The WVU Alfred O. Quinn American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Student Forum

 

The WVU Alfred O. Quinn ASPRS Student Forum is an outreach effort of the Potomac Region of ASPRS. The Student Forum is a club focused on remote sensing. The Potomac Region provides financial support and 10 free ASPRS student memberships per year. The WVU student forum was initiated in 2009. Current plans for the group include agency tours in Washington DC, and research presentations.

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Alfred O. Quinn - A Biography

Our group is named after Alfred O. Quinn, a pioneer in photogrammetry, and was started as an outreach effort of the ASPRS Potomac Region. Below is some background on Alfred O. Quinn, provided by the ASPRS Potomac Region

Alfred O. Quinn, AI (also known as A. O.), has had an interesting and challenging career in Civil Engineering, Surveying, Photogrammetry, Mapping, Teaching, and Law.

In 1930 Syracuse University received a Guggenheim Grant which enabled a young civil engineering professor, Earl Church, to establish a strong program in advanced surveying, mapping, and photogrammetry. In 1936 A. O. Quinn was one of the first graduates from this program, the only one of its kind in the country. Following graduation AI and three others known as "Earl Church's Boys" joined the Tennessee Valley Authority as participants in the largest mapping project using aerial photographs at that time. AI's work included field surveys, photogrammetric research, and mapping assignments. He managed to take night courses at the Chattanooga College of Law and was admitted to the practice of law in Tennessee in 1941.

Events at Pearl Harbor led to his receiving a commission in the US Navy. His assignments included photo interpretation, mapping, and combat amphibious landings in the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the occupation of Japan. He received a Navy Commendation for his participation in Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb tests at Bikini, where he was responsible for photogrammetric calculations about the results of the tests.

After the war he returned to Syracuse as Professor Church's assistant and invaluable colleague. Together they enlarged the contents of the courses with particular emphasis on Analytical Photogrammetry. Their methods solved the basic problems of space resection, relative and absolute orientation, and space intersection by numerical calculation rather than the conventional analog instrumentation. These were the days of hand cranked calculating machines rather than electronic computers. They did no more than addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and had no memory. Indeed, more computational capability is found nowadays in a single giveaway credit card size calculator than was found in the entire laboratory at Syracuse. Spending three hours on the calculator working through Professor Church's formulas gave their students a profound understanding of the geometry of photographs. His students will long remember AI's take home exams which would require up to ten hours on the calculator, but they also learned how to organize and document their work to give not only the right answer but also the thought process that led to the solution. In addition, each student had to prepare a term paper explaining the workings of one of the commercially available analog plotting machined. These papers had to be presented orally to the entire class and reproduced for permanent retention. AI insisted on proper grammar in the written version, and on clear exposition in the oral presentation. It was a most valuable component of the course.

In the summer vacations AI taught in the University surveying camp at Paul Smiths in the Adirondack Mountains. The camp was required for all civil engineering students, and under the strong guidance of Professors Earl Church and AI Quinn it gave an enduring esprit-de-corps to those who attended.

AI organized annual trips for the photogrammetry students to visit the government mapping agencies in Washington. There they learned the practical and professional aspects of how their discipline was used. They learned who the important people were in each agency and these trips often led to permanent employment after graduation. The trip was a lot of fun but it was not over until a written report was submitted on the return to Syracuse.

AI left Syracuse University to join Aero Service Corporation in Philadelphia as Chief Engineer. The company was the oldest and largest organization offering aerial photography and mapping throughout the free world. AI planned and supervised extensive mapping projects in the United States, Central and South America, Africa, and the Far East. There is a famous and notorious bar in Tahiti still known as Quinn's Bar.

AI joined the American Society for Photogrammetry in 1936 and served actively on a number of committees especially those promoting quality standards and professional conduct. In 1953 AI was elected President of the Society. He was also active in the American Society of Civil Engineers and became President of the Philadelphia Section in1971.

In 1962 AI formed Quinn & Associates to provide precision aerial mapping and engineering consulting services. Al put his legal knowledge to good use as an expert professional witness in numerous lawsuits. When Quinn & Associates was sold in 1981, Al and his wife Doris moved to a home they had designed and built on Quaker Mountain near Wilmington, New York, in the heart of the beautiful Adirondack Mountains. Doris and Al became bee keepers and Al used to say, "Bees are in the aerial business so it is a good merger for me to work with them." Al was a board member of the local Chamber of Commerce and the local hospital. He did engineering work for the town and for a time was chairman of the town Planning Board. Doris and Al were active in churches in Wilmington and Lake Placid. They were married in June 1937 and have four children, 12 grandchildren, and 9 great grandchildren. They now live in a cottage in the retirement community of Glen of Hiland Meadows, Queensbury, New York.

A.O. Quinn could be categorized as either an academic or commercial photogrammetrist; he is undoubtedly both. A measure of his academic prowess is the fact that seven of his students have become President of ASPRS. His lifelong contributions to the photogrammetric profession can serve as a powerful example for those participating in the Student Forums sponsored by the Potomac Region of ASPRS.