Alden Partridge Colvocoresses

Colonel Alden Partridge Colvocoresses (1918-March 27, 2007), US Army (Ret.), developed in 1973 - 1979 the Space-oblique Mercator projection with John Parr Snyder and John L. Junkins. Colvocoresses was the first to realize that such a projection was needed and mathematically feasible, and in 1974 defined it geometrically as a projection that maps images from Landsat satellites, which he used to develop the first satellite map of the United States.

Biography
Alden P. Colvocoresses was born the son of George M. Colvocoresses II and Alice Hagen in Humboldt, Arizona, in 1918. He is the grandson of George Partridge Colvocoresses and the great-grandson of George Colvocoresses. He served in the United States Army in World War II, in the 16th Armored Engineer Battalion of the 1st Armored Division, pulling duties in North Africa and Europe. He was twice wounded in combat and has received the Purple Heart as well as two Silver Stars, one for capturing and destroying a German Mark IV tank in Tunisia and another for escaping from Italian captors in North Africa.

Alden became involved with aerial photo mapping for the 1st Army, where he oversaw some of the photo mapping as preparation for the D-Day assault on Normandy.

He also served in the Korean War and retired after playing a large role in mapping operations during the Vietnam War.

He spent the rest of his career working for the U.S. Geological Survey's national mapping division, retiring in 1990. He was a research cartographer on the Landsat satellite program and received two patents for models of remote sensing systems. He also discovered a reef in the Indian Ocean that was subsequently named for him.

After leaving the Army, Alden was a pioneer in satellite mapping techniques, including the Space-oblique Mercator projection that maps images from Landsat satellites, which he used to develop the first satellite map of the United States.

On May 8, 2005 Colvocoresses gave his great-great-niece, Gretchen Herrboldt Hahn, graduate of NU 2005, the commissioning oath as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. She became the first descendant of Norwich University founder Alden Partridge to graduate from Norwich in 138 years. Alden is the brother of Gretchen's maternal great-great grandmother and a key link in a military family whose roots are entwined deep in the Norwich tradition.

He died March 27, 2007 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.