Bradford Parkinson is an American engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 and inventor, and United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

 colonel best known as the father of the Global Positioning System

Global Positioning System

The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...

.

He attended the United States Naval Academy

United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...

, graduating in 1957, but decided to join the Air Force because of its superior educational opportunities. Parkinson then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 for his M.S. in Aeronautics, graduating in 1961.

After several years in the Air Force, he entered a Ph. D. program at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, graduating in 1966. In 1973 he became manager of the NAVSTAR GPS development program, where he remained until 1978 when he retired from the Air Force. In 1984, Parkinson became a professor at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, where today he is a professor emeritus.

In 2003 he shared the Draper Prize with Ivan A. Getting

Ivan A. Getting

Ivan Alexander Getting was an American physicist and electrical engineer, credited with the development of the Global Positioning System...

 for his contributions to the invention of the Global Positioning System. In 2004 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

National Inventors Hall of Fame

The National Inventors Hall of Fame is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recognizing, honoring and encouraging invention and creativity through the administration of its programs. The Hall of Fame honors the men and women responsible for the great technological advances that make human,...

. Today Parkinson lives in San Luis Obispo, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 near his six children and five grandchildren.

Personal life

Bradford Parkinson was born in Madison

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

, Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

 on February 16, 1935, but grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. He is the only son of Herbert Parkinson, an architect who was also an alumnus of MIT. For his secondary education, the younger Parkinson attended the Breck School

Breck School

Breck School is an independent college-preparatory preK–12 school in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. It was founded in 1886 and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church...

, then a small, all-boys preparatory school, graduating in 1952. Parkinson has credited his experiences at the Breck School for inspiring in him an early love of math and science, an interest which eventually became his life's calling.

In addition to his career, Parkinson has a number of avocations, perhaps the most important of which is the outdoors. Over the course of his life he's been an avid skier, snowshoer, and hiker, all of which he enjoys today with the help of GPS units. Parkinson is also an experienced sailor, recently sailing a catamaran

Catamaran

A catamaran is a type of multihulled boat or ship consisting of two hulls, or vakas, joined by some structure, the most basic being a frame, formed of akas...

 around the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 with one of his sons. Beyond athletics, Parkinson is a student of history, with Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 and Admiral Horatio Nelson being two of his life-long heroes.

In 2003 Parkinson was awarded the Draper Prize for his contributions to GPS, along with the Ivan Getting, the long-time chairman of the Aerospace Corporation. The award is a $500,000 cash prize, and is commonly considered the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 of engineering. In addition, in 2004 Parkinson was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his contributions.

Today, Parkinson lives in San Luis Obispo, California, a small city located halfway between San Jose

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

 and Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. He is married to Virginia “Ginny” Parkinson, with whom he has one child. He also has five children from a previous marriage with Jill Horner-Jencks (remarried), as well as five grandchildren.

Education

Parkinson attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering. While studying there, Parkinson discovered he had a deep interest in controls engineering, which was not a research focus of the Navy at that time. Fortunately, one of Parkinson's electrical engineering professors was an Air Force officer, and urged him to consider switching military branches. Parkinson also knew he wanted to get a Ph. D. later in life, and the Air Force was more receptive to graduate and post-graduate education at this time. For these reasons, Parkinson accepted a commission in the Air Force rather than the Navy after graduation.

Immediately after graduation, Parkinson's superiors offered to send him to study in MIT's “Course Sixteen” a well-known aeronautics and astronautics program. However, having just joined the Air Force, Parkinson decided that he would prefer to spend some time on regular duty to get a feel for the branch. After two years in Southeast Asia, he did matriculate into the MIT program, studying controls engineering, inertial guidance, and electrical engineering. Interestingly, Parkinson worked in the lab of Charles Stark Draper, the namesake for the prestigious Draper Prize which Parkinson went on to win later in his life. After two years of study, Parkinson graduated with a Master of Science in Aeronautics in 1961.

Parkinson was then assigned to work at Central Inertial Guidance Test Facility at Holloman Air Force Base

Holloman Air Force Base

Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located six miles southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, a city in Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The base was named in honor of Col. George V. Holloman, a pioneer in guided missile research...

 in Alamogordo, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

. There he continued to study inertial guidance and electrical and controls engineering, gaining a deep understanding of both the academic issues at hand and their application to the actual battlefield. After three years at Holloman, Parkinson was assigned to a Ph. D. program at Stanford University, graduating in 1966.

Criticism of the decision to shut down Loran C

Mr. Parkinson has stated that a terrestrial system like Loran has to provide a critical back-up for safety and security reasons.

