS in 1984.
In 2007, my friend and colleague, Marguerite Madden,
served as President of this Society. In 2014, my friend and
classmate, Lynn Usery, was President. Marguerite, Lynn
and I have all built our own careers, but all of us started in
the same Center at the University of Georgia Department
of Geography working with Roy Welch. We owe him a great
debt and I want to thank him for starting me down this path
by showing me those beautiful pictures of this world that
were being produced by the early Landsat satellites. And
for giving me a well-earned ‘C’ on the Kelsh Plotter exercise,
proving to me once and for all that the future was in com-
puters and analytics.
I cannot begin to imagine the path this field will take in the
next 40 years, or what the incoming ASPRS president of
40 years from now will experience during his or her career.
But I do know that there is no substitute for the face to face
interactions and exchange of ideas and knowledge that we
have here at ASPRS. I am looking forward to serving as
president and I thank you for this opportunity.
Y E A R B O O K
Landsat’s
Enduring Legacy
and many
other ASPRS
publications
available at
Amazon.com.
LANDSAT’S ENDURING LEGACY
PioneeringGlobalLandObservations fromSpace
LandsatLegacyProjectTeam
THE
IMAGING & GEOSPATIAL
INFORMATION SOCIETY
Order online at amazon.com
