Team AEDC Spotlight:

  • Published
  • By Raquel March
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. --  Many AEDC organizations depend on Armando Aguirre’s skills as the geospatial information specialist and manager of the Geospatial Information Office for the Complex.

As a GIS, Aguirre manages and provides data about AEDC infrastructure that aid in land surveying, natural and cultural resource management, emergency management, utilities operations, air and space operations, security and other areas.

The data may include coordinates of streets, buildings, vegetation or steams and they are managed through a geographic information system or Air Force system known as GeoBase. The information may be mapped and provided to project managers who can use the data to see how the geographical items relate to each other.

Clark Brandon, deputy of the AEDC Test Support Division, recognizes Aguirre’s contributions in support of the base.

Brandon said Aguirre “consistently provides accurate maps and data sets to numerous customers to support a wide range of tasking from Enhance Use Lease exploration, Tennessee Air National Guard inquiries, and Arnold Civil Engineering support to the Installation Restoration Program and Military Munitions Response Program, and support during base exercises. He is the ‘go-to’ person on AEDC for all mapping needs.”

Aguirre described the personnel structure for a base GeoBase program.

“Typically GeoBase Programs at other Air Force Bases have several GIS subject matter expert (GIS-SME) personnel under them, each assigned to a specific realm of system such as a GIS-SME for an installation’s communications infrastructure, GIS-SME for environmental remediation, GIS-SME for electric utilities and GIS-SME for real property inventories,” he said. “At AEDC I take on the default GIS-SME role for all the aforementioned realms. I manage all these GIS data since they reside within the GeoBase Program database, inclusive coordination of IT [information technology] maintenance for the GeoBase system servers.”

While managing the multiple areas within the GeoBase Program at Arnold, Aguirre has revamped many geographic information system data.

“Much of AEDC's data is not created by us, it is compiled by outside vendors and their data, beyond trying to ensure locational accuracy, lacks being labeled and categorized to match required DOD Spatial Data Standards for Facilities, Infrastructure and Environment (SDSFIE) format,” he said. “The most challenging and time consuming part of my job had been spending hours on ‘scrubbing’ or retrofitting vendor GIS data to meet the required SDSFIE format.”

As a solution to aligning the data to the SDSFIE format, Aguirre communicates to the AEDC project managers the importance of using GeoBase services in the early stages of the project planning. He offers parameters to include as part of the contract project specifications, outlining the important factors that make the data SDSFIE compliant.
“Also, offering to disseminate our accurate data SDSFIE stencil database so vendors can populate our stencil with their project data input, results in deliverables that attain maximum interoperability with AEDC GeoBase GIS data,” Aguirre said.

His work also includes cartographic support or plotting maps, standardization of geographic data and meshing of regional installation picture resources. AEDC uses the maps through the Arnold AFB GeoBase Viewer.

“GeoBase Viewer for years has saved many analysis hours by being a quick and reliable AEDC data analysis tool for AEDC staff,” Aguirre said. “The GeoBase Viewer is a web mapping tool that can readily merge together AEDC’s many informative data sets into one place. It has proven to be an excellent service to the [AEDC] Emergency Operations Center. The GeoBase Viewer also allows AEDC users to not only merge a plethora of data to answer their queries, but it also allows users to draw labels and graphics onto it and custom create maps on the fly.”

Currently Aguirre is working on collecting geographical data for the reactivation of the Arnold AFB Airfield.

He has managed the GeoBase Program at AEDC for nine years and has 25 years of GIS experience.

Aguirre is a resident of Franklin County.

-AEDC-