The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is pleased to announce that Keith Ryden, Software Development Director, Operations & Standards, at Esri, has been named the recipient of the 2025 Kenneth D. Gardels Award. The award recognizes his exemplary contributions to advancing open geospatial standards, his commitment to community collaboration, and his influential role in shaping the foundation of modern geospatial interoperability.

Named in honor of OGC’s founding member Kenneth D. Gardels, the award celebrates individuals who have made outstanding contributions to OGC’s consensus standards process and who embody the spirit of open collaboration that Gardels championed.

Keith Ryden has been an active and highly influential member of OGC for more than two decades. His impact began with one of OGC’s most enduring achievements: he was among the key editors of the Simple Features Specification for SQL (1997), a standard that laid the groundwork for how spatial data is efficiently stored and queried in virtually every modern relational database. Since this foundational work, Keith has continued to drive critical standards initiatives—advancing complex Coordinate Reference Systems (CRS) standards essential for accurate spatial and temporal positioning, ensuring interoperable encoding through GeoPackage, and contributing to the specification of Indexed 3D Scenes (I3S) for efficient transmission of massive 3D data.

Keith currently chairs several key Working Groups, including the CRS Domain Working Group and the Portrayal Domain Working Group, and serves as a long-time member of the OGC Architecture Board (OAB). Through these roles, he has consistently ensured that OGC’s work remains both technically rigorous and practically relevant across the geospatial industry.

“Keith’s work represents the best of what OGC stands for—technical excellence grounded in collaboration and community impact,” said Scott Simmons, OGC’s Chief Standards Officer. “From the early days of Simple Features to today’s API-based standards, Keith’s steady leadership has shaped the foundation of modern geospatial interoperability.”

Colleagues describe Keith as collaborative, thoughtful, and pragmatic—an essential voice who bridges perspectives across organizations and disciplines.

“It is long overdue for Keith to receive this award,” said Clemens Portele, Managing Director, interactive instruments GmbH. “As one of the editors of the very first — and still one of the most influential — OGC standards, Simple Feature Access, he was part of a small group that laid the foundation for modern geospatial interoperability.”

Charles (Chuck) Heazel from HeazelTech added, “Keith Ryden keeps the OGC grounded.  The membership comes up with a lot of good ideas, but not all of them are practical.  Does it make good business sense?  Will anyone actually use it?  Those are questions that Keith will ask and answer.”

Reflecting on the recognition, Keith said in a recent interview with OGC, “There is a long line of Gardels Award recipients who have helped me grow over the years. My hope is to contribute in small ways that make a difference for others, just as others have helped me.”

To read the full interview with Keith Ryden, click here.

Congratulations to Keith Ryden on this well-deserved recognition for his decades of leadership, collaboration, and dedication to advancing open geospatial standards.

Learn more about the Kenneth D. Gardels Award and past recipients at:

www.ogc.org/recognizing-success/gardels-awards