got geoint?

We all know that USA Today tends to focus on stories that have mainstream appeal. The newspaper has the highest circulation of any paper in the country. So, needless to say, we get very excited when a GEOINT-related story makes it into the newspaper that is laid out on the front door of pretty much every hotel room in the country. What is this story? It’s all about the growth of commercial satellite imagery and how it has become the new “space race.” Of course, the two competitors in this new “space race” are USGIF member companies DigitalGlobe and GeoEye. DigitalGlobe CEO Jill Smith told USA Today that: “It is a new kind of space race. We are looking at ways to make space images as ubiquitous as possible.” Meanwhile, GeoEye CEO Matthew O’Connell had this to say: “We are hiring like crazy. This is a great time to be in the space-imaging business.” Congrats to both GeoEye and DigitalGlobe for raising the awareness of GEOINT to such a national level. Read the full USA Today article here.

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As we highlighted in our post about President Obama’s decision to add 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, GEOINT is going to play a major role in how we deal with such a decentralized enemy. In fact, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency plans on increasing geospatial intelligence for troops in Afghanistan by roughly 25 percent. According to the “Doing Business with the Intelligence Community” blog, the agency anticipates the volume of geospatial intelligence information, which is the collection and analysis of satellite imagery, will grow “significantly for the next couple of years.” As you can see, these are critical times for GEOINT. Now, more than ever, industry and government need to work together to find the right solutions to support our troops and make the surge a success.

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Mr. Stu Shea, USGIF CEO and Chairman, followed Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s most heart rendering guitar playing by setting stage for what will be a most worthwhile three days. One point that resonated clearly was Mr. Shea’s mention of how we work for the men and women who risk their lives every day to protect our great nation. We are all very fortunate to engage in such meaningful work. There is a reason we are a proud community – and we will be featuring stories throughout the week on this blog that aim to reinforce this feeling.

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