Donald Wagman

Donald Wagman, former owner of the Geography Limited map and book store in Ann Arbor, passed away on January 24, 2014, aged 65.

Donald Murray Wagman was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1948, although the family soon moved to New Jersey. He later graduated from Cornell University and Stanford University.

Wagman’s map and book store, Geography Limited, was a west side fixture in Ann Arbor until it closed in 2004. He sold maps and atlases and globes, as well as geography and travel books. His maps were of every kind imaginable and from all over the world – topographical, reproduction antique, road and railroad maps, street plans, and literary maps, to name just a few. His biggest sellers were Michigan topographical maps, used in summer by vacationers, in fall by hunters, and year-round by engineers and environmental consultants.

Donald was predeceased by his wife, Janet Amrose, but leaves behind his daughter, Maida Amrose-Wagman, and many friends across the country.

See All Memorials
    Share

Dave Hill

Dave Hill, longtime member of the geography faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder, passed away in Louisville, Colorado on Sunday, January 19, 2014.

They say at 50 you end up with the face you deserve. From the moment I first saw Dave Hill’s sparkling eyes and Cheshire Cat smile, I knew that I made the right decision to study with him in the PhD program at CU Boulder.

The venue was a session on geography education at the 1996 AAG Annual Meeting in Charlotte. Dave and a few of his students were on hand to discuss a new project, Geographic Inquiry into Global Issues. GIGI, as it was known, was a collection of modules for secondary schools that supported the recently published national geography standards. To my young eyes GIGI captured everything I thought geography education should be: fresh, exciting, relevant, and unafraid of controversial issues.

Dave was a giant and always encouraging, even when being critical of my work. He was the most generous, kind, and compassionate advisor and mentor one could ever hope for.

On occasion Dave would make a star turn at playing the role of absent-minded professor. Once we spent an entire hot Saturday walking the Boulder Creek trail to take photos and gather data for making a virtual field study of flood hazards. At the conclusion of our journey Dave opened his camera and realized he had forgot to load it with film. No big deal. We just went back the next day and I got to hear more stories about Dave playing football during the “leather-helmet” era at CU.

Dave was close to retirement when I started my PhD. I promised him that I would study hard and finish on schedule. At least once a week I would provide him with progress reports over lunch at some restaurant on “The Hill” in Boulder. Those lunches usually ended with Dave footing the bill and me meekly offering him a stick of Juicy Fruit as a token of gratitude. The last time Dave took me to lunch – I think about a week or so before my graduation – he presented me with a gift-wrapped box of Juicy Fruit. I smiled and told him I wish I could’ve afforded to buy him a gold watch. He got a big chuckle out of that.

I’ll never forget that frigid graduation day at CU Boulder in December 1999. A few minutes before the start of the ceremony, an usher instructed me and my fellow graduates to line up by the entrance to the auditorium. Dave stood by my side and never budged. When the usher asked him to join the faculty assembled in a different seating area, Dave put his hand on my shoulder, shook his head, and with a big grin said, “I’m sitting with him.”

(Incidentally, if I look alarmed in that photo, it’s because I had to receive emergency root canal treatment on my front tooth a few hours after the ceremony. I guess dentist appointments were one of the sacrifices I made to graduate on time).

It’s no exaggeration to say that I owe everything I have professionally to Dave. He introduced me to a world of thought that affirmed the power of geography in education. One of my most cherished experiences as a CU graduate student was being introduced to Gilbert White in one of Dave’s seminars. Dave recalled being in a similar setting back when he was attending CU. Professor White engaged Dave and his fellow graduate students in a discussion of the role of geography in liberal education and what they thought it should be. Dave remarked, “Gilbert White was not only interested in our views. He also wanted to convey the idea that, as future stewards of our discipline, we should be fully vested in these fundamental questions.” The torch is passed.

Sometimes I open my old CU files and pull out a reading list that Dave prepared for my doctoral orals. At the top is a hand-scribbled note from Dave that says, “Of enduring interest to geography education.” The list is replete with entries by John Dewey, Francis Slater, Jerome Bruner and so many other wonderful educational philosophers inside and outside of geography. I’d like to think that something I’ve written someday could make the cut.

