Introduction to the Key Personnel

Mark Trueblood - Project Manager and Principal Investigator

The Winer Scientific Director, Mark Trueblood, is an experienced NEO observer, astronomer, and engineering and project manager. He began observing minor planets in 1975, and has over 15 years' experience in the aerospace industry (six as a program manager). Since 1990, Mr. Trueblood has been with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, managing instrument development in the US for the Gemini 8-m telescopes (14 years) and designing and building the Global Oscillation Network Group's data archive (4 years).

During the early phases of Project ASTEROID, Mr. Trueblood will be the Project Manager, leading the telescope project and managing it on a part-time basis, from the Design Phase through the Construction Phase. Beginning with the start of the Commissioning Phase, Mr. Trueblood will become the Principal Investigator on the project, leading the scientific effort. In his capacities as both Project Manager and Principal Investigator, Mr. Trueblood will make all decisions regarding hiring and firing of staff, consultants, and contractors, and will take the steps he deems necessary to keep the project on schedule. He will report at least semi-annually on the status of the project to a Board representing a consortium of Project partners, the Winer Observatory Board of Directors, and to the Committee of Special Project Advisors.

Mr. Trueblood wants to use the Project ASTEROID telescope for science operations as soon as possible. His management and engineering philosophy, given expected funding levels, is to use conservative, inexpensive, and proven technology that does not require extensive engineering time to design or to make work during the Commissioning Phase. He also intends to use commercial vendors to provide the telescope, imager, and related systems with a proven track record in projects of a similar magnitude, complexity, and type.

Summary of Qualifications (a complete CV is available on request)

• 15 years in the aerospace industry
• 6 years in aerospace program management
• 14 years managing instrument development for the Gemini 8-m telescopes and other 6.5-m to 10-m telescopes
• 28 years in software development
• Member, American Astronomical Society and its Division for Planetary Sciences
• Author of two books and several articles on telescope control and other topics in astronomy

Education

• 1971 AB-ScB Physics, Cum Laude, Brown University
• 1983 MS Astronomy, University of Maryland (thesis supervised by Prof. Michael F. A'Hearn)

Areas of Research

• NEO follow-up orbit astrometry
• Minor planet photometry
• Minor planet occultations

Honors and Awards

• Asteroid 15522 Trueblood
• 1992: Sears Lecture, St. Paul's School, Concord, NH
• 1992: Invited Speaker, Apollo Rendezvous, Dayton, OH (annual meeting of amateur astronomers)

Relevant Experience

1983-now Scientific Director, Winer Observatory

• Founded the Winer Observatory in 1983
• Began observing minor planet occultations with Dr. David Dunham and Prof. Michael F. A'Hearn in the late 1970's
• Qualified by the Minor Planet Center as a minor planet astrometric observer (Observatory Code 648) using Winer Observatory's 0.5-m alt-az telescope, with Mr. Robert Crawford performing the data reduction
• Performs minor planet astrometric observations as often as possible using a 0.5-m telescope and CCD camera with a thinned, backside illuminated detector
• Developed Winer Observatory into a premier "telescope farm" with customers such as the University of Iowa, Washington University in St. Louis, and The Ohio State University locating their telescopes at Winer's facility

