Thank you for attending!
The 2024 GeoGala was held on December 5, 2024 at the Ritz-Carleton in McLean, VA. The evening celebrated the Honorable Kevin O'Connell as he was presented with the prestigious Lundahl-Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award.
The evening was hosted by our very own CEO, Ronda Schrenk. We featured notable speakers such as Esther Oyedele, the recipient of the 2024 Leidos Scholarship for AI/ML Advancement, along with CEO and President of Riverside Research, Dr. Steve Omick, and USGIF Chairman, Robert Cardillo.
The event also hosted wonderful remarks from leaders throughout the geospatial industry, including Tracy Iseler, General Manager at Microsoft National Security Group, Sidney Medford, Chief People Officer for Reinventing Geospatial, Inc., and Jeff Robertson, COO for Maxar Intelligence.
A highlight of the event was the return of our silent auction, which successfully raised over $39,000 to support USGIF scholarships and educational initiatives! It truly was an unforgettable night. Again, thank you to all the attendees, participants, auction winners, and our sponsors for their contributions to making the GEOGala a success.
Kevin O'Connell Presented with the 2024 Arthur C. Lundahl-Thomas C. Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award
Kevin O’Connell has been named the 2024 Arthur C. Lundahl-Thomas C. Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
“I’ve had the distinct professional pleasure to know Kevin for more than 30 years. Quite simply, Kevin is a founding architect of the geospatial intelligence profession. From his ground-breaking academic leadership to his on-going contribution to improving the government and industry partnership, Kevin is a central pillar in our community,” said USGIF Board Chair Robert Cardillo. “Like the namesakes of the Lundahl-Finnie Award, Kevin has made an immense and lasting impact on the work we do in the GEOINT Community.”
O’Connell is a recognized and well-respected expert on space commerce, the global space economy, and U.S. national security matters. For almost four decades, he has focused on space commercialization and technological competitiveness and how to advance them in global markets.
His most recent government role was Director of the Office of Space Commerce within the Department of Commerce. He was the principal architect of outreach to U.S. private space companies to facilitate innovation and encourage increased market growth and viability. He focused on the growing role of the private sector in space, encouraged new international space partnerships, worked to ensure the competitiveness of the U.S. commercial space industry, and advanced American leadership in space safety and sustainability.
O’Connell’s other government assignments have included the Department of State, the National Security Council, the Office of the Vice President, and the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence. He also served as the Executive Secretary of the Independent Commission on the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 2000, and later as an advisor to the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He was a long-standing member of NOAA’s federal advisory committee, ACCRES, including serving as Chair between 2012 and 2016. While at the Department of Commerce, he played a key role in modernizing the commercial remote sensing regulations designed to encourage American innovation and shape global markets.
Within the private sector, O’Connell was a senior research analyst at RAND and was the first Director of RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center. In 2007, he founded Innovative Analytics and Training, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in assessing high-tech market areas including geospatial technology, cloud computing, and cyber analytics. Today, he runs Space Economy Rising, an advisory firm focused on strategy and finance for companies in the space sector. He regularly speaks around the world on trends in the global space economy.
About Arthur C. Lundahl-Thomas C. Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award
The prestigious Lundahl-Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award was named for Arthur C. Lundahl and Thomas C. Finnie, honoring their accomplishments in imagery analysis and mapping, respectively, and their legacies within the GEOINT community.
Who is Arthur C. Lundahl?
Arthur C Lundahl is known as the “father of modern imagery analysis and imagery intelligence” for his work as the founder and first director of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). Under Lundahl’s leadership, NPIC’s role to support the CIA’s deputy director of intelligence transformed the center into a national-level component of the Intelligence Community, and demonstrated image intelligence as a prime strategic and tactical resource worldwide.
Who is Thomas C. Finnie?
Thomas C. Finnie’s career with the U.S. government began in 1937, practicing engineering and surveying with the Department of Agriculture. In 1962, he assumed the position of technical director for the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, and was one of the initial eight Department of Defense planners who assisted in organizing the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) in 1972.
Later, Finnie became DMA’s director of management and technology. DMA consolidated the broad disciplines of mapping, charting, and geodesy, and helped to promulgate its evolution to digital geospatial information. Finnie was one of the primary architects of DMA’s evolution to a digital era.
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