Donald J. Patton

Donald John Patton died on May 15, 2010 in Boulder, Colorado. Born May 18, 1919, in Chicago, he studied geography at Harvard University and served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. After earning his PhD, Patton held positions as a researcher, lecturer, consultant, and professor, working for various government agencies and universities in and around Washington, D.C. and at Colorado University in Boulder. He joined the faculty at Florida State University in Tallahassee in 1969 and retired there in 1989 with the distinction of Professor Emeritus. Throughout his professional career, Patton published many reports, articles, and book chapters. He contributed to several atlases and also served as editor of the Professional Geographer. Florida’s water resources were a special area of interest for him, and his life’s work demonstrated his love of scholarship and the earth sciences.

Donald J. Patton (Necrology) 2010. AAG Newsletter 45(7): 15.

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Bruce C. Ogilvie

Bruce Ogilvie, a former longtime employee at Rand McNally in Skokie, Illinois, and chief editor of some of its best known publications, died of natural causes on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, at the age of 94. Born in Avon, New York, Ogilvie received undergraduate degrees from the University of Maine in Farmington (1935) and Rhode Island College (1938). He was a graduate student at Clark University when World War II broke out and in 1942 joined the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C. as a cartographer. He later received a direct commission in the U.S. Navy Reserve, serving as a Line Officer Afloat in the North Atlantic Theater and with the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office in Washington, D.C. He later worked for the national mapping division of the U.S. Geological Survey in the Department of the Interior. Ogilvie received his master’s degree in 1948 and his PhD from Clark University in 1956. During his two decades with Rand McNally, Ogilvie was chief editor and coordinator for The Time-Life Atlas, The International Atlas, and The Children’s World Atlas. Known simply as “the geographer” at the map-making giant, he brought to creation thousands of maps, globes and atlases. Ogilvie had recently finished an autobiography about his service in the Navy. The book, Getting the Cargo Through: The U.S. Navy Armed Guard on Merchant Ships in World War II, is scheduled to be published this summer. Ogilvie resigned his Navy commission in 1955 as a lieutenant senior grade and returned to Clark University to complete his PhD. During various years from 1947 until 1987, Ogilvie taught at the University of Georgia (Athens), Chico State College (California), the University of Chicago, George Mason University, and Mary Washington University. In 1978, he became Supervisory Geographer, National Mapping Division, U.S. Geological Survey, before retiring in 1986.

Bruce C. Ogilvie (Necrology). AAG Newsletter 45(7): 15.

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Jacques Bertin

French cartographer and graphic language theorist Jacques Bertin died on May 3, 2010. Bertin was born in 1918. He studied geography and cartography at the Sorbonne and later became founder and director of the Cartographic Laboratory of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) in 1954. He began a professorship at the Sorbonne in 1967 and in 1972 became head of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Bertin published many scientific maps, academic papers and mainstream articles on cartography, semiotics, graphic language, and visual design. In 1967, he published Semiology of Graphics, a groundbreaking book analyzing graphic visualization. His work defined differences between the graphic symbols that appeared on maps and the perceptual properties of the symbols themselves, leading to a new approach in understanding the ways that maps function.

Jacques Bertin (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(6): 18.