Ask any of the hundreds of geography teachers who benefited from Dave’s professional development institutes through the Colorado Geographic Alliance, and to a person they will remark on the qualities that endeared him to so many: his loyalty to students, friends and family, his refusal to compromise quality, and his indefatigable devotion to geography education. The man could also make one hell of a martini.

The last time I saw Dave Hill was in June of 2009. He invited me to his condo in Boulder for a lamb chop dinner with Myhra, his wife of 50+ years. Afterwards he walked me down to the Pearl Street mall and we found a bench to sit on and enjoy the buskers.

At this point in his life Dave’s once sturdy voice was beginning to sound a bit frail and frayed. “Michael,” he said, “I’ll always appreciate the fact that you kept in touch.” And with that he hugged me goodbye and wandered back up the hill, a golden sun setting over the Flatirons.

Rest in Peace, Dave, and thanks for everything.

See All Memorials
    Share

Melinda Sue Meade

Melinda Meade was born in 1945 in New York City and grew up and went to school and college on Long Island. She was valedictorian of her Hicksville High School (1963) and Hofstra University (1966) classes. Melinda planned to teach history, but then changed her life by volunteering for the Peace Corps instead of going to graduate school in history. She taught English for two years in a small town in northeastern Thailand, six hours by elephant from the railhead in the provincial capital. As Melinda put it, the village did not want a male volunteer, and there was concern about sending a young woman into the jungle of Thailand in the 1960s, but the Peace Corps knew Melinda could do the job. In Thailand she discovered the complexities of development and learned to view the world through the lived experiences of another culture. She also made lifelong friends, one of her dearest friends, Phoungphet Meesawat, was her assistant in the village. Melinda and Phoungphet visited one another several times in Thailand and the States, remaining in close contact over the decades first via letters and then via email.

Following the Peace Corps, Melinda went to graduate school, first at Michigan State University (MA 1970) and then at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii (PhD 1974). She chose geography, a field to which she would dedicate her life; geography allowed her to combine her interests in Asia, population change, and health promotion and disease ecology. Her dissertation research involved two years of fieldwork on land development/population resettlement schemes in Malaysia, which explored the dimensions of population movement and how such movement affected disease ecologies. This was Dr. Meade’s constant interest, how people move through environments and thus move through disease ecologies. Returning from field work in Malaysia, she took a tramp steamer up through Japan. Her academic career spanned departments of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Georgia, and finally the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) from 1976 until her retirement in 2010. She studied topics as diverse as the eradication of malaria in the United States, the enigma of cardiovascular disease and stroke in the coastal plain of the southeast as expressed in the city of Savannah, Georgia, and the implications of the growth of megacities and the globalization of population movement for the diffusion of diseases and the emergence of a different state of disease and health ecology in the urban population of the future. Melinda was a trailblazer for women academics. She traveled widely and conducted international research in a time when most young women simply didn’t. Melinda was an active member of the generation that shattered ill-conceived beliefs and expectations about a woman’s place in academia. Her hard work and sacrifice made it possible for generations of young women to have fulfilling and successful academic careers.

Professor Meade taught courses from first year undergraduate to doctoral levels on issues of changing population dynamics and structure, agricultural modernization, urbanization, and globalization in the developing world; on population geography, medical geography, disease ecology, the world’s food supply; and on Tropical Asia. She excited students with discussions of mobility and exposure and why both people and places are important for human health. She spoke of the day in 1974 when the world’s population reached 4 billion, and how there was fear about rampant famine due to overpopulation, but how Esther Boserup’s predictions of necessity producing innovation and Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution averted those dire forecasts. Dr. Meade won the Spencer and Tanner Award for excellence in inspirational undergraduate teaching from UNC, and was inducted into the UNC Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars in 2000. Melinda is best known, particularly to undergraduates, as the author of the definitive textbook in the field of medical geography. Working with a succession of co-authors, she has opened the world of population and health to students far beyond the walls of UNC.