Air Force duty

After graduating from the Naval Academy, Parkinson opted to perform regular Air Force duty in order to, as he put it, “find out what the Air Force was all about”. He served two years as a chief Communications-Electronics officer at an early warning station Southeast Asia, and then was sent back to the United States in order to continue his education at MIT. Parkinson again returned to combat duty in Vietnam in 1969, after finishing his Ph. D. at Stanford. His assignment was to refine and improve the AC-130 Spectre gunship, and he was sent to the field in order to gain an understanding of how the technology performed in real-life situations. During this period he logged more than 170 hours of combat missions, and was awarded a number of military honors including the Bronze Star

Bronze Star Medal

The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...

, Legion of Honor, Meritorious Service Medal

Meritorious Service Medal (United States)

The Meritorious Service Medal is a military decoration presented to members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguished themselves by outstanding meritorious achievement or service to the United States subsequent to January 16, 1969...

 and a Presidential Unit Citation

Presidential Unit Citation

The Presidential Unit Citation is a senior unit award granted to military units which have performed an extremely meritorious or heroic act, usually in the face of an armed enemy...

. Over the course of his life, Parkinson served twenty-one years in the Air Force, from 1957 to 1978. He retired at the rank of colonel.

NAVSTAR Project

In 1973, thanks in part to the influence of his mentor, General William W. Dunn, Parkinson was assigned to a nascent Air Force program called 621B. This program was a navigation-focused collaboration between the Aerospace Corporation and the Air Force, with most of the technology being owned by Aerospace. Though the technology interested Parkinson, at first he was reluctant to join the program as he did not want to give up his directorship of another Air Force project. However, he was assigned anyway, and he quickly made himself the de facto manager of the operation. After several months the Air Force recognized his drive and interest in the project – as well as his background and skill-set – and made him the director.

When Parkinson first took over 621B, the program was in its earliest stages, with most of the work being theoretical. Naturally, Parkinson's sterling technical background proved to be a tremendous asset during this period. However, as the project gained momentum, Parkinson's responsibilities shifted to managing the program, and, perhaps most importantly, ensuring that the Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

 and the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 were fully supportive of the initiative. His political and managerial skill were invaluable to the success of the program, demonstrating a rare combination of excellence in both the technical and non-technical domains. In 1978 the first working prototype of a GPS system was launched, and Parkinson's years of effort were validated. 621B transitioned to the larger NAVSTAR program, and, rather than taking an administrative position at the Pentagon, Parkinson decided to retire from the Air Force.

Private sector

After retiring from the Air Force, Parkinson spent one year teaching, but then decided to enter the private sector. He first was appointed Vice President of the Space Systems Group at Rockwell International

Rockwell International

Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate in the latter half of the 20th century, involved in aircraft, the space industry, both defense-oriented and commercial electronics, automotive and truck components, printing presses, valves and meters, and industrial automation....

, Inc., where he was involved in developing the space shuttle. Following his work at Rockwell, Parkinson joined Intermetrics

Intermetrics

Intermetrics, Inc. was a software company founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1969 by several veterans of M.I.T.'s Instrumentation Laboratory who had worked on the software for NASA's Apollo Program including the Apollo Guidance Computer....

, a software company based in Boston. Parkinson was a vice president at Intermetrics, and was heavily involved in taking the company public in 1982. 1984, Parkinson accepted a research position at Stanford University. However, Parkinson later returned to the private sector in 1999, where he served as the acting CEO of Trimble Navigation, a producer of advanced positioning systems. Today, Parkinson sits on the boards of several large navigation-related companies, including Trimble Navigation, EMS Technologies

EMS Technologies

EMS Technologies is a subsidiary of Honeywell International which was formerly an independent Atlanta-based company with approximately $290 million in annual sales revenue. EMS-T specializes in wireless, defense, and space communications systems. Founded in 1968 by Dr. John E...

, and Navigation Technology Ventures.

Teaching and professorship

Early in his career, Parkinson was an academic instructor for test pilots at the United States Air Force Academy

United States Air Force Academy

The United States Air Force Academy is an accredited college for the undergraduate education of officer candidates for the United States Air Force. Its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States...

 in Colorado Springs, but soon moved on to other projects. Immediately after retiring from the Air Force, Parkinson returned to Colorado, taking a position teaching mechanical engineering at Colorado State University

Colorado State University

Colorado State University is a public research university located in Fort Collins, Colorado. The university is the state's land grant university, and the flagship university of the Colorado State University System.The enrollment is approximately 29,932 students, including resident and...

. However, after only one year, Parkinson's budding academic career was cut short by his detour into the private sector. After five years outside of academia, however, Parkinson returned to his alma mater Stanford, where he became research professor focused on GPS and related technologies. After several years he was given tenure, and was named to the endowed "Edward C. Wells

Edward Curtis Wells

Ed Wells redirects here. For the baseball player, see Ed Wells Edward Curtis Wells was senior vice president and served on the board of directors of Boeing Company. He designed the Boeing 747. He was known as the "Elder Statesman of Aviation".-Biography:He was born in Boise, Idaho on August 26, 1910...

" Chair of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Beyond his research duties, Parkinson was also an active and well-liked teacher, creating and leading the popular “Managing Innovation” course. Today, Parkinson is a professor emeritus at Stanford.

Historical context

Beginning with the Sputnik launch in 1957, there was an awareness in the aeronautical and military communities that some type of satellite-based navigation system was technically feasible – and even likely, in some form. The United States Navy experimented with the technology early on, launching a network of navigational satellites named Transit

Transit (satellite)

The TRANSIT system, also known as NAVSAT , was the first satellite navigation system to be used operationally. The system was primarily used by the U.S...

 in 1960. TRANSIT was mainly used for tracking ICBMs on submarines, and was limited to two dimensions. In addition, the accuracy was limited to two miles, which, at that time, was considered to be near the theoretical limit of the technology.

Throughout the 1960s work continued on navigational satellites. Several additional projects were launched at a variety of different organizations, including the Aerospace Corporation, a non-profit R&D laboratory in the United States, the Applied Physics Laboratory

Applied Physics Laboratory

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory , located in Howard County, Maryland near Laurel and Columbia, is a not-for-profit, university-affiliated research center employing 4,500 people. APL is primarily a defense contractor. It serves as a technical resource for the Department of...

, and the Naval Surface Weapons Center. However, each organization operated independently, and, given the potential military significance of the technology, a certain amount of secrecy marked the projects. In addition, the early results of high-accuracy testing were not entirely encouraging. Indeed, the Pentagon was publicly skeptical of satellite-based navigation systems, as they believed the accuracy would always be too poor to be of substantial value.

Reception and impact

Though initially viewed with skepticism, GPS has become a ubiquitous and life-changing technology. It is critical to the military operations of both the United States and many foreign countries, providing navigational information to everything from ground infantry units to guided missiles. In addition, GPS has been incorporated into a broad range of civilian applications. Most current cell phones, for example, include receivers, enabling block-by-block directions for pedestrians and drivers alike. Civilian airplanes have also incorporated GPS receivers, providing another component in airplanes' sophisticated navigational systems. Indeed, with the help of GPS, airplanes are now capable of performing landings on autopilot, and doing so with better precision and safety than human pilots.

Moreover, GPS's effects on society are still developing. One application that is currently being developed is earthquake detection and measurement. Given appropriate transmitting equipment, GPS is capable of pinpointing locations to the thickness of a pencil lead, enabling scientists to gather data to complement what is available from seismographs. Additionally, the highly accurate timing systems integral to GPS are beginning to see use in internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

and web technologies, enabling more efficient network communications . Altogether, it is hard to overstate the impact that GPS has had on the modern world.

Patents

Parkinson, U.S. Patent 5,726,659, “Multipath calibration in GPS pseudorange measurements”

Parkinson, U.S. Patent 6,434,462, “GPS control of a tractor-towed implement"

Parkinson, U.S. Patent 6,732,024, “Method and apparatus for vehicle control, navigation and positioning"

Parkinson, U.S. Patent 6,052,647, “Method and system for automatic control of vehicles based on carrier phase differential GPS"

Parkinson, U.S. Patent 6,373,432, "System using leo satellites for centimeter-level navigation"

Parkinson, U.S. Patent 5,572,218, "System and method for generating precise position determinations" - for which Parkinson was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004

Parkinson, U.S. Patent RE37,256, "System and method for generating precise position determinations"

External links

AmericanHeritage.com / I Had to Sell This to the Air Force, Because the Air Force Didn't Want It. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_58.shtml

Bradford Parkinson | Inside GNSS. http://www.insidegnss.com/node/140

Bradford Parkinson: GPS Pioneer. http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/meet_mr_gps07.asp

Bradford Parkinson SM '61. http://alum.mit.edu/news/AlumniProfiles/Archive/Bradford_Parkinson_SM_-2761.jsp

Bradford Parkinson Biography. http://articles.gpsfaq.com/details.aspx?item=36

Aero-Astro Magazine - Parkinson. http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/news/magazine/aeroastro-no4/parkinson.html

Dr. Brad Parkinson. http://www.aero.org/corporation/parkinson.html

GPS inventor inducted into hall of fame. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2004/february18/parkinson-218.html

Hall of Fame | Induction | 2004 Inductees. http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_3_0_induction_parkinson.asp

Profile: Brad Parkinson. http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/summer2002/profile.html

Bradford Parkinson | 'Jammers' pose threat to naval navigation - expert http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0318/1224266512968.html