National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Awards $24 Million ClearView Contract to DigitalGlobe

By Advanced Imaging Editorial Staff


National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Awards $24 Million ClearView Contract to DigitalGlobe

DigitalGlobe (Longmont, Calif.) has been awarded a $24 million satellite imagery capacity contract modification by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. This ClearView contract enables the NGA to acquire additional commercial imagery from DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird’s high resolution commercial imaging satellite.

DigitalGlobe’s map-accurate imagery is used for a number of mapping and planning activities within defense and intelligence and commercial applications around the world.

“This award by the NGA further illustrates the organization’s commitment to reliance on the U.S. commercial satellite imaging industry,” said Jeff Kerridge, general manager of DigitalGlobe’s defense and intelligence business unit. “We look forward to continuing to serve the NGA with the world’s highest resolution commercial satellite imagery.”

In January 2003 DigitalGlobe was awarded a $72 million contract to deliver high-resolution satellite imagery to the NGA over a three-year period, as part of a ClearView contract not to exceed $500 million. In September 2003 DigitalGlobe was awarded an additional $9.8 million modification to the ClearView contract. In July 2005 DigitalGlobe was awarded an additional $6.1 million supplemental modification to the ClearView contract.

Viisage and Identix to Merge to Create Biometric Identity Solution Leader

Identity solutions provider Viisage Technology, Inc. (Billerica, Mass.) and biometric technology innovator Identix Incorporated (Minnetonka, Minn.) announced on Jan. 12 that they have entered into a definitive agreement to merge in an all stock transaction. The combined company will blend two complementary approaches to solving the challenge of protecting and securing personal identities by establishing a single platform for multi-modal finger, face, skin and imaging identity solutions.

The combined company, on a pro forma calendar 2006 basis, is expected to have revenue of approximately $220 million and EBITDA of at least $40 million, including synergies and operating efficiencies. Its headquarters will be in Stamford, Conn.

The merger promises to unlock the potential of both organizations’ strengths in biometrics, credentialing and imaging solutions and offers many natural synergies. For example, Viisage and Identix each have current customer relationships today with the Department of State, with Identix providing biometric facial recognition products for the U.S. VISA program and Viisage acting as the sole source provider for U.S. passports.

The combined technologies support multiple identity programs including visa and passport issuance, border control and security, voting program integrity, secure logical access for enterprise and government, and the myriad of government-related access card requirements. In addition, the new company also can successfully meet rigorous government mandates including HSPD12, TWIC, WHTI, US- VISIT, Registered Traveler, HAZMAT, Real ID and ePassport, among others.

The transaction is expected to close in the second calendar quarter of 2006 and is subject to customary regulatory approvals and other closing conditions, including approval by Viisage and Identix shareholders at their respective stockholder meetings.

3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800 and 500 Selected For HP Tested and Certified Graphics Program

The 3DLabs Inc., Ltd. (Milpitas, Calif.) Wildcat Realizm™ PCI Express-based family of professional graphics accelerators has been selected for the HP Tested & Certified graphics program. The Wildcat Realizm 800, previously certified in the HP xw8200 Workstation, is now certified for the HP xw9300 Workstation. The mid-range, high-performance Wildcat Realizm 500 is now certified for the HP xw6200, xw8200 and xw9300 Workstations. HP xw6200 and xw8200 Workstations are equipped with a choice of single or dual Intel Xeon processors. HP xw9300 Workstations offer dual single- and dual-core AMD Opteron processors. All configurations support Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 operating systems.

ORBIMAGE Completes Acquisition of Space Imaging; Changes Brand Name to GeoEye

ORBIMAGE Holdings Inc. (Dulles, Va.), has finalized the acquisition of substantially all of Denver-based Space Imaging’s assets. The combined company will now do business under the brand name GeoEye. GeoEye is the world’s largest commercial satellite imagery company with a pro forma combined revenue for 2005 of approximately $160 million. The purchase price was approximately $58.5 million less amounts which were paid by Space Imaging on its existing debt as well as certain other adjustments.

“Governments can be assured, especially the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community, that the commercial satellite imaging industry is here to stay,” said. Lt. Gen. (Ret.) James Abrahamson, GeoEye’s chairman.

The company will immediately begin implementing the planned integration of the two companies including operations, IT, administration, sales and marketing and customer service to ensure a smooth transition for customers, partners and investors.

