Wayland, Massachusetts, USA, April 15, 1997 – The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC), the organization that coordinates collaborative development of the OpenGIS Specification for interoperable geoprocessing, announced today that Dr. Robert W. Corell of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Martin C. Faga of the MITRE Corporation (McLean, VA), have become members of OGC's Board of Directors.Dr. Corell is chair of the interagency committee that developed and now coordinates the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Director for Geosciences at NSF in 1987, he served in leadership roles in various international, national and regional organizations, including the Vice Chair of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory Systems (UNOLS), Chair of the NSF Ocean Sciences Division Advisory Committee for many years, Chairman of the Marine Sciences Council for the State of New Hampshire, and Chair/President of several national oceanography societies and organizations. Currently, he serves in leadership roles in many other national and international research organizations in the geosciences and related fields. Dr. Corell has served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Global Change Research of the NSTC Committee on Environmental and Natural Resources since 1987, and he directed the 1990 White House Conference on Science and Economics Research Related to Global Change. Prior to his work at NSF, he was a professor and director of several programs at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Corell graduated from Case Institute of Technology (BSME, 1956; Ph.D., 1964) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S.M.E., 1959).Commenting on his interest in OGC, Dr. Corell said, “OGC represents a critical and timely partnership among industry, government, and academe essential to serving a broad range of users' needs for geospatial data and information systems. I am delighted with the opportunity to serve on the Board and to share the the interests and perspectives of the research communities concerned with understanding the complex and interdependent systems of planet Earth: from the earth sciences to oceanography and from the atmospheric and meteorological sciences to polar research. OGC a provides unique and extraordinarily effective venue to provide the interoperability and standards methodologies, research, and education for GIS systems of the twenty-first century.”Martin Faga is Senior Vice President and General Manager, Center for Integrated Intelligence Systems at The MITRE Corporation in McLean, Virginia. The Center serves Department of Defense and Intelligence Community Sponsors in the integration of intelligence systems from sensor through presentation to the ultimate user. Prior to joining MITRE, Mr. Faga served from 1989 until 1993 as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space, responsible for overall supervision of Air Force space matters. At the same time, he served as Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, responsible to the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence for the development, acquisition, and operation of all U.S. satellite reconnaissance programs. Other facets of Mr. Faga's career include service as a professional staff member for the Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives where he was a member and later head of the program and budget staff. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering in 1963 and 1964 from Lehigh University.Mr. Faga stated that, “My interests and those of MITRE are closely aligned with those of OGC. MITRE participates in standards consortia because we are committed to open systems and the use of commercial equipment in systems for government use whenever possible. OGC addresses interoperability among GIS systems and integration of GIS into the general information infrastructure, which are very important issues for us.”About OGCOGC coordinates development of the OpenGIS Specification and also organizes related business development and institutional adoption of open systems approaches to the collection, management, distribution, and processing of digital geographic information. See http://www.opengeospatial.org .– end –“