During ICC 2023 in Cape Town, Lynn Usery posthumously received the ICA Honorary Fellowship. Below you can read the laudatio by Past-President Menno-Jan Kraak:
Dr. E. Lynn Usery was not only a cartographer and GIScientist of international reputation, but he also made many extraordinary contributions to the ICA.
As a leader in the geographic science community, Lynn left a remarkable legacy at USGS, University of Wisconsin (UW) – Madison, University of Georgia, and around the world. It would be difficult to name a subject in our field about which Lynn could not speak knowledgeably and insightfully.
No other person has been elected president of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS), president of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), and president of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). In service to the CaGIS, he chaired AutoCarto 2005 to close an eight-year gap and resurrect the symposium series. In service to the ICA, Lynn was involved as a leader in numerous working groups and commissions of the ICA. He spearheaded the effort to bring the International Cartographic Conference back to the United States for only the second time; the first was in 1978.
Lynn chaired the Local Organizing Committee and served as Conference Director for the 2017 ICC in Washington, D.C. That effort started with a bid to the General Assembly in 2011, followed by five years of conference organization from 2012 to 2017. He subsequently became a Vice President of the ICA, serving on the association’s Executive Committee from 2015 to 2019.
Dr. Lynn Usery passed away on March 22,2022, after a brief illness. The worldwide cartographic community will sorely miss him, not only for his research contributions, leadership and vision, and tireless service, but also for his friendship and camaraderie. It is a great honor for the ICA to award Lynn Usery his well-deserved ICA Honorary Fellowship posthumously.
Samantha Arundel from USGS accepted the Honorary Fellowship on behalf of Lynn