1994-now Project Engineer, NOAO/NOAO Gemini Science Center

• Assists Dr. Vernon Smith, NOAO Associate Director, in overseeing Gemini telescope instrument development for the US community. Provided management oversight of the following Gemini instrument projects:
  Near Infrared Imager (NIRI) - 1-5 um imager, three plate scales, low resolution spectroscopy using grisms, built by Univ. of Hawai'i
  Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) - 1-5 um spectrograph, mulitple modes, 600 < R < 18,000, cross-dispersed simultaneous JHK, built by NOAO
  Thermal Region Camera and Spectrograph (T-ReCS) - 8-26 um imager and low resolution spectrograph built by the University of Florida
  Flamingos-2 - 1-2.5 um wide field imager and multi-object low resolution fast turnaround spectrograph built by the University of Florida
  Near Infrared Coronagraph / Imager (NICI) - 1-5 um high resolution dual channel coronagraphic imager with internal high-order (85-element) curvature-sensing adaptive optics built by Mauna Kea Infrared, LLC of Hilo, Hawai'i
• Assists Dr. Robert Blum, TSIP Program Manager, in overseeing the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) for the National Science Foundation. Provided management oversight of the following US instrument projects:
  OSIRIS - 1-2.5 um spectrograph, built by UCLA
  KIRMOS Study - Study project for an extremely large, 1-2.5 um wide field multi-object low resolution spectrograph, performed by CalTech
  MMIRS - 1-2.5 um wide field multi-object low resolution fast turnaround spectrograph, built by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
  MOSFIRE - 1-2.5 um multi-object imaging spectrograph for the Keck telescope employing a configurable slit unit, built by UCLA and CalTech
  IMACS Upgrade - Adding another camera using deep depletion e2v CCDs to the existing Carnegie Institution of Washington IMACS camera for the Magellan telescopes
  MODS2 - Visible band spectrograph for the Large Binocular Telescope built by The Ohio State University
  WIYN ODI - One Degree Imager for the WIYN telescope on Kitt Peak employing Orthogonal Transfer CCD Arrays for tip-tilt correction in several sub-array areas across the entire FOV, built by NOAO
  Keck NGAO - Preliminary Design Study for the Keck Next Generation Adaptive Optics system employing a constellation of laser and natural guide stars and a suite of compatible instruments
  AOM2 - Adaptive Optics secondary mirror for the Magellan telescope, built by a consortium led by the University of Arizona

1990-1994 Sr. Scientific Programmer, NOAO/GONG Project

• Designed and led the programming of a large (5 terabyte) data archive for helioseismology data to hold the analysis results from a data reduction pipeline for solar acoustic oscillations

1988-1990 GIMTACS Project Manager, Ford Aerospace

• Reported to the Operation Director, responsible for all aspects of a $10 million contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the ground control system for the next generation of Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellites (GOES/NEXT) weather satellites
• Hired a high quality staff of 45 people, mostly computer programmers, in a period of six months, meeting all corporate goals for gender and minority composition
• Subcontracted over $4 million of hardware and services; won a NASA award for use of minority subcontractors
• Served as Operation Ethics Director, handling the reporting and resolution of cases of fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal contracting
• Opportunity Manager (activities before leading a proposal) for a $100 million operations contract at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
• Proposal Manager for a $3 million NASA contract to operate the AXAF (Chandra) Science Center
• Led and served on several "Red Teams" to review proposals to NASA and other Federal agencies; the Red Team offers suggestions to the proposal team on how to improve the proposal

1985-1988 PORTS Program Manager, Ford Aerospace

• Reported to the Vice President and Operation Director, responsible for all aspects of a $25 million contract with NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for the ground control system for the Hubble Space Telescope
• Through matrixing of staff from line organizations within Ford Aerospace, used a program team peaking at 75 people to deliver a quality ground control system ready at the HST launch date
• Subcontracted over $10 million in hardware and services
• Led and served on several "Red Teams" to review proposals to NASA and other Federal agencies

1984-1985 PASS Program Manager, Ford Aerospace

• Reported to the Operation Director, responsible for all aspects of a $2 million contract with Computer Sciences Corporation for database and graphics terminal hardware and support software for the ground analysis system for the Hubble Space Telescope
• Through matrixing of staff from line organizations within Ford Aerospace, used a program team peaking at 12 people to deliver a system meeting all deadlines
• Served on several "Red Teams" to review proposals to NASA and other Federal agencies

1981-1984 Sr. Programmer, PORTS Program, Ford Aerospace

• Led a team of two persons in the design and development of the Virtual Interface Processor (VIP) display subsystem in the Hubble Space Telescope ground control system for NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. Led the development of the VIP software requirements, design, coding, and testing. Gave presentations at design reviews at GSFC before large audiences approaching 200 people, defending the design of the VIP subsystem.

1979-1981 Sr. Programmer, Landsat, General Electric Space Division

• Designed and developed the Data Record and Retrieval Tape Subsystem (DRRTS) for writing high speed data to high density digital tape (HDDT) recorders that were part of the Landsat ground data system for NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. These HDDT tape drives required custom real-time software to control the tape transport mechanism and to read the tape. Both transport control and tape read and write were for multiple drives were controlled by a PDP-11/70 minicomputer. Performed the design, coding, and testing. Performed a systems engineering analysis that led to abandoning the use of a PDP-11/34 computer and adoption of a PDP-11/70 computer.
• Member of the General Electric proposal team for the Preliminary Operations Requirements and Test Support (PORTS) contract for the Hubble Space Telescope ground control system

1978-1979 Sr. Programmer, The Dilks Company (4-person FAA consulting firm)

• Member of a two-person programming team to develop a system to decode flight weather information and print reports on a PDP-11/40 minicomputer for the FAA NAFEC research center near Atlantic City, New Jersey
• Received free flying lessons and visited airport control towers and flight service stations as part of a company program to acquaint us with the National Airway System

1974-1978 Member of Technical Staff, Computer Sciences Corporation

• Developed computer software to assist in displaying satellite orbit parameters for NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
• Worked on debugging telescope control software for a 1.2-m optical telescope at the GSFC Goddard Optical Research Facility (GORF)
• Assisted in developing software for on-board satellite navigation using the Global Positioning System and simulators to test the software employing extended Kalman filtering techniques
• Led a team of three programmers to design and develop a treadmill and EKG control system for an environmental monitoring clinical lab for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Designed and developed the data display and analysis software for pulmonary body plethysmography data for the EPA clinical lab contract
• Joined the local Toastmasters organization and gained valuable experience in public speaking and presentations

Publications

• Trueblood, Mark and Genet, Russell Merle, Telescope Control, Willmann-Bell (Richmond: 1998)
• Trueblood, Mark and Genet, Russell M., Microcomputer Control of Telescopes, Willmann-Bell (Richmond: 1985)