Over her many years as the departmental population and medical geographer, Melinda oversaw the training of 4 MA and 7 PhD students. She also informally mentored many other students, particularly women scholars. Melinda was a well-respected and well-loved mentor. Her intellect and compassion were always on hand when working through research or contemplating life as a graduate student. She gave unselfishly of her time to her graduate students and approached student research with an enthusiasm and excitement that was contagious. She encouraged people to think deeply and to strive not just to “do research” on a population, but to truly understand and appreciate the different ways in which diverse populations live their lives. Melinda engaged her students in scholarly dialogue which demanded a maturity of thinking which naturally led to intellectual development. She read voraciously and widely. She was also stubborn and brutally honest. Her academic legacy is a far reaching network of scholars who focus on people and places and health outcomes.

She loved gardening, growing fabulously beautiful roses, and her dogs, including Jenny, who misses Melinda very much. A beautiful video tribute to Melinda’s life entitled “ATLAS HANDS” can be watched at swraex.wistia.com/medias/plaluvak07.

See All Memorials
    Share

Steven Kale

Steven R. Kale, 65, died November 7, 2013, in his hometown of Salem, Oregon, following a brief illness. Kale achieved much in his life in academics, his profession, and in relationships with others in his life.

Kale, the middle of three children, was born in Manhattan, Kansas, in 1948 to Alton and Ruby Kale. His early years were spent in central Kansas where he and his older brother James became Eagle Scouts. After graduating from Mankato High School in 1966, Kale matriculated at Kansas State University. He earned degrees in Geography and Business Administration. Later, he obtained a master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

In 1975, Steve started his career as an economist at the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. From 1982 to 1989, Kale taught courses and conducted research in economic development, area and community development, renewable energy, and other topics at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Kale left the University in 1989 to take on transportation work at the Oregon Department of Transportation. He remained at ODOT for 16 years and retired as the agency’s primary freight planning person. However, Steve continued to work, setting up his own consulting firm and taking on jobs for several Oregon ports and intermodal freight businesses to help them plan seed funding for projects. He also subcontracted with other consulting firms on a variety of transportation related projects.

Steve was an active member of many professional organization and national bodies, including the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Intermodal Freight Transport Committee of the Transportation Research Board where he served as the chair. Kale was also active in the Association of American Geographers and the International Geographic Union. His enthusiasm for geography and interest in his alma mater kept him involved on the KSU Geography Alumni Board.

Kale’s lifelong interest in far-away places took him to Oulu, Finland; Mendoza, Argentina; Sidney, Australia; Dubrovnik, Croatia; and much of Europe. He also managed to visit all 50 U.S. states. Steve’s travels also took him to the Arctic Circle twice: once in Alaska and another time in Finland.

A lover of the outdoors, Kale was also interested in hiking, camping, skiing, canoeing, whitewater rafting, and bird watching. He was an ardent supporter of environmental protection and cultivated lifelong friendships with many people. Steve’s personal and professional qualities were very much respected. He will be dearly missed.

Steve was preceded in death by his mother Ruby (Streit), father Alton Dale Kale, his sister Elaine and brother James. He is survived by three nephews: Jonathan Cote, David Kale, and Dan Kale.

See All Memorials
    Share

William J. Black

The faculty, staff, students and alumni of the Department of Geography mourn the loss of Professor Emeritus William R. Black on October 15th, 2013 at his home in Bloomington, Indiana. Though Bill had fought cancer for a number of years prior, his death was unexpected. A native of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, Bill graduated from California State College of Pennsylvania in 1964. Afterward he moved to Iowa City where in 1966 he earned a M.A. in Geography and in 1969 a PhD. He served on the faculty of the Department of Geography at Miami University of Ohio from 1968-1969 before moving to the Department of Geography at Indiana University in Bloomington. He remained at IU throughout his career, retiring in 2007 as Professor Emeritus after his second 4-year stint as Chair of the department, having also served in that capacity from 1985-1989. Additionally, he held appointments and leadership positions in the Transportation Research Center, Regional Analysis and Planning Program, and the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis in the Schools of Business and Public and Environmental Affairs at IU. Outside Bloomington he held a visiting professorship at Purdue University in 1973 and was a Guest Scholar of The Brookings Institution in 1982.

