John Parr Snyder

Background

John P. Snyder was born on April 28, 1997 in Olney, Maryland, United States.

Education

Snyder was educated at Purdue University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a chemical engineer.

Career

In 1956, Snyder began working as a chemical engineer for Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corporation in New Jersey. During his twenty-four-year career at CIBA-GEIGY, Snyder served as a volunteer analyst for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In 1978, he began working for the USGS fulltime.

Snyder served as president of the American Cartographic Association (now CaGIS) from 1990–1991, and as secretary of the Washington Map Society. He became a lecturer at George Mason University and contributed articles to scientific journals.

In addition, Snyder wrote seven books on map projections, including The Story of New Jersey’s Civil Boundaries, 1606-1968, Map Projections Used by the U.S. Geological Survey, Computer-Assisted Maps Projection Research, Space Oblique Mercator Projection—Mathematical Development, and Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections.

Achievements

• Snyder gained prominence in the field of cartography, designing a method of transforming satellite images of the earth into flat maps.
  
  Snyder also developed a projection GS50, which uses a complex polynomial to project the 50 U.S. states with minimal distortion.
  
  He wrote 7 books on maps projection.
  
  In 1978, Snyder received the USGS’s John Wesley Powell Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Mapping of New Jersey: The Men and the Art

    (Presents biographical sketches of surveyors and cartograp...)

    1973
  • Computer-assisted map projection research (U.S. Geological Survey bulletin) 1985
  • Space oblique mercator projection mathematical development (Geological Survey bulletin) 1981
  • Bibliography of map projections (U.S. Geological Survey bulletin) 1989
  • Map projections--a working manual 1987
  • The Erskine-Dewitt maps: Coverage and quality for the Revolution 1979
  • The story of New Jersey's civil boundaries, 1606-1968 1988
  • The story of New Jersey's civil boundaries, 1606-1968, (New Jersey. Bureau of Geology and Topography. Bulletin) 1969
  • Map projections used by the U.S. Geological Survey (Geological Survey bulletin) 1983
  • Matching the Map Projection to the Need