Retirement marks a new chapter in the career of Todd Bacastow, a current Penn State Academy Professor and an emeritus teaching professor of geospatial intelligence in Penn State’s Department of Geography and the John A. Dutton Institute for Teaching and Learning Excellence. Bacastow’s career has been characterized by a blend of military service and academic pursuits while always looking for the next advancement in geospatial technology.
Bacastow’s academic path began at the United States Military Academy, where he graduated from West Point in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. As a cadet in the early 1970s, his interest in geography and environmental issues emerged during a student project focused on evaluating a proposed landfill’s environmental impact, setting the stage for his future academic endeavors.
“When I was a cadet, I did a project for West Point’s Department of Earth, Space, and Graphic Sciences,” Bacastow said. “They liked it so much that in my seventh or eighth year in the Army, when I was a captain, they asked if I would go to graduate school and come back to teach at West Point.”
Bacastow’s twenty-year military career took him to various infantry, geospatial engineering, and academic assignments. His first military assignment was in Berlin, Germany, which at the time was referred to by The New York Times as the Cold War’s “Frontier of Freedom.” When it came time to choose a graduate school to prepare to teach at West Point, Bacastow visited University Park and said he was most impressed by Penn State. He said the welcoming environment and strong academic program convinced him to pursue his master’s degree at Penn State. After earning his master’s degree in 1983, Bacastow returned to West Point as an instructor in the Department of Geography and Computer Science (D/G&CS) to teach physical geography. He describes it as “the perfect blend of what, at the time, many saw as two seemingly unrelated disciplines.”
While in D/G&CS, he was the lead geographer in a computer science “skunkworks” team that developed and trained the first GIS delivered to field elements of the U.S. Army. Departing West Point in 1986, he was reassigned as a geospatial engineer in the U.S. Army Europe, responsible for delivering geographic services over a 20,000-square-mile area to 200,000 individuals. His personal mission was, in some small way, to move the organization into the digital age.
In 1988, he was asked if he wanted to return to West Point to teach in the newly established Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. Bacastow’s interest in GIS led him back to Penn State to pursue a Ph.D. in geography, which he completed in 1992. During this time, he worked closely with mentors Peter Gould, an Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Geography who died in 2020, and Donna Peuquet, professor emerita who retired in 2017.
Bacastow retired from the Army and joined Penn State’s faculty in 1994 as a non-tenure-line faculty member in the Department of Geography. What Bacastow said was initially intended to be a “two-year gig” evolved into a 29-year professional adventure marked by achievements in teaching, research, and service. From 2000 to 2007, Bacastow served as the assistant director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. He was a co-principal investigator for a $24-million project to collect orthophotography and LiDAR data for Pennsylvania and a principal investigator for a $10-million program using geospatial technologies for environmental management of military training lands. Returning to a primarily teaching role in the Department of Geography, he played a role in establishing the online GIS Certificate, Graduate Certificate in Geospatial Intelligence, Penn State’s Master of GIS, and Master of Professional Studies in Homeland Security programs. Over the years, he also taught courses for Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology and the Smeal College of Business Executive Program.
“I probably taught more than ten different courses at Penn State and thousands of students over the twenty-nine years of my Penn State career,” Bacastow said. “Teaching and mentoring students has always been a passion of mine. You’re always learning from your students. I always hoped to learn as much from them as they did from me.”
Throughout his career at Penn State, Bacastow has conducted research in geospatial technology governance, systems design, and geospatial education. He has collaborated with numerous businesses, government agencies, and academic consortia. Bacastow led a decade-long Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, focusing on improving the education of geospatial analysts. He also worked with Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory. Additionally, he served on the Board of Directors for the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) and provided expert witness services in GIS patent infringement cases, including one upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Bacastow takes great pride in being one of the driving forces behind Penn State being recognized as a leading example of how higher education can address the needs of the nation’s armed forces, veterans, and their families.
Reflecting on what has kept him returning to Penn State for two degrees and after his military retirement, Bacastow said, “The people keep me coming back. It’s the people that make Penn State such a special place. My son went to Penn State, and I believe in the product.”
In retirement from Penn State, Bacastow continues to contribute to Penn State and the discipline. He is involved with the Emeritus Academy and research into the Russia-Ukraine War, focusing on the lessons being learned that impact geospatial technologies and analyst education. He recently co-authored a Penn State course titled Analytical Methods and GeoAI in Geospatial Intelligence. He is also supporting Europe’s Defence Geospatial Intelligence conference by preparing thought-provoking pieces about geospatial intelligence education, space situational awareness, geospatial data fusion, and an emerging “New GEOINT.”
Bacastow plans to spend more time on personal interests, such as golf. “My wife retired and said she was going to start playing golf. She asked, ‘Do you want to play with me?’ I said, ‘I’ll give it a try.’ And now I’m sort of hooked on it, and we play several times a week. Performing a ‘terrain analysis’ of the Blue Course is now one of my favorite things to do on campus.”