The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has appointed Steven Ramage as Executive Director, Marketing and Communications.

OGC is an international voluntary consensus standards body that works extensively with organisations across the globe to ensure the interoperability of geospatial software applications, systems and services so that they ‘just work’ for end users. This ot-for-profit organization brings support to a vast range of geospatial software and services where digital geographic information underpins business and societal activities. Current OGC focus areas include climate change, defence planning, disaster management, emergency response, location-based services, national security, property planning, transport scheduling and more.

In this new role at OGC, Steven is responsible for the planning and execution of a broad range of marketing, communications and education program activities to raise awareness and increase application of OGC standards by technology providers and users worldwide. His activities include encouraging membership participation in OGC programs, as well as sponsorship.

Over the last 15 years, Steven has worked in a variety of organisations in the geospatial industry including Oceonics (now part of Fugro), Navteq (now part of Nokia) and most recently 1Spatial. He has been working on market development for all of these organisations across a number of industry sectors, including business-to-business, business-to-consumer, government, transportation and utilities. His experience includes industry aspects ranging from precise satellite positioning to digital mapping, and most recently, geospatial data integration and quality control software and services with 1Spatial.

Reporting to Mark Reichardt, the President and Chief Executive Officer of OGC, and working with OGC staff, board, membership and partner organizations, Steven is responsible for planning, budgeting and executing corporate programs. These are designed to promote adoption of OGC standards by developers and users worldwide and to encourage participation in OGC membership and collaborative testbed and related program activities.

Mark Reichardt commented, "The caliber of people who applied for this position was very high, so we were very pleased that Steven agreed to come on board with the Consortium. Steven brings with him an excellent level of industry expertise, market insight, communication skills and technology understanding that will be a key asset to the Consortium. Steven recognizes the need to improve and extend education about OGC processes and the practical aspects of implementation, and this will be one of his major areas of priority."

Steven Ramage added, "There is a massive opportunity for geospatial data, applications and services to be widely accepted in everyday use. The adoption has started in a number of areas, but we are only experiencing a small percentage of what will undoubtedly be one of the largest growth industries worldwide. The OGC’s ability to provide standards that facilitate this growth creates exciting opportunities for us all."