GeoEye operates a constellation of three remote-sensing satellites including OrbView-3, IKONOS, and OrbView-2. OrbView-3, the most recent commercial satellite on orbit, offers 1-meter panchromatic (black and white) and 4-meter multispectral (color) digital imagery, which can be down linked to customer ground stations around the world. IKONOS, the world’s first commercial high-resolution satellite, produces 1-meter panchromatic and 4-meter multispectral imagery that can be combined to create a 1-meter color image. OrbView-2 offers 1.1-kilometer resolution with a wide 2,800 kilometer swath taking multispectral imagery of the entire Earth every day. Having two high-resolution satellites available for customers’ orders provides multiple benefits including more frequent visits over an area, larger volume collections in a shorter period of time, and improved overall reliability of operations.

In addition to the above three satellites already in orbit, GeoEye plans to launch a satellite in early 2007 to service a contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. It will have a ground resolution of 0.41-meters, and will be the most advanced sub-half-meter commercial imaging satellite in the world. It will collect both panchromatic and multispectral imagery simultaneously and will be able to down link imagery to ground stations around the world.

DALSA Receives Major Camera Contracts for Flat Panel Display Inspection

DALSA Corporation (Waterloo, ON, Can.), an international high performance semiconductor and electronics company, has received contracts totaling CDN $1.3 million from Next Instrument, a leading Korean supplier of flat panel display inspection equipment. Under the terms of the contracts DALSA will provide the customer with its latest generation electronic cameras, which are designed to image at very high speeds under low light conditions. The DALSA cameras, which are expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2006, will be “the eyes” of Next Instrument’s flat panel display inspection system. The customer’s system searches for defects on flat panel televisions, notebook PCs, and monitors as they are being manufactured, allowing flat panel manufacturers to maintain better quality control, improve yield and lower costs. “We’re pleased to provide Next Instrument with our very latest high performance cameras,” commented Savvas Chamberlain, CEO of DALSA Corporation. “These contracts are early indicators from our key OEMs of strong market acceptance of our new line of cameras.”

Ciprico Selects Chelsio’s 10G Ethernet For Digital Media Storage Solutions

Ciprico Inc. (Plymouth, Minn.), a leading storage solutions provider for the content creation, broadcast and delivery markets, announced on Jan. 12 the selection of 10Gb Ethernet protocol acceleration technology from Chelsio Communications, Inc., (Sunnyvale, Calif.) for its recently announced DiMeda 10G NAS system. The DiMeda 10G NAS allows multiple creative users to share and view both uncompressed Standard Definition and compressed High Definition video content over 10Gb Ethernet networks.

“Chelsio’s T210 10Gb Ethernet TCP Offload Engine has been proven to have the highest throughput and lowest latency technology in the industry, and digital media applications are clearly turning towards 10Gb Ethernet infrastructure for higher performance,” said Mike Ascher, vice president of engineering at Ciprico. “By switching to Chelsio’s unique TCP offload architecture, DiMeda products have seen a 30 percent performance improvement over previously tested 10GbE NICs.”

The DiMeda 10G supports DV, SD and lower resolution HD non-linear video applications, global command and control applications and many other high performance computing applications. The system is platform and application agnostic, supporting Windows, UNIX and Mac via CIFS/SMB, AFP, NFS, FTP and HTTP protocols.

“Ciprico clearly recognizes the opportunity for 10Gb Ethernet within the video storage market, and has delivered the world’s first 10Gb Ethernet NAS for high-definition content creation and broadcast applications,” said Kianoosh Naghshineh, president and CEO of Chelsio. “The Chelsio TOE architecture is uniquely capable of delivering the 10Gb Ethernet performance rates required for this high throughput application space.”

NEC Display Solutions Europe bundling Matrox AuroraVX™ Series Display Controller Board

NEC Display Solutions Europe (Munich, Germany) announced that it is bundling the Matrox (Montreal, Canada) AuroraVX™ Series display controller boards with its MD Series medical grayscale displays models including the MD21GS-2MP and MD21GS-3MP.

The AuroraVX Series of display controller boards power three displays from a single low-profile PCI Express board. The AuroraVX Series supports a Navigation Console (NC) up to a resolution of 2 MP, and two Twin Imaging Displays (TIDs) of up to 3 MP each.

