| Update: Bill
Sturgeon has recently completed a book about the military history
of San Clemente Island. For questions about his book or the
island, please contact him at wjsljs@aol.com.
The book is titled: San Clemente Island-A Chronological Military
History (1932-2000). |
San Clemente Island is considered the most biologically distinctive coastal
island owned by the United States. It is the southernmost Channel Island, located 75 miles
northwest of San Diego, CA. It supports a variety of Naval activities as well as
environmental and zoological studies. The island is home to various wildlife, most notably
to two distinct species: The San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike and the San Clemente Night
Lizard.
Anyone looking for mapping information on San Clemente Island probably doesn't know that
twice retired W.J. "Bill" Sturgeon of Buena Vista Associates has a complete set
of charts and a database of the island. Bill, a self-taught AutoCAD user (also a distinct
species), has charted every nook and cranny of the 21 mile long by 4 1/2 mile wide island.
He initiated the development of the San Clemente Island topographic chart series (23
sheets) and the facilities database. He has used Mentor Software's coordinate conversion
software Hawkeye and Tralaine along with AutoCAD to piece together various data. His
database includes all geographic reference markers, elevations (50'), roads, support
facilities, utilities, and range sites. The Navy has adopted this information as the
official database for San Clemente Island and it is used throughout the naval complex in
San Diego. These charts are public domain and are available in AutoCAD R.12 NAD 27 format.
Bill has had a long history with the U.S. Navy. After retiring from the Navy as a Senior
Chief Sonar Technician in 1968, