To commemorate the nation’s first chief geographer, the USGS established the Henry Gannett Award in 2009. As a new addition to the Gannett Award, the National Geospatial Program (NGP) has established the Henry Gannett internal award to recognize outstanding contributions to the geospatial community by a USGS employee.

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The second recipient of this intra-bureau award is Larry Moore, Senior Cartographer in the USGS National Geospatial Technical Operation Center, (NGTOC) for his extraordinary leadership and advancement of topographic mapping.

“Larry has been the driving force in moving the USGS mapping program from analog, to digital and even into the future”, said Dr. Michael Tischler, Director of the USGS National Geospatial Program. “He is adept in the ‘practical application of modern methods’ and has demonstrated  excellent technical writing capabilities and communication skills throughout his career.”

In addition, he has published numerous articles, personally responded to user inquiries about the product and wrote FAQs and User Guides to encourage and increase success in user adoption and appreciation of evolving map products.

Several years ago, Moore was confronted with the revitalization and operational implementation of the new USGS topographic mapping program centered on a new product: the US Topo. His professionalism, ambition and technical knowledge resulted in an achievement no other mapping organization in the world has accomplished: the production, revision and publication of more than 18,000 large-scale topographic map products in a single year.

He and his team also established a revision cycle that completely updates coverage for the conterminous Unites States on a three-year cycle, and this year the program is in the midst of its third, three-year cycle. 

“When there is a big challenge, Larry will make sure the right people are involved and the work gets done”, added Kari Craun, Director of the National Geospatial Technical Operations Center.

“The US Topo uses all of our (the USGS’s) data’, said Moore, as he accepted the Gannett Award. “Everyone in the NGTOC has contributed to this success.”

He points to measures of success like more than 75 US Topo maps revised every work day and anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 downloads of maps per day from The National Map websites.

In addition to the Gannett Award, Larry was presented his 40 year pin and certificate for more than four decades of public service.

The USGS National Geospatial Program presents the Henry Gannett Award biennially to memorialize the first USGS Chief Geographer, Henry Gannett (1880-1896), and his many contributions to American geography and cartography. Since the awards beginning, the USGS has recognized six individuals that have made substantial impacts to topographic mapping. 

Henry Gannett Award website: nationalmap.gov/gannett/

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