The
Buzzard
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Heritage Society Newsletter
uscgsheritage.org
March, 2015
NGS computes updated Washington Monument height
In this issue:
NGS updates
Washington
Monument height
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Annual meeting &
holiday party
2
Lincoln’s slave
density map
3
Honoring ENS
Melissa Mathes
3
NOAA Open House 3
Get to know your
board members
Like us on
Facebook!
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Officers
Cheryl Oliver
President
Phil Kenul
Vice President
David Hall
Secretary
Don Spillman
Treasurer
Directors
Sam DeBow
George Leigh
Craig McLean
Lynne Mersfelder-Lewis
Larry Mordock
Dave Peterson
Advisors
John Nyberg
Jeremy Weirich
Editor
Dawn Forsythe
[email protected]
Using new international measurement standards and technology not available in
the past, National Geodetic Survey has calculated the official architectural
height of the Washington Monument to be 554 feet 7 11/32 inches -- a highly
precise measurement that makes it eligible for inclusion in official registers of
the world’s tallest structures.
The NGS measurement was made using measuring certification standards of
the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CTBUH) and was finalized in
December 2014. The final results were reported to the National Park Service, and
the report is available online.
Although the newly established
architectural height differs from the
historical height of 555 feet 5⅛ inches,
neither the starting point nor the socalled “standard deviation” used for the
original 1884 measurement is known,
making comparison of the two
measurements difficult. The new
architectural height provides baseline
documentation that can be easily
reproduced for comparison with future
measurements and investigations to
determine if the height of the
monument is changing in any way.
“We have to be cautious in comparing this new height to the historic one, since
we do not know precisely the actual starting point that U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Lt. Col. Thomas Casey used in 1884,” said Dru Smith, Ph.D., NOAA’s
chief geodesist. “Today’s elevation reflects the international standards for
measurement of a building’s height as well as considerable technological
improvements.”
The resulting architectural height of 554 feet 7 11/32 inches is accurate to
within plus or minus one-thirty second of an inch, or one millimeter. That
variation is what is known as the “standard deviation” and can help explain the
changing height estimates over the years.
“It is the reference to an eighth of an inch that makes the original measurement
so interesting,” Smith said. “Did the original builders think they had truly
measured or estimated the height with sufficient accuracy to justify that last
eighth of an inch? The answer is unclear and at present remains lost to history.
What we can now say with certainty is that the current height can be definitively
stated to be within the standard deviation.”
Read more.
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Annual meeting & holiday party 2014
Society members had a wonderful time at this winter’s annual meeting, at the beautiful Manor Country
Club. (See more photos on our Facebook page.)
Mary Challstrom, Diana Lewis,
and Donnie Marth
Betty Smith, George Myers, and
Meg Danley
Charlie Challstrom and
Dave Peterson
John Oliver and Sam DeBow
Connie and Bill Wall, and
George English
David Hall and our special guest: Dr. Ferd Hassler!
Retired Capt. Albert "Skip" Thebarge,
a top NOAA historian, received the
2014 Exemplary Service Award.
Dave Peterson received the
Distinguished Service Award, for his
years of dedicated service.
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Dawn Forsythe received the Society's
Annual Award for her editing of
The Buzzard.
Lincoln’s slave density map is home again in President Lincoln Cottage
The “slave density map,” created by the men of U.S. Coast Survey in 1861, is one of Coast Survey’s most
treasured historical maps. Artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter included it in his painting, “First Reading of the
Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln,” because Lincoln consulted it so often in devising his
military strategy. According to Carpenter, President Lincoln used the
map in his decisions to send his armies to free blacks in some of the
highest density areas in order to destabilize Southern order.
President Lincoln’s Cottage, now maintained by the National Trust
for Historic Preservation, is where President Lincoln developed the
Emancipation Proclamation. So it was fitting that, on Lincoln’s
birthday this year, the Office of Coast Survey presented a copy of the
map to Cottage officials, to assist with their vital educational
programs.
In the very library where Lincoln may have studied the map, Coast
Survey’s Dawn Forsythe (left) and NOAA’s Ben Sherman (right)
presented the map to Erin Carlson Mast, the Cottage’s executive
director, and Callie Hawkins, associate director for programs.
