National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence to support national security. Founded in 1996 as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, it changed names in 2003. It is a member of the United States Intelligence Community.
NGA headquarters, also known as NGA Campus East or NCE, is located at Fort Belvoir North Area in Springfield, Virginia. At, it is the third-largest government building in the Washington metropolitan area after the Pentagon and the Ronald Reagan Building. The agency also operates NGA Campus West, or NCW, in St. Louis, Missouri, and support and liaison offices worldwide.
NGA also helps respond to natural and manmade disasters, helps with security planning for major events such as the Olympic Games, disseminates maritime safety information, and gathers data on climate change.
The eighth and current director of the agency is Vice Admiral Frank D. Whitworth III.
History
U.S. mapping and charting efforts remained relatively unchanged until World War I, when aerial photography became a major contributor to battlefield intelligence. Using stereo viewers, photo-interpreters reviewed thousands of images. Many were of the same target at different angles and times, giving rise to modern imagery analysis and mapmaking.Engineer Reproduction Plant (ERP)
The Engineer Reproduction Plant was the Army Corps of Engineers's first attempt to centralize mapping production, printing, and distribution. It was located on the grounds of the Army War College in Washington, D.C. Previously, topographic mapping had primarily been a function of individual field engineer units using field surveying techniques or copying existing or captured products. In addition, ERP assumed the "supervision and maintenance" of the War Department Map Collection, effective April 1, 1939.Army Map Service (AMS) / U.S. Army Topographic Command (USATC)
With the advent of the Second World War aviation, field surveys began giving way to photogrammetry, photo interpretation, and geodesy. During wartime, compiling maps with minimal field work became increasingly possible. Out of this emerged AMS, which absorbed the existing ERP in May 1942. It was located at the Dalecarlia Site on MacArthur Blvd., just outside Washington, D.C., in Montgomery County, Maryland, and adjacent to the Dalecarlia Reservoir. AMS was designated as an Engineer field activity, effective July 1, 1942, by General Order 22, OCE, June 19, 1942. The Army Map Service also combined many of the Army's remaining geographic intelligence organizations and the Engineer Technical Intelligence Division. AMS was redesignated the U.S. Army Topographic Command on September 1, 1968, and continued as an independent organization until 1972, when it was merged into the new Defense Mapping Agency and redesignated as the DMA Topographic Center .Aeronautical Chart Plant (ACP)
After the war, the need for charts grew as airplane capacity and range improved. The Army Air Corps established its map unit, which was renamed ACP in 1943 and was located in St. Louis, Missouri. ACP was known as the U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center from 1952 to 1972.National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC)
Shortly before leaving office in January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the creation of the National Photographic Interpretation Center, a joint project of the CIA and DIA. NPIC was a component of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, and its primary function was imagery analysis. NPIC became part of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 1996.;Directors of NPIC
| Director | Tenure |
| Arthur C. Lundahl | May 1953 – July 1973 |
| John J. Hicks | July 1973 – May 1978 |
| Rutledge P. Hazzard | June 1978 – February 1984 |
| Robert M. Huffstutler | February 1984 – January 1988 |
| Frank J. Ruocco | February 1988 – February 1991 |
| Leo A. Hazlewood | February 1991 – September 1993 |
| Nancy E. Bone | October 1993 – September 1996 |
Cuban Missile Crisis
In 1962, NPIC analysts discovered that the Soviet Union was basing missiles in Cuba. Using images from U-2 overflights and film from canisters ejected from Corona satellites, They informed U.S. policymakers and influenced operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Their analysis garnered worldwide attention when the Kennedy Administration declassified and made public a portion of the images depicting the Soviet missiles on Cuban soil; Adlai Stevenson presented the images to the United Nations Security Council on October 25, 1962.Defense Mapping Agency (DMA)
The Defense Mapping Agency was created on January 1, 1972, to consolidate U.S. military mapping activities. DMA's "birth certificate", DoD Directive 5105.40, resulted from a formerly classified Presidential directive, "Organization and Management of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Community", which directed the consolidation of mapping functions previously dispersed among the military services. DMA became operational on July 1, 1972, pursuant to General Order 3, DMA. On October 1, 1996, DMA was folded into the National Imagery and Mapping Agency – which later became NGA.DMA was first headquartered at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., then at Falls Church, Virginia. Its mostly civilian workforce was concentrated at production sites in Bethesda, Maryland; Northern Virginia; and St. Louis, Missouri. DMA was formed from the Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy Division, Defense Intelligence Agency, and various mapping-related organizations of the military services.
