Page 1 of 1

Driven by passion


Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB
Director General and Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey, UK

My dream as a child was to see the world. I used to read everything that I could about all parts of the world. I used to study the books from cover to cover and was fascinated by places like the Amazon, Africa, Asia and India. When I was 12, I got very interested in an old map hung on a wall where I did my homework. It turned out to be a map by Robert Morden – a famous cartographer in Britain. The map was of the county I lived and had all of the old names and places. I was intrigued by that.

MRS DOVER |INSPIRATION |ROLE MODEL
When I was 13, I became aware for the first time that geography was one of my passions, thanks to an inspirational geography teacher, Mrs Dover. I realised that what she was talking about was landscapes, places, what happened to places; and everything about it was interesting, including mapping. I told her then that I wanted to be a geographer. Thanks to her, I met that vision.

THE DIVERSION
It was a difficult journey as my school told me that I should be a doctor or, failing that, I should become a lawyer. They said there is no future in geography. By this time, Mrs Dover retired. I was unhappy with the advice my school gave me as I still wanted to be a geographer.

So I did science A level, even though I still wanted to be a geographer. Just before the major final exams, I got glandular fever – which many teenagers get affected with – meaning that I did not get the grades for medical school despite the fact that I did well throughout the year. Not going to medical school was a blessing in disguise – I hate the sight of blood anyway.

BACK ON TRACK
Not going to medical school meant that I was able to go to university and was given the opportunity to study geography at the University of Sheffield. This was the beginning of my dream. I soon became involved in the Geographical Club and all the things geographers could be involved in. I became the President of the Geographical Club and through that I managed to win the opportunity to go to study glaciology in northern Norway during my second year. I spent 12 weeks working on glaciers and studied the formation of ice and movement of glaciers versus climate. My passion for geography continued to grow, and by my third year I became interested in satellites and remote sensing.

After my time at Sheffield University I received several job offers, one of which was from an international bank and one from a large oil company. However, I decided to take up the University of Dundee on their offer of a scholarship. I completed my MSc in satellite and remote sensing there.

I graduated at a time of the worst recession we have had in the recent past – 1984–85 – when jobs were very scarce. I was one of the 15 graduates in remote sensing that year from various universities in Britain, all looking for a job as a remote sensing scientist.

THE FIRST JOB
I was approached by a publishing company (Longman® group) to go and head their geography and geology publishing list. Part of my role was to develop ideas for books which were to be used in higher education. I also used to take care of geography, geology, agriculture and veterinary science. I learnt a great deal of business skills at Longman, and they gave me numerous opportunities to develop my skills as a geographer. During this period I progressed to a junior management role.



THE DREAM COMES TRUE
One afternoon, a senior man walked into the office asking after two other members of staff. I explained to him that I thought they were away for a couple of days (this was a time before mobiles or emails). I explained that I could not find the two people he was looking for. He looked panicky and he said to me ‘you will have to do it then: we need somebody to go in for a scholarship today.’

I was asked to write 10,000 words by 8 o'clock the following morning. We did not have individual computers; there was only one among the staff of 65 and I was unable to use it. I was told that I could write about anything, so I stayed up all night and wrote about how GIS would be the future decision-making tool for the country. This was in 1987, at a time when GIS was just a research tool in universities. I was also told that the scholarship prize was £5,000 and the chance to go around the world for a year and look at GIS in different countries.

The organisation giving the scholarship was the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers. I was invited to attend the interview in London. The people on the interview panel were all financial specialists. They asked me questions about profit-earning ratios in the Financial Times®. I looked so blank at this panel of experts, all of whom held wonderful positions in the City. On their fifth question, when I had to apologise for not knowing the answer, I told them that I felt the interview was wasting their time. I suggested that I explain what my project could do for them in the next 10 years. They were taken aback, and it became clear that they did not understand my paper. I requested them to let me explain how GIS would make a difference. I asked them what they did and went on to explain how GIS could help them in their decision making. I won the scholarship. In 1989–90 I began my year of travelling around the world. I saw as many people as I could talking to them about GIS in this year. There were many interesting people who made me very welcome during my scholarship including Professor Mike Goodchild and Professor David Rhind.

CAREER PROGRESSION
After my scholarship, I decided to leave Longman to set up my own company. However, having discussed it with Longman they kindly agreed to own it and I would be an employee of the company. As a result we set up Longman GeoInformation; Longman decided to invest in the company, which meant that they would also own it. We set up Longman Geoinformation; it later became known as Geoinfomation International and ended up having three main roles: one was publishing magazines, including GIS Asia Pacific, GIS World, Mapping Awareness and GIS Europe. It also got involved in data – pan-European datasets – as well as running conferences. As we expanded, we employed around 170 employees around the world in our offices in Singapore, Colorado and Cambridge.

In 1996, I was approached by Autodesk® and decided to leave Longman. I worked for Autodesk for four-and-half years and during this time I was able to draw upon my geography and GIS background, especially in true applications implementation. In addition, I became the Chair of the Association for Geographic Information (AGI®) in Britain and was enjoying everything. People suggested that I should apply for the post of Director General of Ordnance Survey. This was my dream job and something I thought would never come true. A friend from the Cayman Islands made me a bet that he would never buy me a dinner or a drink again unless I applied for the job. I decided to apply and the rest is history!

ME | GEOSPATIAL | ORDNANCE SURVEY
I am passionate about my job at Ordnance Survey. Over the last nine years, Ordnance Survey has gone through a lot of change in order to keep meeting the changing customer needs and the demands of more people using geography and GIS today.

The staff at Ordnance Survey is positive towards the environment and our corporate responsibility. For example, by removing waste bins from individual desks, staff recycle their waste paper in the communal recycle bins. Other initiatives include a car-sharing scheme, for staff to access other drivers in their local area via a web browser application on our intranet. We also have a bike doctor that frequently visits our offices to service the bikes of staff who cycle to work. In April 2009, work started on Ordnance Survey’s new head office. The new building will have 50% of its energy generated from the core of the earth – ground-source heating. Staff will be moving into the building at the end of 2010.

MRS DOVER – REVISITED
Mrs Dover made a difference to my life by igniting my passion for geography. I contacted her after 20 years to thank her for giving me this inspiration. There are people who influence us when we are very young, and if we never say thank you, they would never know.

After making the initial contact, I stayed in touch and I fondly remember meeting her seven months before she died, when she was in her nineties. During this visit, I took her some wonderful maps of the house where she was born, which we enjoyed discussing all afternoon.

THE LESSONS
I am so lucky that I have been able to combine my passion of geography with my career. However, my message to everybody reading this, particularly young people, is that it is not much about luck as it is about creating opportunities for yourself and having people around you who could help create opportunities for you. People, especially young graduates, should be true to themselves in not holding back from saying what they want to become.

As a young person you have to work hard, you have to have a clear understanding of what you want to do and create opportunities for your dreams to become reality. There are challenging times as well. For example, a life-changing time for me was when I could not work for 15 months after a serious skiing accident. I did manage to do some work from hospital and I was lucky to be surrounded by caring people who encouraged and motivated me to recover.

THE MESSAGE
My message to people in the industry is that we all make a tremendous contribution to society. It is important to remember that place-based information underpins all of our daily lives; many services depend upon a knowledge of ‘place’. Geographical information is a major decision-making tool across the globe.

Page 1 of 1