FEATURED AUTHOR
Jan Van Sickle
I have tried to stay at the forefront of developments in GNSS, GPS and GIS as they come along. As Charles Dodsgon wrote, "It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place."
Biography
Jan Van Sickle has more than forty-five years of experience in GIS, GPS, surveying, mapping and imagery. He has advised Anadarko, IHS Energy, Chesapeake, Microsoft, Intermap, Jeppesen, Geoeye and others in geospatial matters. He began working with GPS in the early 1980s when he supervised control work using the Macrometer, the first commercial GPS receiver. He created and led the GIS department at Qwest Communications for the company’s 25,000-mile worldwide fiber optic network. He also led the team that built the GIS for natural gas gathering in the Barnett Shale. He has led nationwide seminars based on his three books, GPS for Land Surveyors, Basic GIS Coordinates and Surveying Solved Problems. The latter book was serialized in the magazine POB. He led the team that collected, processed and reported control positions for more than 120 cities around the world for the ortho-rectification of satellite imagery now utilized in a global web utility. He managed the creation of the worldwide T&E sites for a major earth observation satellite which are used for frequent accuracy assessments. He created an imagery-based system of deriving road centerlines that meet the stringent Advanced Driver Assistance specifications and developed a method of forest inventory to help quantify that depleted resource in Armenia. He assisted the supervision of the first GPS survey of the Grand Canyon for the photogrammetric evaluation of sandbar erosion along the Colorado. He has done 3D mapping with terrestrial photogrammetry and LiDAR as well as Building Information Modeling. He was involved in the creation of a BIM of very prominent buildings in Washington DC. He was a member of the team of authors for the recently created Geospatial Technology Competency Model for the Department of Labor. He has recently conducted training at the NAVCEN in Alexandria for the USCG. He has recently provided technical assistance in the reconstruction of the geodetic network of Nigeria. He has been a featured speaker at many conferences including MAPPS, GITA, the Institute of Navigation (ION) Annual Meeting. He delivered the 2010 keynote at the ESRI UC in Imagery and Remote Sensing and the 50th Texas Society of Professional Surveyors Conference. He is a Senior Lecturer at Penn State University. He was formerly on the board of RM-ASPRS, was the vice-chairman of GIS in the Rockies and is the current chairman of the US West chapter of the Americas Petroleum Survey Group. Jan earned his Ph.D. in geospatial engineering from the University of Colorado. He has been a licensed professional Land Surveyor for thirty-one years is a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and is currently licensed in Colorado, California, Oregon, Texas, North Dakota and West Virginia.Education
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PhD, University of Colorado, 2009
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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GNSS, GPS and GIS
Books
Photos
Videos
Keynote at ESRI UC Remote Sensing and Imagery
Published: Aug 04, 2012