Christopher K. Tucker

Christopher K. Tucker is businessman and social entrepreneur active in the geospatial industry and the US national security community, and as Principal of Yale House Ventures, manages a portfolio of technology startups and social ventures.^[1]

He was the founding chief strategic officer of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital fund, charged with developing In-Q-Tel's overall strategy for tackling the priority information technologies problems of the agency. Tucker worked with the original CIA team, which later became known as the In-Q-Tel Interface Center, to define and set up the original organization (first known as In-Q-It).

Before joining In-Q-Tel, Tucker served as special adviser to the executive vice provost of Columbia University. While at Columbia, Tucker co-founded the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes^[2] (now at Arizona State University) and the Columbia Public Policy Consortium,^[3] and co-taught courses at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Tucker stepped down as senior vice president for the Americas and national programs at ERDAS^[4] in November 2008; about the same time his name was being floated in back channel conversations for a position at CIA.^[5] He joined ERDAS by way of its acquisition of IONIC Enterprise,^[6] where Tucker had served as president and CEO^[7] since leaving In-Q-Tel.

Board Activities

Tucker serves on the board of directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium and the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Tucker serves, or has served on Federal Advisory Committees such as the Defense Science Board's Intelligence Task Force and the United States Department of Interior's National Geospatial Advisory Committee.Tucker has served on the United States National Research Council Committee on NGA’s GEOINT Research Priorities^[8]. Tucker serves on various other corporate and non-profit boards in his Yale House Ventures capacity.

Social Ventures

Tucker plays a prominent role in two social ventures.

Tucker is the founder of the MapStor Foundation which seeks to develop an online social media channel/platform that enables a global community of experts to “crowd source” socio-cultural data within a geospatial and temporal framework.

Tucker is also the President and member of the Board of Directors of Friends of the Arc which advocates for the implementation of the Palestinian Arc as conceived by the RAND Corporation and Suisman Urban Design, as a path toward the resolution of the Middle East conflict. The Arc has been covered extensively in the press as a viable path toward peace^[9].

Education

Tucker earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia University in the City of New York. Tucker’s dissertation is titled "The Role of Government in Supporting Technological Advance".^[10] Tucker’s graduate advisers included Richard R. Nelson (economist), Ira Katznelson and Michael M. Crow.

In the news

Tucker has been the subject of several articles as far back as 2001. In 2001, Tucker was on the cover of Computerworld Magazine, and interviewed in an article entitled “Cloak and Dagger IT”, regarding some of the discoveries and developments brought forth through funding at In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital fund^[11]. Tucker has been interviewed several times in various geospatial industry media. In 2008, Tucker was interviewed for the geospatial-intelligence themed blog got geoint?^[12].

Writing

Tucker writes at the intersection of technology, strategy, geography, and national security^[13]. Tucker has been published in Foreign Policy, the Huffington Post, Federal Computer Weekly, Small Wars Journal, Space News, Directions Magazine, Science Progress, Geospatial Intelligence Forum, the Air Force Space Command’s High Frontier Journal the influential foreign affairs blog The Washington Note.

Biography

Tucker was born and raised in Winter Haven, Florida, at the time known as both the citrus capital and water skiing capital of the world as well as the winter training camp for the Boston Red Sox. His wife is Ann Tucker, president and CEO of Tucker Global, LLC.^[14] His father is Dr. David P.H. Tucker, a retired professor at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Citrus Research and Education Center. His mother is Shirley J. Tucker, a retired public school teacher in Florida’s Polk County public school system. His brother Jonathan Tucker is a senior research analyst at the National Academy of Public Administration.^[15]

References

1. ^ http://usgif.org/about/board/6-christopher-k-tucker
2. ^ http://www.cspo.org/about/
3. ^ http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol22/vol22_iss21/record2221.15.html
4. ^ http://www.erdas.com/
5. ^ http://www.dodbuzz.com/2008/11/14/obamas-intel-possibilities/
6. ^ http://www.ionicsoft.com/templates/home.php
7. ^ http://www.erdas.com/Company/NewsReleases/tabid/96/currentid/1760/default.aspx
8. ^ http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11601
9. ^ http://friendsofthearc.org/press/
10. ^ http://academiccommons.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:3637
11. ^ http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=57287&pageNumber=1
12. ^ http://www.gotgeoint.com/archives/qa-chris-tucker/
13. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-tucker
14. ^ http://www.tuckerglobal.com/
15. ^ http://www.napawash.org/

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Name	Tucker, Christopher K.
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