“Bundling the Matrox AuroraVX Series board with our displays is a major step forward to simplified installations of triple screen configurations, which are a commonly used configuration in filmless diagnostic reporting,” says Norbert Funk, manager business development medical displays, NEC Display Solutions Europe. “By using the fast PCI Express slot for graphics output – installing only one driver – customers are able to get a three output solution under control of NEC’s Quality Assurance software.”

Equipped with Hardware Pivot, the AuroraVX Series of display controller boards is capable of driving various combinations of color and grayscale displays in portrait and/or landscape modes, and features an 8- or 10-bit display output for 256 or 1024 simultaneous shades of gray, depending on the available displays attached. Providing medical imaging professionals with versatile multi-display options, the AuroraVX Series is ideal for picture archiving and communications systems, and a variety of modalities such as X-Ray imaging, Computed Tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Digital Radiography.

Redlake and Geospatial Systems Extend Partnership to Provide Solutions for Multi-Spectral Imaging Applications

Redlake (Tucson, Ariz.) and Geospatial Systems, Inc. (Rochester, N.Y.) have entered a strategic partnership for exclusive development, distribution and support of Redlake’s multi-spectral, 3-chip line of digital cameras for military and commercial applications. Under this agreement, GSI will become the exclusive reseller of the existing MS product line and will assume responsibility for technical and application support for the products and its customers.

The MS-3100 and MS-4100 products will continue to be offered with the currently available configurations. In addition, GSI will provide custom filter designs to customers that demand higher levels of multi-spectral discrimination, customized optics and system integration services.

“The ability to offer custom filtered solutions will open large opportunities in the machine vision and medical markets as well as expand opportunities in the company’s traditional remote sensing and military market,” said Dr. William Kent, president and CEO of GSI.

Multi-spectral imaging is becoming a leading solution in both government and military markets encompassing many applications including real time target identification, remote sensing, reconnaissance, food inspection, fire detection and power line imaging.

Building Leaders

Building Leaders
By Ed Ruggero and Marcia Noa
Ruggero


Organizations large and small cite leadership as a critical component of their success. Yet the term "leadership" is often used as a synonym for "management." They're not the same thing.

"Management is about coping with complexity," John Kotter wrote in the Harvard Business Review. Managers develop processes and ways of measuring things. They plan, set targets, budget and track numbers. They write guidelines to keep the organization running smoothly. Good managers are absolutely vital to an organization’s success, but good managers are not necessarily good leaders.

Leaders influence people—by providing purpose, direction and motivation—while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.

Most companies are dedicated to accomplishing their mission and do their best to improve the organization by developing better business practices and teaching up-and-coming managers the tools of their trade. The interpersonal aspects of leadership, however—influencing people by providing purpose, direction and motivation—generally get less formal attention beyond corporate mission statements, incentive compensation and annual reviews.

It's not difficult to see why management activity gets most of the attention in an organization. Management yields quantifiable results. It's possible to prove how something like supply chain controls or technology investments affect profitability. When we invest in management, we often wind up with some new numbers that look better than the old numbers. Fundamentally, people are a messier business. They have different needs and aspirations; they're not all motivated by the same things and they learn in different ways and at different rates. Ultimately it's much more difficult to measure how efforts to direct and motivate individuals affect the bottom line. In addition to the fact that leading people is hard, time-consuming and difficult to measure, most people—even the best managers—haven't been taught how to lead.

This last point brings us to the real crux of the management versus leadership issue. Most organizations spend a great deal of time and effort finding the best and brightest and cultivating their business and management skills (as defined earlier), and those who excel are moved into positions classified as "leadership" roles. But few organizations invest in teaching the personal side of leadership: influencing people by providing purpose, direction and motivation. Why is that?

In our travels through the business world, we've observed a pervasive (though often unspoken) belief that while the hard business skills have to be learned, leadership—the ability to influence people—is something you either have or don't have. We call this the leaders-are-born-not-made myth. If leadership isn't something you can be taught, then you don't bother teaching it. You hire people who seem to have what it takes and hope that real leaders emerge. This policy leaves an awful lot to chance.

Consider as counterpoint, the United States Military Academy at West Point. Its explicit mission is to develop "leaders of character" for the United States Army. The intensity with which West Point pursues its mission is evidence that leadership is both vitally important and learnable. Its systematic approach to leader development offers useful lessons for civilian organizations.

