G. Ross
Douglas
1939 -
•1960
Joined CHS and assigned to CSS Acadia (spring) and CSS Baffin (Arctic
trip)
•1961 CSS Baffin, Bay
of Fundy and Arctic
•1962 Georgian Bay
Survey
•1963 Polar Continental
Shelf Project, Hell Gate & Cardigan Strait
•April 1963 (CHS org chart)- Central Region, Field Officer (as
Technical Officer 2)
•1964 Polar Continental
Shelf Project, HIC, Arctic Ocean and Hell Gate
•1965 Polar Continental
Shelf Project, HIC, Arctic Ocean and Cardigan Strait
1966 - Staff assignment, Central Region - On rotation from field
work
•1966 - 1971 In Charge
of the first Hydrographic Development Group at Bedford Institute
•1972 - 1978 Assistant
Regional Hydrographer, Atlantis Region. Educational leave from 1975
to 1978.
•1978 - 1987 Director,
Hydrography, Central and Arctic Region
•1987 - 1994 Dominion
Hydrographer
Ross Douglas grew up on a farm and received his
elementary and secondary schooling in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan. Two
summer seasons with the Department of Public Works on highway location
surveys in Banff and Kootenay National Parks convinced Ross that
surveying was the career for him. Ross was one of four members of the
1960 graduating class of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
(Surveying) who joined the Canadian Hydrographic Service in May 1960
(the other three were Neil Anderson, Earl Brown and Eldon Bruns).
In 1963 he joined the Polar Continental Shelf
Project and from 1964 to 1966, he was
hydrographer in Charge of the
PCSP, conducting surveys of the Arctic Ocean and throughout the Arctic
Islands where he produced the first computer/plotter generated depth
plots. From 1966 to 1972, Ross was Head, Hydrographic Development in
the Atlantic Region, CHS. During this time, he spent some time as
Hydrographer-in-Charge of CSS Baffin and CSS Kapuskasing.
In 1972 he became Assistant Regional Hydrographer, Atlantic,
responsible for the field survey section, consisting of 45 employees.
During 1975-78, Ross Douglas was on part-time
educational leave. He worked on special assignments during the summer
months. He received a Dalhousie University Scholarship and the G.V.
Douglas Memorial Award for Geology in 1976. He graduated in 1978 with
a B.Sc. (major in geology, minor in mathematics) from Dalhousie
University.
In 1978, Ross was appointed Director, Hydrography,
Central and Arctic Region in Burlington, Ontario.
In 1987, he was appointed Dominion Hydrographer and
Director General of the Canadian Hydrographic Service. During his
tenure as Dominion Hydrographer, the CHS underwent many changes in
response to changing technologies and new political and economic
realities. Ross stepped down as Dominion Hydrographer as of Dec. 30,
1994 and accepted a special assignment working with Scott Parsons,
Assistant Deputy Minister. He was adjunct professor of survey science
at the University of Toronto.
Ross has been active in the technological thrusts of
the Canadian Hydrographic Service and pioneered a number of early
developments in field data logging and processing systems. In 1981, he
received a Commission as a Canada Lands Surveyor.
Ross was President of the Canadian Institute of Surveying and Mapping
(now called the Canadian Institute of Geomatics) in 1990 and 1991.
From 1995 to 1997, he serves a two-year term as President of the
Hydrographic Society.
Sources: The Canadian Surveyor, September 1978, p.
392
The Canadian Surveyor, December 1979, p. 392.
CISM Journal ACSGC, Summer 1988, p. 165.
CISM Journal ACSGC, Autumn 1990, p. 337.
Lighthouse, Fall 1994, p. 37.
Lighthouse, Spring 1995, p. 34.
Lighthouse, Fall 1995, p. 55.
