Will Mortenson
Executive Director, Overture Maps Foundation; geospatial interoperability leader
Summary
Leader in open, interoperable foundational map data: As Executive Director of the Overture Maps Foundation, he focuses on growing adoption of open base layers and the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) to reduce data conflation and enable data interoperability across industry and government. overturemaps+1
Experienced federal geospatial executive: He spent multiple decades at NGA and other federal agencies in senior roles (including Office of Geography leadership and VGI efforts), bringing deep public-sector experience to public–private collaboration on geospatial infrastructure. projectgeospatial+1
Advocate for reducing the 'conflation tax' and practical standards: He emphasizes pragmatic solutions (e.g., stable IDs, common schemas, cloud-native formats) to make it faster and cheaper to combine diverse geospatial datasets for AI, analytics, and product development. locationbusinessnews+1
Public communicator and community engager: Regularly participates in panels, podcasts, and industry events to explain Overture's mission, engage members, and build the ecosystem around open geospatial infrastructure. govciomedia+2