When we propose West Point's leader development model to business people, we get some pushback. Many believe that military leadership is authoritarian and highly centralized, and would be inappropriate in a business setting. In fact, West Point's model strives to develop inspirational leadership, which, according to Dwight Eisenhower, is when other people do what you want them to do because they want to do it for you. The best leaders inspire people to perform beyond what they thought they were capable of. Furthermore, in its ultimate test—combat—military leadership is highly decentralized. War is characterized by uncertainty, and leaders must make quick decisions with imperfect information in situations where the stakes are very high. If the organization is to succeed it must have leaders at every level who are prepared, technically and emotionally, to make decisions. So business and the military have at least this one thing in common: they both need inspired, capable decision makers.

West Point's leader development program has four defining characteristics:
Challenge: People don't learn while operating inside their comfort zones. At every stage of their development, they must face challenges that will stretch them.
Assessment: The individual's efforts in confronting those challenges must be measured in some way.
Coaching: Every member of West Point's staff and faculty—most of them experienced military leaders—is charged with helping cadets become good Army officers.
Room to fail: An individual who is constantly confronted with new and difficult challenges is going to fail at some point. The leader's job is to ensure that such a failure isn't catastrophic, and that the cadet learns from the experience.

Rob Olson, a West Point tactical officer (responsible for leader development and military discipline of a company of 130 cadets), serves as a great case study for West Point's program. Olson, a combat veteran with twelve years of service and a record of success commanding troops around the globe, volunteered for a three-year tour at West Point. During one summer of Olson's tour, he was assigned to help oversee the basic training of the new freshman class, which reports on July 1 for six weeks of indoctrination prior to the school year. The new class is organized into military units, each with a chain of command comprised of juniors and seniors (3rd and 4th year cadets) who are responsible for turning these hundreds of recent high school graduates into cadets and soldiers. Rob Olson's job during the summer was to see to it that the upper class cadets, those juniors and seniors, grew as leaders while they were in his care.

One of Olson's charges, a senior named Kevin Bradley, had been put in command of a company of new cadets—one hundred and sixty or so young men and women with only a few weeks in uniform. One hot July day, Bradley and the thirty upper class cadets who worked for him marched their trainees to an outdoor site for a team-building exercise called the Squad Competition. This pseudo-athletic event pitted the sixteen squads of Bradley's company, each with ten new cadets, against one another. There was lots of running and pushups and sit-ups, lots of climbing over obstacles and carrying heavy things. Each squad's leader (all juniors) did the coaching. Everything was scored, and scores were posted on a large board in the middle of the field, right out in plain sight. Cadets are highly competitive: everyone wants to be number one, and no one wants to be number two, let alone number sixteen.

This event posed challenges at four different levels:
The challenge for the new cadets, the trainees, was straightforward: work as a team to overcome physical obstacles; get your score; apply your squad leader's coaching on how to improve.
The squad leaders were responsible for organizing all the activity and coaching the new cadets. If the squad failed at some event the squad leader helped them figure out what to do differently for the next one.
Kevin Bradley, as company commander, was in charge of the whole operation. His challenge was to communicate the mission and to guide, encourage and support his junior leaders. In other words, he had to provide leadership, a skill he was still learning.
Rob Olson's challenge was to help Kevin Bradley become a good leader.

Olson stood on the side of the sun-baked field while the upper class cadets got the trainees organized for the day then he called Bradley over. The two men were a study in contrast: Olson tall and lanky, always ready with a joke; and the twenty-year-old Bradley compact and muscular with a serious demeanor. Bradley trotted up and saluted.

"What will you do for the squad that wins?" Olson asked. Bradley, who had been chosen for his position because of three years of solid achievement as a cadet, knew that good leaders recognize team members' achievements.

"Sir, we're going to get them some pizza they can eat in their rooms." This is a big deal during Basic Training, when the new cadets have lost most of their freedom and spend every waking moment taking on some new challenge.

"That sounds good," Olson said. "What about the squad that comes in last?"

That question had clearly not occurred to Bradley. "Sir?" he said.

"Well, what's the mission out here today?" Olson asked.

The Squad Competition operated on the same principles as do many executive team-building experiences: shared hardship helps teams develop bonds that are critical to success. Bradley said, "To build squad cohesion."

