CERL Employee Named in National Award

William D. Goran, special projects officer at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), was cited in the Open Geographic Information Systems Consortium's (OGC), Inc. first annual OGC Vision Award. The award was presented to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, CERL's parent organization. Goran, of Champaign, was honored for his contributions in creating and expanding the OGC into a world-wide forum.

OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 240 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications for geographic information system (GIS) technology. OpenGIS? Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream information technology. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications.

Goran led a spatial technology team at CERL in pioneering research that fostered today's robust GIS industry. CERL's goal was to provide tools for military installations to model the environmental impacts of their training and testing activities. GIS is today a standard tool at Defense installations.