Bill was a foundational figure in Transport Geography. He directed over 20 transportation research and planning projects, published over 200 research papers and reports, and authored, co-authored, or served as editor of seven books. These contributions include comprehensive studies of the Federal Local Rail Service Assistance Act, a germinal textbook in transportation analysis, and a survey book of sustainability in transportation. He was responsible for the formation of the Transportation Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers and was a key figure in the development of the Journal of Transport Geography. He also served on the editing board of several major journals in transportation and environmental studies. For his ‘Significant Contributions to Transportation Geography’’, he was awarded the Edward L. Ullman Award by the Association of American Geographers in 1995 and was selected to present the Fleming Lecture in Transportation Geography at the Association of American Geographers meeting in Pittsburgh in 2000. He was extensively involved in the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council, including serving twice as chair of the Committee on Social and Economic Factors. For his efforts he received the Board’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002, and designation as Emeritus Member for Significant Contributions to the Organization in 2005.

He was a singular academic in the extent of his involvement, contributions, and achievements outside academia. He was extensively involved in the planning and restructuring of American railroads in the turbulent 1970s for that industry. He served as Director of Rail Planning for the State of Indiana from 1974 to 1975, and was a Chief on the Activation Task Force of Conrail during its formation in 1975 to 1976. He served as the first Director of Transportation of the State of Indiana when that department was formed in 1980. He was also responsible for the routing and planning of the public transportation system in Bloomington, Indiana when it was introduced in 1972. His service to the State of Indiana was recognized by then Governor Otis T. Bowen in 1980 when he was named a Sagamore of the Wabash for Public Service, the highest honor a civilian can be awarded by the Indiana Governor’s office. Upon retirement, Bill stepped away to pursue a life-long love of creative writing. In retirement, he produced a biography of World War I correspondent and Brownsville, PA native Percival Phillips, and was working on one of Philander Case Knox when he died. He also published Mitigating Circumstances: The United States of America vs. Robert Black and Greenhouse Effects, A Novel as e-books.

Perhaps most of all, Bill had a way with words that was unmistakable to anyone who read his work or conversed with him. He had a knack for saying the most impactful thing at just the right time and as succinctly as could be stated. This made him an insightful teacher, engaging public speaker, delightful writer to read, and perhaps most meaningful for those who knew him, a most helpful confidant and mentor.

See All Memorials
    Share

Paul W. Mausel

Paul W. Mausel, retired professor of geography at Indiana State University, died Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013. He was 77. He was a successful, prolific remote sensing specialist, who achieved respect from his students and colleagues through his hard work teaching, researching, publishing and grant writing, as well as showing fairness and respect for all.

Mausel earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography from the University of Minnesota in 1959 and 1961, respectively. In 1966, he received his Ph.D. in geography and soils from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He taught at Eastern Illinois University from 1965 through 1971. That year, he joined the Indiana State University (ISU) faculty, where he was recognized and served on several projects. In 1972-73, he was sent to the Purdue University Laboratory for the Application of Remote Sensing. He was also appointed to direct ISU’s Remote Sensing Lab and served from 1973 until 1998. During that time in 1978, he was sent to the International Institute for Aerial Survey and Earth Science in Enschede, The Netherlands. In 2001, he retired from ISU as a distinguished professor.

Mausel’s productive research and grant-writing contributions brought ISU more than $2-million, including from NASA and NSA. During his career, he published more than 150 articles and book chapters, presented more than 100 talks at professional meetings and workshops and served in various leadership roles on countless committees for M.A. theses, Ph.D. dissertations, and university research and governance. He also reviewed more than 125 journal articles and more than 60 funding proposals from NSF, NASA, USDA, National Geographic Society and others.

Mausel was married to his wife, Jean, and they had three children.

