shrug-l: GIS Profession has lost a founding member

[Tripp Corbin]

I am sad to report the news of the passing of Dr. Roger Tomlinson, the
"Father of GIS" as we know it.

 

Dr. Roger Tomlinson, GISP, generally recognized as the "Father of GIS," was
known as a visionary geographer who conceived and developed GIS for use by
the Canada Land Inventory. His pioneering work, beginning in the early1960s,
changed the face of geography as a discipline and he was awarded an Order of
Canada, which is Canada's highest civilian honor. Governments and scientists
around the world turned to him to better understand the environment and
changing patterns of land use, and to better manage urban development and
the use of natural resources. 

 

Dr. Tomlinson's contributions included chairmanship of the International
Geographical Union's GIS Commission for 12 years, and where he pioneered the
concepts of worldwide geographical data availability. He was a past
president of the Canadian Association of Geographers and a recipient of its
rare Award for Service to the Profession. The Association of American
Geographers in the United States awarded him the James R. Anderson Medal of
Honor for Applied Geography in 1995.  Dr. Tomlinson was an Honorary Fellow
of the Royal Geographical Society and winner of its prestigious Murchison
Award for the Development of Geographic Information Systems. In 1996 he was
awarded the GIS World Lifetime Achievement Award for a lifetime of work with
geographic information systems, and he was the first recipient of the ESRI
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Dr. Tomlinson was awarded the Order of
Canada in February of 2004. 

 

Born in Cambridge, England, Dr. Tomlinson adopted Canada as his home in
1957. During the spring of 1962, while on a plane bound from Ottawa to
Toronto he met Lee Pratt, then recently named head of the Canada Land
Inventory (CLI). Tomlinson then was chief of the computer mapping division
at a Canadian airline service. Pratt described a vast mapping project CLI
was about to undertake - a multilayer land-use/ planning map of Canada's
inhabited and productive land--around 1 million square miles. Tomlinson told
Pratt some of his ideas might work for CLI and Pratt eventually hired him to
head the program that resulted in the first GIS.

 

He held bachelor's degrees from Nottingham University in England and Acadia
University in Canada; a master's degree from McGill University in Canada;
and a Ph.D. from University College in England.

 

Dr. Tomlinson was the principal of Tomlinson Associates, Ltd., Consulting
Geographers, which was established in 1977 in Ottawa, Ontario. He has
advised clients such as the World Bank, United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization, the U.S. departments of Commerce and Agriculture, U.S.
Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of the Census, the
Canadian Forest Service, and numerous U.S. state and Canadian provincial and
municipal government agencies.

 

Dr. Roger Tomlinson, 11-17-33 to 2-9-14

 

Tripp Corbin, MCP, CFM, GISP | Chief Executive Officer
 <http://www.egisassociates.com/> eGIS Associates, Inc.

 <mailto:tcorbin at egisassociates.com> tcorbin at egisassociates.com |
www.egisassociates.com 

678-710-9710 ext 21 | 866-304-3864 Fax

Esri Certified Trainer | Esri Certified Desktop Associate

 

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