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Edwin H. Hammond

Ed Hammond, age 91, passed away in April. Born on January 8, 1919 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he was raised in Columbia, Missouri near the campus of the University of Missouri, where his father was a Professor of Physics. He entered the University of Missouri in 1935 and graduated with a degree in geography in 1939. Hammond was pursuing graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley when Pearl Harbor came under attack on December 7, 1941. Overtaken by world events, Hammond accepted a position in Washington, D.C., as a geographer in the Office of Strategic Services, where he participated in intelligence and mapping exercises that preceded U.S. and allied military activities in both the European and Pacific theaters of war. In November 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was trained in 1943 at the U.S. Naval Academy as a meteorologist for the Navy. In July 1944, Hammond began service as an Aerology Officer, Division Officer, and Watch Officer on the seaplane tender U.S.S. St. George, “mothership” to a squadron of 15 seaplane reconnaissance bombers supporting the Pacific Fleet. His ship endured attacks by Japanese fighter planes, torpedo bombers, and kamikazes, one of which hit the St. George. Hammond flew combat area reconnaissance missions as weather and intelligence analyst for sea/ air operations, for which he was awarded the Naval Air Medal. His missions included flights over Nagasaki and Hiroshima within days after the dropping of the atomic bombs. On returning to civilian life, Hammond resumed studies and teaching at UC Berkeley, where he completed his doctoral dissertation in physical geography. His career in university teaching and research subsequently took him to University of Nebraska (Lincoln) from 1948-49, the University of Wisconsin (Madison) from 1949-1964, Syracuse University from 1964-1970, and the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) in 1970, where he remained until his retirement in 1987. At Wisconsin, Hammond was co-author of major revised editions of a leading college geography textbook, published numerous maps, and served on the editorial board of the Britannica Atlas. At UT, he served for six years as Chair of the Geography Department, assisting in its development and growth. Hammond was known to be a passionate teacher of undergraduate and graduate students.

Edwin H. Hammond (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(6): 18.

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Reds Wolman

M. Gordon “Reds” Wolman was a towering figure in 20th century fluvial geomorphology and an internationally-respected expert in river science, water resources management, and environmental education. He died on February 24, 2010, at the age of 85, in Baltimore.

Wolman was a member of the Johns Hopkins University faculty for more than 50 years, where he helped to establish the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. He received a bachelor’s degree in geology from Johns Hopkins in 1949. He later earned his doctorate at Harvard University, also in geology.

Wolman’s pioneering research fundamentally shaped our understanding of river forms and processes. In his PhD research at Harvard and subsequent work with Luna Leopold at the U.S. Geological Survey, Wolman played a central role in defining rivers in a modern, quantitative framework that still provides the standard against which new models and concepts are evaluated.

Wolman educated scores of students who continue to advance our scientific understanding of landscape morphology and hydrologic processes. He co-authored the classic Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology, a pioneering work in the study of landform development, with Luna Leopold and John Miller, a book that has been a standard in the field for 40 years and continues to be used widely.

Wolman’s career was defined by an extraordinary commitment to the application of research to river management and policy. Wolman demonstrated that relatively common floods do the most work in shaping river channels and, further, that there is remarkable consistency in the frequency of these “effective” floods. This result has guided interpretation of rivers and challenged river theory for the past 50 years, while also providing important input into modern channel restoration and design.

Wolman’s scholarly honors included election to both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Reds Wolman (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(5): 15.

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Paul Dean Simkins

 

Paul Dean Simkins passed away on February 9, 2010 at the age of 82.

Simkins was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, on October 1, 1927. He graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia with a B.A. in 1951 and a Master of Arts in Geography in 1954. He completed his PhD in 1961 at the University of Wisconsin.

Simkins spent his professional career as professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University. His specialties included Latin America, migration, and population. Simkins was a member of the Pennsylvania Geographical Society and received a distinguished teaching award in 1990. He was a longtime volunteer with the American Association of University Women, as well as a driver for the State College Area Meals-on-Wheels. He was an avid wild flower enthusiast and photographer and was on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Native Plant Society. He received the outstanding teacher award from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1974.

Paul Dean Simkins (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(5): 15.

