First graduation class of SCP in 1981
Front Row: Sai Eng, Patricia Castel, Catherine Bate, Dorothy Gonneau, Leslie Mantin, Michael Tha Din, Grant Fedora.
Back Row: Bruce Peveril, Gary Turner, Mark Croszman, Bob Maher, Patrick Myers, Bill Faulkner, Brian Amirault, Bill Farrell, Gary Gill, Les. Smith, Richard Hanebury
Meet Bob, a research scientist who hails from England
1) In 1982, Bill Matteson arrived from ESRI to teach all students and instructors in the SCP program the basics of PIOS and GRID in two weeks. Today, this is known as ‘block learning’.
2) In 1983, Scott Morehouse and Dave Bishop returned to install the new GIS software, Arc/Info on the Prime minicomputers.
3) In 1984, Alex Miller, ESRI Canada visited Lawrencetown and hired John Houweling, Eric Melanson and Dave Roscoe from the graduating SCP class.
4) In 1986, Mark Harris was hired by ESRI, Redlands. According to Cathy Mueller, ESRI has hired xx COGS graduates since Mark. Mark is still with ESRI.
5) In 1986, the Nova Scotia Land Survey Institute (NSLSI) was renamed the College of Geographic Sciences (COGS).
6) In 1988 the graduating GIS class hosted a one week Summer Institute. Additional instructors were Michael Goodchild (University of Western Ontario) and Roger Tomlinson. Many Canadian Geographers attended – Peter Keller, Brian Klinkenburg, Brent Hall, Stephen Reader, Norman Drummond.
7) In 1999, Bob Maher and David Colville developed a new Masters in Information Technology program at BIOTROP, IPB Bogor, Indonesia modeled after the COGS curriculum. Stephen Rawlinson and Valerie Thomas, COGS graduates, were hired as instructors.
8) In 2000, Bob Maher returned to Nova Scotia and with David Colville, Tim Webster established the Applied Geomatics Research Group (AGRG). This led to joint the M.Sc in Applied Geomatics between Acadia University and NSCC in 2005. Koreen Millard was the first graduate. Roger Tomlinson was awarded an honorary doctorate at the same graduation ceremony in Wolfville.