The Cottage plans to use the map in their educational programs. To learn more about the map, see Mapping
Slavery in the Nineteenth Century.
Society recognizes new NOAA officer
Society president Cheryl Oliver presented the NOAA Distinguished
Honor Graduate Award to Ensign Melissa Mathes, at the BOTC
graduation ceremony in November 2014, at U.S. Coast Guard Station
New London.
During college, Mathes served in the U.S. Army Reserves as a noncommissioned officer. She graduated magna cum laude from Texas
A&M University in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in marine biology.
Ensign Mathes is now serving onboard NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter.
Board vacancies!
Have you ever thought about serving as a member of the Society’s board of directors? They meet every other
month. If you’re interested, please contact Cheryl Oliver, board president, for more information.
2015 NOAA Open House was a huge success!
If you weren’t able to stop by this year’s open house on NOAA’s Silver
Spring campus, you missed something!
Over 1,500 visitors experienced a dozen hands-on activities, new
exhibitions in Gateway to NOAA, the ever popular hurricane simulator,
interpretation of the tide machine and printing press, and the
Exploration Command Center.
More than 50 NOAA employees and 25 Montgomery County High
School student volunteers (earning community service hours) made it
all happen.
A young visitor learns about the historic tide machine on permanent
display in the NOAA Science Center. See more fun photos at NOAA’s
Preserve America.
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Get to know your board members
For those of you who don’t know our board members personally, we thought we should highlight a couple
with each newsletter. Hopefully, you can get at least a sense of how lucky we are to have people of such
high caliber volunteering their time to sustain and share our heritage.
Retired Captain David H. Peterson evidently doesn’t know what the term
“retired” means. In addition to his gourmet cooking, photography, bicycling,
and golf, Dave spends his time in service to several organizations. He has
been or is currently serving as a national board member and president of the
Montgomery County (MD) chapter of the Military Officers Association of
America; board member of the MOAA Voices; and a member of legislative
affairs committee of the MOAA Maryland Council of Chapters. It doesn’t end
there. He has also served as the secretary/treasurer of National ACO
Scholarships, Inc. The Maryland governor also appointed Dave as member of
the Maryland Veterans Commission.
It’s no wonder that service organizations seek out Capt. Peterson, given his
own service history. Dave enlisted in the United States Navy as a reservist in
October 1965. He was on active duty in 1967 and 1968, and then remained
as a drilling reservist until his discharge in 1973 to accept a commission in
the NOAA Corps. During his naval service, he rose to the rank of secondclass petty officer and served aboard three different naval vessels, including
two foreign deployments.
Peterson was commissioned as a NOAA ensign in 1973, and retired as a captain in 2003. His assignments
included sea duty aboard seven NOAA ships, including four foreign deployments. He served as executive
officer aboard ship three times, and was ship’s commander twice -- the final time as the “plank-owner CO”
of NOAA’s first new construction ship in 18 years, the Ronald H. Brown. He had many career development
management assignments, culminating with a four-year assignment as director of the NOAA Commissioned
Personnel Center.
In January, NOAA named Society board member Craig McLean as the new
leader for NOAA’s research enterprise, including laboratories and programs
across the country. Prior to this position, Craig served as deputy assistant
administrator for OAR’s Programs and Administration, as executive officer of
the National Ocean Service, and was the founding director of NOAA's Office
of Ocean Exploration. McLean served in uniform for nearly 25 years, retiring
from NOAA's Commissioned Corps in the grade of captain. He served aboard
hydrographic, oceanographic, and fisheries research ships.
Craig is also an attorney and has practiced marine resource law for NOAA.
He has been awarded the Department of Commerce Silver and Bronze
Medals, the NOAA Corps Commendation Medal, and Special Achievement
Medal. He is a frequent speaker on ocean related subjects, drawing on his
diverse NOAA career experience in fisheries, coastal and marine area
management, directing research, law, and both surface and submerged
marine operations.
He is a fellow of the Explorers Club, and of the Marine Technology Society,
and a past-president and chairman of the Sea-Space Symposium.
Have you “liked” us?
If you have a Facebook page, we invite you to join our closed Facebook group. Just
click on U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Heritage Society, and ask to join. One of
our administrators will approve you right away! We invite everyone to share memories,
pictures, and news of Society get-togethers...
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