Wayland, MA, USA, June 28, 2004. At the June meeting of the Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) in Southampton, UK, Martin Daly received the annual Kenneth G. Gardels Award. The Gardels Award is awarded each year to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to advancing the OGC vision of geographic information fully integrated into the world's information systems.Martin Daly is Technical Director at Cadcorp, Ltd. (Hertfordshire, UK). Active in OGC since 1997, Mr. Daly has committed Cadcorp to a policy of developing a full suite of products that comply with or implement OpenGIS® Specifications. He has also made significant contributions to OGC specification development. However, the deciding factor for the OGC Board of Directors in nominating Mr. Daly for the award is his determined focus on compliance testing and bringing OGC compliant products to market.Martin was the main author and is the editor of the OpenGIS Coordinate Transformation Services Specification and he participated in developing several other OpenGIS implementation specifications. He wrote the compliance tests for the Grid Coverages and Coordinate Transformation Services specifications. Under his technical direction, he placed high priority on OGC work, and he made sure that Cadcorp rapidly implemented OpenGIS Specifications in products and tested the products for compliance.As David Schell, OGC's President and CEO, said in presenting the award, “Martin's achievement is particularly important at this time as OGC addresses the next vital phase of its strategic mission, a phase driven and characterized by product implementation, testing and user uptake.”The award is given annually in memory of Kenneth Gardels, one of the founding directors of OGC and OGC's former director of academic programs. Mr. Gardels coined the term “Open GIS,” and devoted his life to the humane and democratic uses of geographic information systems. He died in 1999.OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 260 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org.– end –“