"Correct," Olson said. "In all sixteen squads, right? I mean, you're not just going to write off that last squad, are you?" Bradley knew the answer to this question. "No, sir."

"Good. Run along and come up with a plan, and when you think you have one, come back and brief me."

Bradley saluted, jogged over to his equipment and took a long drink from his canteen as he pondered how he might make a sixteenth place finish into a positive experience for ten new cadets. He had ventured far from his comfort zone. "This is the hardest job I've ever had," he said. "Major Olson doesn't give us any of the answers. He just lays out the problem and makes us come up with the solution."

Bradley's challenges were of a higher order than those facing the new cadets. He'd been given a task—build squad cohesion—that was hard to measure, maybe impossible to quantify. Yet he knew that team cohesion is critical to military units, and that as an officer, part of his job would be to build teams. There was no manual for this one; Bradley had to take everything he knew about being a team member and team leader, consider how the new cadets in the last squad would feel about their performance, and somehow come up with a plan that would salvage something of the day for the losers.

But while he was expected to come up with and execute a strategy, he was neither alone nor unprepared. He had three years of grooming for this kind of challenge—beginning with his own days as a new cadet in the Squad Competition through the next three years at West Point—and Rob Olson was there to coach him.

Note that Olson was not there to tell him how to solve the problem. Olson knew where Bradley stood in his development as a leader, and pushed him to make the next leap. When Bradley finally briefed Olson on his plan, the major listened. He didn't have one correct solution in mind that Bradley was supposed to figure out. Olson just asked questions, giving Bradley autonomy and sending a message to the younger man that his opinion counted; that Olson had confidence in him; and Olson would hold him accountable. Bradley wasn't just facilitating training for the new cadets; he was in charge. In coming up with a solution for the problem Olson had put to him, he became a stake-holder as well. The new cadets' success would be his success, and he'd end the day more confident in his own abilities. And if he failed, Olson was there to make sure he learned a lesson or two.

Each of the key characteristics of West Point's leader development program—challenge, assessment, coaching and room to fail—is evident in this story, and it illustrates the essential lessons of leadership that can serve businesses in the same way they serve the military:
Leader development is so important that your best and brightest leaders should be responsible for it. The Army cycles its top leaders through West Point to teach cadets not only the academic and technical skills they need, but how to be inspiring, creative leaders themselves. Experienced, successful officers like Rob Olson consider it an honor to serve in those roles.
Leadership is more than an accumulation of knowledge and technical skill. Leaders guide and motivate others to do more than they thought possible. It takes creativity, empathy and hard work.
Leadership can be learned, but it must be taught. To assume that leaders are born and not made is both inefficient and a waste of talent.
Leader development is progressive. Individuals become leaders by facing increasingly difficult challenges that are attainable, given their training, but that stretch them well beyond what they've done in the past. Those responsible for leader development must understand each person’s stage of development and steer him or her toward next big challenge.
Leader development is experiential. It's important to let developing leaders take responsibility and be held accountable for results, though they must be prepared and guided toward challenges they are ready to face.
Good leaders recognize that communication is essential both to performance and leader development—from communicating the mission so that each subordinate knows what's expected to sharing feedback and guidance on individual performance.

At the heart of Rob Olson's success as both a leader and teacher was a leadership philosophy he embraced completely, communicated to all his charges and lived by even in the most difficult circumstances. His job was to build leaders, and he believed he would succeed only if he challenged them then got out of the way and let them figure out how to reach the goal. He neither neglected them nor micromanaged them. When they stumbled, he'd pick them up, dust them off, make sure they learned something and send them back into the fray. When they succeeded, he cheered them on and set them to more difficult challenges.

Without a bench of up-and-coming leaders (not just managers), and without a sustainable process for creating that bench, organizations put themselves at risk. Successful organizations value both management and leadership and dedicate resources to developing fully those individuals who will run things in the future.

How would you solve the squad leader's dilemma? Add your answer to our blog.

Additional Information:

Ed Ruggero is the author of ten books and a speaker and advisor to international organizations and businesses on leadership and leader development. He served in the US Army for eleven years and both studied and taught at West Point. Ed is also the co-author of The Leader's Compass, which gives leaders tools to develop a personal leadership philosophy.

Marcia Noa is a Vice President of SEI, a financial services company in Pennsylvania, where she focuses on organizational change and communication. She holds an MS in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania.