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ESF Alumnus Inducted into NGA Hall of Fame
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has inducted SUNY-ESF graduate Curtis B. Ward '72 into its Hall of Fame.
Ward, who currently resides in Grantham, N.H., is one of four leaders added to the Hall of Fame rolls. He joins an illustrious group of influential players in the United States' complicated, highly technical and analytical world of intelligence. He was inducted in a ceremony May 13 at the agency's headquarters in Springfield, Va.
Ward was recognized as a significant leader within the Defense Mapping Agency and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, organizations that later merged to form NGA. Ward's major contributions to the intelligence community include his leadership roles in two major agency reconstruction efforts, as well as serving as the Defense Mapping Agency civilian lead at the Dayton Peace Accord negotiations of 1995. The Dayton agreement officially ended the Bosnian War of the early 1990s and was signed by the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. DMA maps helped negotiators understand and explain the otherwise confusing patchwork of ethnic group locations and cease-fire lines.
He also was recognized for the key role he played in eliminating stove-pipe barriers that divided tradecrafts and workflows between NGA's predecessor agencies. Ward's efforts contributed to the reconstruction task force that formed the National Imagery and Mapping Agency from a variety of predecessor geospatial analytically-related organizations and tradecrafts.
Members of the agency's Hall of Fame have demonstrated extremely significant accomplishment at NGA or one of NGA's heritage organizations. Criteria includes accomplishment that transformed NGA operations, a legacy of leadership that exemplifies the NGA tradition and core values, provision of geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT, that enabled the country to resolve a national security crisis, being responsible for a technological or analytic innovation that now provides greater geospatial understanding throughout the U.S. government, and other support or sacrifices made that personified or enhanced the NGA mission.
Ward was raised in Billings, Mont., and received undergraduate degrees from ESF and Syracuse University. He also earned a Master of Science in photogrammetry from Purdue University.
NGA delivers world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals and first responders. Both an intelligence agency and combat support agency, NGA enables the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense (DOD) to fulfill the president's national security priorities. NGA also is the lead federal agency for GEOINT and manages a global consortium of more than 400 commercial and government relationships. In its multiple roles, NGA receives guidance and oversight from DOD, the Director of National Intelligence and Congress. NGA is headquartered in Springfield, Va., and has two major locations in St. Louis and Arnold, Mo. Hundreds of NGA employees serve on support teams at U.S. military, diplomatic and allied locations around the world.