GeoEye employees are elevating insight to bring you secure, timely, and accurate location information. The company’s staff is comprised of bright and talented individuals with diverse backgrounds who work hard to ensure customer satisfaction. Take a closer look at some of the people who help to make GeoEye great.
Have you ever envisioned opening your own brewpub? Or perhaps you have a passion for modern art or classic cars? If so, Alistair Miller is someone you want to meet! He’s truly a “Renaissance man” which makes him not only a unique and valuable contributor to our team, but also an interesting person to be around.
Alistair discovered his interest in Geography during his undergraduate studies at Mary Washington College (before it was the University of Mary Washington). He was inspired by one of his professors, a human geography researcher, to learn more about the field. Having never before considered this course of study, he was fascinated by the many different elements and opportunities available in the field. He became hooked and went on to major in Geography with a focus on Remote Sensing and Cartography.
After college, Alistair moved back to the Washington, D.C. area, where he grew up. But he quickly found himself looking for opportunities to move out West after he went to visit a friend in Colorado. Within three months of taking the plunge and leaving his home, he was working in Customer Support at DigitalGlobe. After two years he advanced to inside sales and eventually into project and product management.
All of this experience prepared him well for the next chapter in his career. He transitioned to a role with GeoEye, taking the reins on supporting the development of the EyeQ™ platform. This relatively new technology enables customers to quickly and easily catalog and process high-resolution imagery for rapid dissemination. Since its inception almost three years ago, EyeQ has proven invaluable to emergency response and reaction to international events. For example, GeoEye was able to immediately distribute high-quality imagery to the world after the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan last year using the EyeQ system. And since the Japan crisis, EyeQ has enabled access to imagery in a timely manner to respond to numerous other natural disasters worldwide. It is not surprising, then, that Alistair considers EyeQ to be the most rewarding project he has been a part of developing.
Alistair is also managing GeoEye’s Google Maps platform and teaming with GeoEye Analytics to bring to fruition the next generation of their Signature Analyst product. He is constantly seeking innovative ideas and discovering how to apply imagery in meaningful ways. He finds that the best part of his job is having the chance to work cross-functionally and interact with a broad range of employees to help provide the best solution to a problem.
Moving forward, Alistair sees challenge and opportunity in further building the EyeQ customer base and in growing Web development. He continually listens to customer feedback to learn how to meet market demands and improve the capabilities of the EyeQ product. In the next five years, he would like to be involved in transforming web-based products to mobile devices to meet a rising customer demand. He also hopes to move into even more strategic roles where he can make an impact on the long-term company strategies. But if all else fails, his dream of opening a brewpub is always waiting in the wings. Care to join him? To learn more about Alistair, check out this Directions Magazine article: http://www.directionsmag.com/articles/meet-your-colleagues-alistair-miller-geoeye/252948 or drop him a line at Miller.Alistair@geoeye.com.
5 Facts About Alistair:
1) He has the same middle name as his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc. going back to 18th-century England.
2) He plays the drums and guitar. He can “get by” on bass, saxophone, and piano, but says he can’t play a recorder as well as his 2.5 year old!
3) His parents once told him he had won a baseball award when he was 12. He was surprised since the season hadn’t started, but got dressed up for the “ceremony” anyway before realizing that it was April 1st. He eventually got them back!
4) He bartended for 6 years and still has most mixed drinks memorized. He hates making mojitos and anything involving a pestle and mortar.
5) He occasionally races at Summit Point and Virginia International Raceway, and is a Formula 1 fanatic.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
GeoEye Expert Spotlight: Dr. Colleen “Kelly” McCue
GeoEye employees are elevating insight to bring you secure, timely, and accurate location information. The company’s staff is comprised of bright and talented individuals with diverse backgrounds who work hard to ensure customer satisfaction. Take a closer look at some of the people who help to make GeoEye great.