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Robert W. Marx

Robert W. Marx, former Chief of the Geography Division at the U.S. Census Bureau, died following an illness. Marx served as the Geography Division’s Chief from 1983 to 2003, interrupted only by a three-year period as Associate Director in the 1990s to prepare for the 2000 Census. He was the architect of the Census Bureau’s TIGER System, which began in the early 1980s as a collaborative effort with the U.S. Geological Survey. Marx was known as a trailblazer who sought new ways to advance the importance of census geography through technological advances that were made practical through useful applications. By making spatial data for the nation available, the TIGER effort opened the way for GIS development and pioneered an entire new industry. Bob Marx began his GIS career in the early 1960s while a student in geography and urban planning at the University of Minnesota, studying under John Borchert. To cover his educational expenses, he worked in the offi ces of Hodne Associates, Architects and Planners, preparing land use and comprehensive plan maps for small communities in Minnesota and Illinois under the auspices of the former “Section 701” program of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In this capacity, he used the precursor to modern automated GIS methods – mylar base maps and clear overlays emblazoned with Zipa- Tone shadings and Presstype letters – to create the various “views” that illustrated combinations of information integral to the planning process. After joining the Census Bureau in 1966, Marx helped launch the Bureau’s then fl edgling Metropolitan Map Series, which provided the base for the Address Coding Guides that covered the 145 largest urban centers of the United States for the 1970 decennial census. Although crude by today’s standards, these two systems – comprising the base map information of streets, street names, address ranges, rivers, lakes and their names, railroads, governmental unit boundaries and names, census tract boundaries and numbers – once entered into the Census Bureau’s computers and enhanced with the Dual Independent Map Encoding (DIME) technologies, this series evolved into the Geographic Base Files (GBFs) covering the 287 largest urban centers of the 1980 census, and then to the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) files that covered the entire United States, Puerto Rico, and the associated Island Areas of the 1990 census and Census 2000. During his more than 36-year career at the Census Bureau, Marx received several awards for exceptional performance, including the Department of Commerce’s Gold and Silver Medals, and the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award. A memorial/tribute session in honor of Bob Marx is currently being organized at the AAG Annual Meeting for the evening of Wednesday, April 14. Consult your conference program for place and time.

Robert W. Marx (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(3): 14.

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Alan D. MacPherson

Alan MacPherson, Professor of Geography at the State University of New York at Buffalo, died recently at the age of 51. He had served as Chair of the Department of Geography from 2001-2007. He was also Director of SUNy-buffalo’s Canada-United States Trade Center (CUSTAC). MacPherson was born and raised in Inverness, Scotland. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography from the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom in 1979, and a master’s degree in planning from Edinburgh College of Art in 1981. In 1982, he earned a master’s degree in geography from the University of Toronto, where he also earned his doctorate in 1988. MacPherson’s principal research interests concerned the relationship between technological innovation and regional economic development, with special emphasis on export development and Canada-U.S. trade. His teaching included undergraduate and graduate courses in international business and economic geography. He became an Associate Professor at SUNy-buffalo in 1988.

Alan D. MacPherson (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(7): 19.

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Jasper Harris

Jasper Louis “Jack” Harris, Chair of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences at North Carolina Central University, Durham, died in the fall of 2009.

Harris served on the faculty of North Carolina Central University in Durham for 34 years. He authored numerous articles and professional papers in scientific journals and also served on review panels for many federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation. He received his B.S. from North Carolina Central University, and earned an M.A. and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to the AAG, Harris was a member of the American Meteorological Society, the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, and the American Water Resources Association.

Jasper Harris (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(5): 15.

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Charles Gildersleeve

Charles Gildersleeve, longtime professor of geography at the University of Nebraska- Omaha and one of the founders of the Geographic Educators of Nebraska, died recently at the age of 69. “Chuck” Gildersleeve was born in Iowa and earned a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He taught at the University of Nebraska-Omaha for 45 years, beginning his career there in 1964. He served as Chair of the department from 1981-1988. Gildersleeve’s first love was teaching and over the course of his career he estimated that he had taught urban, economic and educational geography to nearly 20,000 college students. Numerous teaching awards and other accolades were presented to him by the University of Nebraska-Omaha and other national professional groups. He was extremely popular with students, who regularly mentioned him in evaluations as a teacher who made a difference in their lives. Gildersleeve was also active in outreach to the community, giving hundreds of talks and workshops to classes and teachers in K-12 schools around Nebraska. He was a faculty coordinator of the Geographic Educators of Nebraska from 1987-2007. Gildersleeve also was responsible for running the Nebraska Geographic Bee from 1988-2007 under the aegis of the National Geographic Society, in which tens of thousands of students learned to hone their geography skills and compete for trips to Washington D.C. He was active in working with various community groups and served on statewide and local education committees.

Charles Gildersleeve (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(3): 14.

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