Lawrie Jordan
Visiting Faculty
Lawrie Jordan (BLA ‘73) holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and has over 40 years of experience as a leader in the field of image processing and remote sensing. After graduating from Harvard, Jordan and fellow UGA alumnus Bruce Rado founded the software company ERDAS, which became an industry leader in processing satellite imagery to show global changes in environment. Jordan served as president of ERDAS for more than 20 years, and in that time developed a strategic partnership with Esri, the world’s leading GIS software company.
After retiring from ERDAS in 2001, Jordan came out of retirement in 2008 to become the Corporate Director of Imagery and Remote Sensing for Esri, as well as special assistant to Jack Dangermond, the founder and president of Esri and fellow landscape architect.
Jordan is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, a trustee of the ISPRS Foundation and a recipient of the Geospatial World Leadership Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades of contributions to the field of image processing and earth observation.
Throughout his career, Jordan is grateful to have contributed to the U.S. Intelligence Community and U.S. Department of Defense. Jordan served on two blue-ribbon Defense Science Board panels which helped transform the former Defense Mapping Agency into the National Imaging & Mapping Agency (NIMA), now NGA, and he supported U.S.-led Allied Coalition efforts in theatre during Operation Desert Storm-1991. For his support, Jordan received a U.S. Government Medal for outstanding service to the United States and received the DoD James S. Cogswell Award, the U.S. Government’s highest award for excellence in the Industrial Security Program.
Jordan has served as a visiting faculty member at the College of Environment and Design since 2022.