We know that GeoEye is collecting and distributing high-quality satellite imagery that delivers clear insight and allows our customers to “see change”. In order to extract deeper insights, the staff at GeoEye Analytics takes imagery and combines it with other sources of geospatial and human geography information. GeoEye Analytics delivers geospatial analytic assessments intended to answer tough questions and allow our customers to “understand and anticipate change”.
Dr. Colleen “Kelly” McCue is a subject matter expert at the company’s McLean, Va. office, with extensive knowledge of national security and law enforcement. Kelly uses her knowledge to tackle geospatial projects on a global scale. For example, Kelly has been heavily involved with predictive analysis, modeling the activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Africa. Improved understanding of LRA movements will enable better response to and prevention of threats from this violent group. Kelly determines how geospatial and human geography data can answer critical questions for our customers, like “How can resources be optimized to keep people safe?”
Kelly studied Psychology at the University of Illinois – Chicago before earning her Ph.D. in the same field at Dartmouth College. Her education led her to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical College of Virginia and helped shift her focus toward analyzing violent crimes. She worked with state and local police departments, assisting with investigations into criminal activities. Her involvement with high-profile cases enhanced her skills and prepared her for increasingly challenging projects.
Often, the work she does is proprietary, given its sensitive nature. She frequently deals with dangerous subjects and issues with global impact. Some of her work focuses on providing assistance to people in need, like the modeling of LRA movements in Africa. At other times, Kelly focuses on projects that make a difference right here at home. She applies her knowledge about consumer behavior and place preferences to predict trends in criminal behaviors. She also draws correlations between public health and public safety. While it is important to be able to accurately predict a likely result, it is not always possible to prevent or change a particular outcome. Still, Kelly notes that it is truly “a privilege to be a part of the solution.”
Given the opportunity, Kelly would like to join an embedded team and apply her talents in the field more often. She appreciates the challenge of hands-on work and knows how rewarding it can be to get up close to a problem to find the solution. She feels fortunate to work alongside many gifted individuals serving in unique places around the world.
During her childhood days of star gazing in the backyard with her father and throughout her career, she has embraced her love of science and channeled her passion to make a positive impact. She even recently discovered that her father was part of the Corona project, a secretive satellite surveillance project developed in the Cold War. Perhaps, even though it was unknown to her growing up, her father’s work inspired her own professional endeavors.
Dr. McCue’s research is published in various journals and book chapters, and she has also written a book entitled Data Mining and Predictive Analysis: Intelligence Gathering and Crime Analysis. Visit her Web site to learn more about her fascinating background: www.colleenmccue.com.
Friday, November 2, 2012
GeoEye Expert Spotlight: Tanya Schoor
GeoEye employees are elevating insight to bring you secure, timely, and accurate location information. The company’s staff is comprised of bright and talented individuals with diverse backgrounds who work hard to ensure customer satisfaction. Take a closer look at some of the people who help to make GeoEye great.
Have you ever wondered how satellite images are taken? We all love the unique perspective that our “eyes in the sky” can provide, but we rarely consider the behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing quality imagery. To gain a little insight, here is a geospatial expert we think you should know.
Tanya Schoor is one of GeoEye’s Satellite Collection Planners. The Collection Planning team, led by Billy Pfeiler, is made up of individuals in both the Herndon and Thornton offices. This group keeps track of orders and generates the most efficient plans for tasking GeoEye’s satellites. They monitor variables like weather conditions and order due dates to determine the best use of resources, seeking to fulfill customer requests while maximizing collections.
Tanya brings a unique skill set to the Collection Planning team. She graduated from The Ohio State University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography, focused in Atmospheric Science. This led to several internships with the National Weather Service and television stations in Columbus, Ohio. Her first job out of college was at a local television station, working both behind-the-scenes and on-air as a weekend meteorologist. Tanya came to GeoEye in July 2008, joining the Customer Support department as an Associate Channel Partner Representative. She enjoyed working directly with international customers before transitioning to the role of Collection Planner in September 2009 .
“Making the move to Collection Planning gave me the opportunity to apply my weather forecasting skills in a way that is meaningful to the company,” she says . “I am able to use my knowledge to help locate the targets that are most likely to result in successful collections.”
As a member of the Satellite Collection Planning group, Tanya has helped track the success of GeoEye’s weather resources. She has compiled data on predicted vs. actual cloud cover and located new, effective tools for cloud cover predictions. Weather forecasting is vital to the success of GeoEye’s mission and Tanya is proud to be able to offer valuable support with her meteorological background. She can’t control the weather, but she can task orders that are predicted to have fewer clouds. Ultimately, this should result in more cloud-free imagery and higher revenue for the company.
Moving forward, GeoEye will continue to study the accuracy of weather resources and ensure the best data is considered in collection planning procedures. Tanya and the Satellite Collection Planning team are committed to obtaining the highest quality satellite imagery. Their knowledge and expertise are integral to GeoEye’s operations, and their contributions are an important part of GeoEye’s unparalleled customer support.
Q&A:
Q: What is most interesting and challenging about your work?
A: Collection planning is dynamic and always changing. The orders we receive and the forecasted weather are different every day. It’s like figuring out how to fit the pieces into a puzzle.
Q: If you could trade jobs with anyone in the company, who would it be and why?
A: There are so many unique jobs in the company; there is definitely something for everyone! I would love to work in the Marketing Department and have the chance to use some of my skills from my days in broadcasting.
Q: What contributions will you make to further elevate insight in the future?
A: I hope to continue to use my background in meteorology to enhance our weather predictions and improve the cloud cover scores in our imagery. It may not be possible to have 100% cloud-free imagery, but we can always do better!
Have you ever wondered how satellite images are taken? We all love the unique perspective that our “eyes in the sky” can provide, but we rarely consider the behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing quality imagery. To gain a little insight, here is a geospatial expert we think you should know.
Tanya Schoor is one of GeoEye’s Satellite Collection Planners. The Collection Planning team, led by Billy Pfeiler, is made up of individuals in both the Herndon and Thornton offices. This group keeps track of orders and generates the most efficient plans for tasking GeoEye’s satellites. They monitor variables like weather conditions and order due dates to determine the best use of resources, seeking to fulfill customer requests while maximizing collections.
Tanya brings a unique skill set to the Collection Planning team. She graduated from The Ohio State University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography, focused in Atmospheric Science. This led to several internships with the National Weather Service and television stations in Columbus, Ohio. Her first job out of college was at a local television station, working both behind-the-scenes and on-air as a weekend meteorologist. Tanya came to GeoEye in July 2008, joining the Customer Support department as an Associate Channel Partner Representative. She enjoyed working directly with international customers before transitioning to the role of Collection Planner in September 2009 .
“Making the move to Collection Planning gave me the opportunity to apply my weather forecasting skills in a way that is meaningful to the company,” she says . “I am able to use my knowledge to help locate the targets that are most likely to result in successful collections.”
As a member of the Satellite Collection Planning group, Tanya has helped track the success of GeoEye’s weather resources. She has compiled data on predicted vs. actual cloud cover and located new, effective tools for cloud cover predictions. Weather forecasting is vital to the success of GeoEye’s mission and Tanya is proud to be able to offer valuable support with her meteorological background. She can’t control the weather, but she can task orders that are predicted to have fewer clouds. Ultimately, this should result in more cloud-free imagery and higher revenue for the company.
Moving forward, GeoEye will continue to study the accuracy of weather resources and ensure the best data is considered in collection planning procedures. Tanya and the Satellite Collection Planning team are committed to obtaining the highest quality satellite imagery. Their knowledge and expertise are integral to GeoEye’s operations, and their contributions are an important part of GeoEye’s unparalleled customer support.
Q&A:
Q: What is most interesting and challenging about your work?
A: Collection planning is dynamic and always changing. The orders we receive and the forecasted weather are different every day. It’s like figuring out how to fit the pieces into a puzzle.
Q: If you could trade jobs with anyone in the company, who would it be and why?
A: There are so many unique jobs in the company; there is definitely something for everyone! I would love to work in the Marketing Department and have the chance to use some of my skills from my days in broadcasting.
Q: What contributions will you make to further elevate insight in the future?
A: I hope to continue to use my background in meteorology to enhance our weather predictions and improve the cloud cover scores in our imagery. It may not be possible to have 100% cloud-free imagery, but we can always do better!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
The Fate of U.S. Commercial Satellite Imagery - Why You Should Care - GeoEye Feature in Article
Satellite imagery was something that the general public did not have access to before 2005. People caught glimpses of the stories satellite imagery could tell only from documentaries produced from the likes of Nova and National Geographic. Google Earth changed all that June 2005 and made satellite imagery accessible to anyone with a computer, for free. Google Earth has inspired the world to think differently about the earth because it has made these images accessible.
But what’s the source of all this satellite imagery (or what is termed Earth observation)? There are lots of free, government sources of satellite imagery like Landsat, and weather satellites from NASA and NOAA, but these are not high-resolution satellites that can zoom in on your house, or support 3D modeling for engineering and virtual reality-type applications. High-resolution imagery (sub-meter—that's less than 40 inches) for commercial use is currently only available from GeoEye, DigitalGlobe, Astrium Geo, and ImageSat. GeoEye and DigitalGlobe represent approximately 75% of this market, and 2/3 of their revenue is tied to the U.S. government...
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New GeoEye High Resolution Imagery Released of Pausylipon Archeological Site and Seiano Grotto West of Naples, Italy
Welcome to the GeoEye Image Gallery.
A new image of the GeoEye-1 collection of Pausylipon Archeological Site and Seiano Grotto West of Naples, Italy has just been released on the GeoEye website.
Click here to check it out.
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012
GeoEye is Elevating Insight - ITT Exelis Delivers Imaging System for Next-Generation, High-Resolution GeoEye-2 Satellite
ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems has delivered GeoEye's next-generation commercial imaging system for the GeoEye-2 satellite to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Sunnyvale, Calif. When operational in 2013, GeoEye-2 will deliver the highest resolution and most accurate color imagery to GeoEye's commercial, government and international customers...
...GeoEye-2 will have significant improvements in capability compared with current systems, including enhanced tasking; longer focal length, which enables better resolution; advancements to the sensor subsystem, which improves image quality; and the ability to collect more imagery at a faster rate.
The GeoEye-2 satellite will provide cost-effective, increased coverage and easier access to high-resolution satellite imagery for intelligence analysts, warfighters, map producers and commercial customers.
Bill Schuster, GeoEye's chief operating officer, said, "We commend Exelis for completing this next milestone of our GeoEye-2 program with a superbly performing camera and an on-time delivery of the imaging system to Lockheed Martin. Commercial satellite imagery plays a fundamental and essential role in our country's national security, disaster response and humanitarian efforts.
"Soldiers depend on it on the battlefield every day for the most up-to-date situational awareness and to meet many of their operational mission requirements. Commercial imagery is unclassified, and as such, is easily shared with coalition forces."
View the full article
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012
ITT Exelis Delivers Imaging System for Next-Generation, High-Resolution GeoEye-2 Satellite - GeoEye
ITT Exelis (NYSE: XLS) Geospatial Systems has delivered GeoEye's next-generation commercial imaging system for the GeoEye-2 satellite to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Sunnyvale, Calif. When operational in 2013, GeoEye-2 will deliver the highest resolution and most accurate color imagery to GeoEye's commercial, government and international customers.
The Exelis-built imaging payload for GeoEye-2 includes a telescope, sensor subsystem and outer barrel assembly and has the potential to capture panchromatic ground sample distance imagery of the Earth's surface at 0.34-meter, or 13.38-inch, ground resolution...
View the press release
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