• Pepper, Joshua; Pogge, Richard, W.; DePoy, D.L.; Marshall, J.L.; Stanek, K.Z.; Stutz, Amelia M.; Poindexter, Shawn; Siverd, Robert; O'Brien, Thomas P.; Trueblood, Mark; and Trueblood, Patricia, 2007, "The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT): A Small Robotic Telescope for Large-Area Synoptic Surveys", PASP, 119, 858, pp. 923-935.
• Smith, R.C.; Dickinson, M; Lowry, S.; Miller, C.J.; Trueblood, M.; and Valdes, F., 2007, "The NOAO End-to-End Data Management System: An Overview" in "Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XVI ASP Conference Series", Vol. 376, proceedings of the conference held 15-18 October 2006 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. Edited by Richard A. Shaw, Frank Hill and David J. Bell, p. 615.
• Pepper, J.; Pogge, R.; DePoy, D.L.; Marshall, J.L.; Stanek, K.; Stutz, A.; Trueblood, M.; and Trueblood, P., 2007, "Early Results from the KELT Transit Survey" in "Transiting Extrasolar Planets Workshop ASP Conference Series", Vol. 366, Proceedings of the conference held 25-28 September, 2006 at the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. Edited by C. Afonso, D. Weldrake, and Th. Henning. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, p. 27.
• Trueblood, M., 2006, Book Review: "Killer Rocks from Outer Space: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites; by Steven N. Koppes", Meteorite, 12, 2, 40.
• Crawford, Robert W. and Trueblood, M., 2004, "Statistical Properties of a Two-Stage Procedure for Creating Sky Flats" in "Proceedings for the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society for Astronomical Sciences", Mais, D., Kenyon, D. A., and Warner, B. D., eds., 151-161.
• Pilachowski, C. and Trueblood, M., 1998, "Telescopes of the 21st Century", Mercury, 27, 5, 10.
• Trueblood, M., Erdwurm, W., and Pintar, J.A., 1995, "Storing and Distributing GONG Data", in Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems IV, Shaw, R.A., Payne, H.E., and Hayes, J.J.E., eds., ASP Conference Series Volume 77, p. 185.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1995, "Avoiding Clouds: GPS Keeps Astronomers Under Clear Skies", GPS World, 6, 6, 32.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1994, "Call for Amateur HST Observing Proposals", IAPPPC, 54, 28.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1993, "In the Shadow of the Asteroid", GPS World, 4, 11, 22.
• Boyd, L.J., Epand, D., Bresina, J., Drummond, M., Swanson, K., Crawford, D.L., Genet, D.R., Henry, G.W., McCook, G.P., Neely, W., Schmidtke, P., Smith, D.P., and Trueblood, M., 1993, "Automatic Telescope Instruction Set 1993", IAPPPC, 53, 23.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1992, "The Case for Automatic Photoelectric Telescopes Using High Speed Photometers", in Automated Telescopes for Photometry and Imaging, Adelman, Saul J., Dukes, Jr., Robert J., and Adelman, Carol J., eds., ASP Conference Series Volume 28 (San Francisco: 1992), p. 149.
• Trueblood, Mark, "Reduction, Storage and Distribution of Helioseismic Data for the GONG Network", IAPPPC, 45, 45.
• Genet, Russell M.; Genet, David R.; Talent, David L.; Drummond, Mark; Hine, Butler P.; Boyd, Louis J.; and Trueblood, Mark, 1991, "Multi-Use Lunar Telescopes" in "Robotic Telescopes in the 1990's; Proceedings of the Symposium 103rd Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific", University of Wyoming, Laramie, June 22-24, 1991 (A93-36457 14-89), 289-303.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1991, "Linear Position Transducer Helps Mobile Observatory Focus On The Stars", manuscript circulated privately.
• Tomer, Andrew J., and Trueblood, Mark, 1989, "A Motorized Cassegrain Secondary", Telescope Making, 45, 6.
• Tomer, Andrew J., and Trueblood, Mark, 1989, "Anaheim Automation Helps Focus on the Stars", Anaheim Automation NEWS, 7,1,1.
• Trueblood, Mark, "A New Facility for Remote Location Astronomy", poster paper presented at the January, 1989 AAS meeting, listed in the Bulletin of the AAS, Volume 20, p.952, September 1988.
• Trueblood, Mark, and Genet, Russell M., 1988, "Real-Time Control", Sky & Telescope, 76, 5, 537.
• Trueblood, Mark, and Genet, Russell M., 1988, "Where Is the Telescope Mounting Headed?", Sky & Telescope,76,5,565.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1987, "In the Shadow of an Asteroid: High Resolution Graphics Help Control a Mobile Telescope", manuscript circulated privately. Rewritten by Deborah Hotteling, 1988, "The Mystery of Asteroids", Computer Graphics World, October, p. 88.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1987, "A High-Speed Photometer Interface for the MicroVAX Q-Bus", p. 325 in Hayes, D.S., Genet, D.R., and Genet, R.M., eds., New Generation Small Telescopes, Fairborn Press (Mesa).
• Trueblood, Mark, 1987, "Special Halley Issue", Letter to the Editor, Sky & Telescope, 73, 6, 581.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1986, "Highlighting Halley's: Inexpensive Image Processing Helps Astronomers Unlock the Universe", Computer Graphics World, September.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1986, "Use of Navigation Receivers at the Winer Mobile Observatory", manuscript circulated privately.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1985, "Image Processing at the Winer Mobile Observatory", manuscript circulated privately.
• Trueblood, Mark, 1985, "Winer Mobile Observatory: Mid-1985 Progress Report", IAPPP Communications, 22, 14.
• Genet, Russell M., Boyd, Louis J., and Trueblood, Mark, 1985, "Stepper Motor Control of Small Telescopes", Sky & Telescope, Part I (April, 69, 4, 350), Part II (May, 69, 5, 448).
• Trueblood, Mark, "The Space Telescope Payload Operations Control Center" in Genet and Genet, eds. Microcomputers in Astronomy - II, Fairborn Observatory (Fairborn: 1984), 11.
• Boyd, Louis J., Genet, Russell M., and Trueblood, Mark, 1984, "Telescopes for Microcomputer Control", Telescope Making, 22, 28.
• Trueblood, Mark, "Three Components Make Stable Crystal Oscillator", EDN Magazine, July 1972.

• 51593, 1 (2004/05); Trueblood, M.
• 52502, 11 (2004/08); Trueblood, M.
• 56161, 8 (2006/03); Schwartz, M.; Merlin, J.-C.; Ory, M.; Hovercem, P.R.; Trueblood, M.; and Crawford, R.