Mr. Copple is the Chief Executive Officer of The Sanborn Map Company, Inc., a position held for 17 years. His career includes satellite, aerial, drone, and ground remote sensing technologies. Mr. Copple is a strong believer in the value of remote sensing technologies and geographic information systems and has traveled extensively developing business both domestically and internationally.

With 20 years of experience, working with various airborne technologies, Anders Ekelund serves as Vice President for airborne bathymetric LiDAR of the Hexagon’s Geospatial Content Solutions Division. In this role, he is responsible for developing competitive solutions and services for customers in the bathymetric industry. 

Previous to the acquisition by Hexagon in 2013, Anders was Managing Director of the Airborne Hydrography AB (AHAB), a company developing, producing and distributing airborne bathymetric LiDAR systems and software solutions. 

Anders holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanics Engineering, specialized in automatic control theory from Linköping University, Sweden.

Joshua France is the mobile and airborne segment manager.  He has been working at RIEGL for over 10 years during this time he has held many different positions within the support and engineering sales organization.  

Brant is Founder and Director of CompassData Inc. a GIS mapping, surveying and data provider for the Drone, Aerial and Satellite Remote Sensing Community since 1994. CompassDrone is a division of CompassData. Mr. Howard utilizes his 40 years of experience in contract engineering, technical sales, marketing and management to lead CompassData as an international provider of photo-identifiable ground control for GIS and remote sensing applications. He has been an innovator in providing ground control as off-the-shelf content to photogrammetry professionals with consistent delivery of accurate control data in a timely response. Mr. Howard has Undergraduate and Master’s Degrees in Geology from Indiana University.  His experience includes the U.S. Geological Survey; Camp, Dresser & McKee Inc., entrepreneur endeavors in the Remote Sensing, GPS and the electronic technology professions. Mr. Howard holds Patents in Geospatial and Mobile Resource Management technology. He has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver, made numerous presentations at seminars and  conferences worldwide. Mr. Howard has authored articles in technical journals relating to Geology, GIS, remote Sensing and Mobile Resource Management.

Philipp has a Masters Degree with focus on Land Surveying, Geodesy, GIS, Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He is a certified federal surveyor and certified photogrammetrist, as well as a Professional Land Surveyor licensed in six states in the USA. At CompassData, he is in charge of managing nation-wide and international operations from bidding projects, logistics and technical solutions. The department that he leads specializes in collecting Ground Control Points for airborne and space-borne sensors. As a geodesists he consults and calculates datum-transformations to ensure the highest geodetic accuracy throughout different continents.

Vinod Ramnath earned his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University and has over 16 years of experience in the remote sensing industry. Mr. Ramnath is currently the Software Development Manager/ Research Scientist at Teledyne Optech. He is a senior member of a research and development team focused on the evolution of topographic and bathymetric lidar systems. His research interests span the areas of signal processing of lidar waveforms, developing data fusion algorithms that involve active and passive remote sensing imagery, image understanding that include analysis, feature extraction, pattern recognition and classification. He has authored /co-authored over 20 technical papers and has presented at various international conferences and workshops. He has also served as the IEEE Oceans 2015 conference technical session chair. Mr. Ramnath is also a Referee for SPIE’s Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. Mr. Ramnath is a recipient of the JALBTCX (Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise) Sebastian Sizgoric Technical Achievement award.

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Brad Schmidt is the Global UAV Sales Manager at Applanix, managing sales activities for the company’s UAV Business Segment. Brad has more than 30 years’ experience working within the geomatics industry, he’s been a business owner, educator, technical specialist, and has extensive experience working in senior management, business development, and sales positions. Prior to joining Applanix, Brad worked with Bentley Systems in Corporate Sales, and with Hexagon in a Business Development capacity, managing a geospatial product portfolio for the Canadian geomatics market. He also served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at PCI Geomatics and was responsible for PCI’s global sales operations for nearly 10 years. Prior to joining PCI Geomatics in 2004, he was the Director of the Mapping & GIS Solutions Division for Intergraph’s operations in the Middle East, where he spent 11 years managing the implementation of geospatial solutions, working from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Some of the areas that Brad is experienced in include satellite remote sensing, UAV survey and mapping, aerial photogrammetry, and geographic information systems.

He holds a Master of Science degree in Geography with a specialization in remote sensing from the University of Calgary and an Honors Undergraduate degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, also in Geography. He has also completed a series of post degree studies in remote sensing and geology while at the University of Waterloo.

With a BSc. in Geomatics from Carleton University, Malek serves as the Airborne Product Manager at Teledyne Optech, where he is focused on the research and development of innovative geospatial acquisition technology. Since joining Optech Malek has worked closely with clients in the geospatial industry on the planning, collection, and processing of lidar and image projects. Malek’s background is in using integrated remote sensing methods and numerical analysis for environmental modelling. Prior to Teledyne Optech, Malek worked for various government and academic bodies.

Frank is New York State Geographic Information Officer (GIO).  In this role he is responsible for Statewide GIS coordination, policy, and framework data programs.  Frank is the Executive Director of the New York State Geospatial Advisory Committee. 

Frank also serves on the Board of Directors of the National State Geographic Information Council and will take on the role of NSGIC president this month. 

Frank has a Master of Science in Geography from the University of Idaho and has been involved with GIS in New York State Government for 29 years..