DMA included the following centers:
; DMA Hydrographic Center
; DMA Topographic Center
; DMA Hydrographic/Topographic Center
; '''DMA Aerospace Center '''
National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)
NIMA was established on October 1, 1996, by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997. The creation of NIMA followed more than a year of study, debate, and planning by the defense, intelligence, and policy-making communities and continuing consultations with customer organizations. The creation of NIMA centralized responsibility for imagery and mapping.NIMA combined the DMA, the Central Imagery Office, and the Defense Dissemination Program Office in their entirety, as well as the mission and functions of the NPIC. Also merged into NIMA were the imagery exploitation, dissemination, and processing elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.
NIMA's creation was clouded by the natural reluctance of cultures to merge and the fear that their respective missions—mapping in support of defense activities versus intelligence production, principally in support of national policymakers—would be subordinated, each to the other.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
With the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 on November 24, 2003, NIMA was renamed National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to reflect better its primary mission in the area of GEOINT.2005 BRAC and effects on NGA
As a part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process, all major Washington, D.C.–area NGA facilities, including those in Bethesda; Reston, Virginia; and Washington, D.C., were consolidated at a new facility at the former Engineer Proving Ground site near Fort Belvoir. This new facility, later known as NCE, houses several thousand people. NGA facilities in St. Louis were not affected by the 2005 BRAC process.As of March 2009, the new center's cost was expected to be $2.4 billion. The center's campus is about and was completed in September 2011.
Next NGA St. Louis
In September, 2025, NGA opened a new facility in St. Louis, Missouri, Next NGA St. Louis, at a cost of $1.7 billion. The facility will hold 3,000 employees. St. Louis' city legislature is currently reconsidering legislation to surround Next NGA St. Louis with a protection zone that would bar certain businesses, such as gas stations, hazardous material companies, and foreign government-supported enterprises, from building around the site for security purposes.Organization
Agency structure
Executive leaders
A director heads NGA, currently Army Lieutenant General Michelle Bredenkamp Michele Bredenkamp; the director is followed in precedence by the deputy director and chief of staff, currently Brett Markham. The holders of these three offices comprise NGA's executive leadership team.Chief of Staff
While NGA's director and deputy director oversee the agency, the Chief of Staff oversees NGA's executive support staff, administrative services, logistics, personnel security, human resources, employee training and development, corporate communications, and congressional engagement.Directorates and directorate leaders
NGA is split into various directorates led by directors and associate deputy directors, with "XX" standing in for each directorate's two-letter designation. Known directorates and leadership figures include but are not limited to the:- Analysis Directorate, containing the Director of Analytic Operations and Associate Deputy Director for Operational Engagement and led by a director, currently Director of Analysis Susan "Sue" Kalweit
- Source Operations & Management Directorate , led by the Director of the Source Operations & Management Directorate or Director of Source Operations
- Enterprise Operations Directorate , led by the Director of the Enterprise Operations Directorate
- IT Services Directorate
- Plans and Programs Directorate
- Research Directorate
- Security and Installation Operations Directorate
- Human Development Directorate
- Financial Management Directorate
- Unnamed "NGA contracting directorate"
- Acquisitions Directorate
- Unnamed "A Directorate"
- Unnamed "P Directorate"
The deputy associate director of operations directly oversees the NGA Operations Center the Office of NGA Defense, the Office of Expeditionary Operations, and NGA leadership at the three National Reconnaissance Office Aerospace Data facilities.