Mark Reichardt Joins OGC Staff

On December 12, 2000, the Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced that Mark Reichardt joined the OGC team in November 2000 as Director of Marketing and Public Sector Programs. Mr. Reichardt joins OGC after leaving a successful 20-year career with the federal government. Since 1980, Mr. Reichardt has been involved in key federal mapping and geospatial programs.David Schell, President of OGC, said about Mr. Reichardt's new role, “We are extremely fortunate to have Mark Reichardt working for OGC. A passionate believer in a spatial data infrastructure as accessible as the web, Mark's consensus building experience in federal mapping and geospatial programs will be a vital asset to our members' success.”While with the Defense Mapping Agency in the 1980's and early 1990's, Mr. Reichardt was involved in a number of technology modernization and production programs. In the mid 1990's, he was a principle member of a DoD Geospatial Information Integrated Product Team (GIIPT), chaired by the Director of the newly formed National Imagery and Mapping Agency to help transition the DoD mapping mission to a more flexible and responsive geo-information based paradigm. Under Mr. Reichardt's leadership, the GIIPT Production Team validated the ability of commercial off the shelf hardware and software to meet many of the DoD functional requirements for geospatial production operations.In 1998, Mr. Reichardt accepted an temporary assignment with the Administration to improve federal to local coordination in the use of geospatial information and technologies to improve decision-making. In early 1999, Mr. Reichardt was selected to establish and lead an international Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) program for the Federal Geographic Data Committee. In this position, Mr. Reichardt helped to establish globally compatible national and regional SDI practices in Africa, South America, Europe, and the Caribbean. He was instrumental in establishing several nation-to-nation collaborative agreements on SDI issues, and has been a key player in the advancement of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Initiative.Mr. Reichardt holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture from the University of Maryland. He has also pursued graduate studies in Telecommunications Management at Maryland. Mr. Reichardt lives in Darnestown, Maryland with his wife and two children.OGC is an international industry consortium of over 200 companies, government agencies and universities working together to develop commercial geoprocessing standards.– end –“