See All Memorials
    Share

Richard Stephenson

Richard W. Stephenson died September 25, 2013 at age 82.
Dick Stephenson retired (with 40 years service) from the Library of Congress in January 1992 as the Geography and Map Division’s Specialist in American Cartographic History. He was present at the organizing meeting of the Washington Map Society (WMS) on May 2, 1979 and served as the organization’s fourth president in 1982-1983. Dick was the author or editor of numerous articles and publications including Civil War Maps (1989), “A Plan Whol[l]y New: Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s Plan of the City of Washington” (1993), and with Marianne M. McKee, Virginia in Maps: Four Centuries of Settlement, Growth, and Development (2000). His most recent article for The Portolan was “A City in Transition: Mapping the Nation’s Capital from Civil War to the Creation of a Comprehensive Plan, 1861-1902” (issue 72 – Fall 2008). Dick’s article “General Lee’s Forgotten Mapmaker:  Major Albert H. Campbell and the Department Of Northern Virginia’s Topographical Department” appeared in Issue 60 (Fall 2004).  He often reviewed books for The Portolan:  Torn in Two (issue 81 – Fall 2011), Mapping the World: An Illustrated History of Cartography (issue 65 – Spring 2006), and The Mismapping of America (issue 58 – Winter 2003-2004). His reminiscences of former G&M Chief Walter Ristow in issue 66 (Fall 2006) included much about his own service at the G&M Division. In addition Dick delivered numerous presentations before the Washington Map Society, the Society for the History of Discoveries, and other sister groups.

Courtesy Washington Map Society, www.washmapsociety.org.

See All Memorials
    Share

Courtney Wilson

AAG member and University of Michigan Ph.D. student Courtney Wilson died on September 9, 2013 from a series of neurological events at the age of 27. Her work involved the use of satellite imagery to quantify how economic conditions affect changes to the physical landscape, and exploring how satellite imagery could be used to improve Census estimates. I worked with her when she was Lead Curriculum Designer for the Crossing Boundaries project through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I was always impressed by her dedication and expertise, but even more for her care for the Earth and everyone she met. I’ll never forget the look on her face as we parted ways at the AAG conference in Los Angeles – always looking forward to learning more. We will not forget you, Courtney.

Joseph J. Kerski
Education Manager
Esri

See All Memorials
    Share

Richard G. Reider

Richard G. Reider died August 14, 2013. He was 72 years old.

Richard Reider was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up in nearby Golden, Colorado. He attended the University of Northern Colorado where he received his B.A. in history in 1963, and his M.A. in geography in 1965. After teaching high school for a year in Edgewater, Colorado, he entered the University of Nebraska where he received his Ph.D. in geography in 1969. That same year he was hired by the University of Wyoming as an assistant professor. A physical geographer with interests in soils and paleoenvironments, Rick remained at Wyoming until his retirement in 2001. His teaching rotation included introductory physical geography, weather and climate, field methods, and landforms and soils.  Rick was well-published with much of his work focused on Wyoming and Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain West generally. He edited the Great Plains-Rocky Mountain Geographical Journal from 1976 to 1980.  Rick was an excellent mentor of graduate students, advising nearly three dozen during his career.  He also served as departmental chair in the mid-1980s and again in the early 1990s.

See All Memorials
    Share

John Dobosiewicz

Dr. John Dobosiewicz, past-president of the Middle States Division (2011), died unexpectedly at the age of 48 while travelling in Scotland on August 5, 2013.
At the time of his death, Dobosiewicz was Executive Director of the School of General Studies at Kean University, NJ. He began his work at Kean in 1993 as an adjunct, and joined the full-time faculty in September 2001 in the Department of Geology and Meteorology. He was named Executive Director of the School of General Studies in September 2010.
Dobosiewicz was also serving his second term on the Faculty Senate, where he was first elected in 2009. He served as secretary for the Faculty Senate from 2010 to 2012 and also on the University Planning Council (UPC), to which he was appointed in 2011. He earned the Presidential Excellence Award for Service in 2008 and was initiated into the National Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi in May 2009, and had been serving as its President since September 2011.
Dobosiewicz received his Ph.D, in Geography from Rutgers University. His research interests were in hydrology, climatology, and GIS, and he had recent publications in Environmental Geosciences, the Journal of Geoscience Education and the Middle States Geographer.
John was a well-loved sports coach in his home town of Westfield, NJ, where he was known fondly as “Coach Dobo.” He was a member of the Westfield Soccer Association and the basketball, baseball and softball leagues, coaching both boys and girls teams. John is survived by his wife of 19 years, Diana Pereira, and four children, Hailey Paige, Christian John, Jack Tyler and Faith Madison.
The Dobosiewicz Children’s Education Fund (DCEF) has been established to help raise funds for the educational costs of John’s 4 school-age children. Donations can be made on their website.
See All Memorials
    Share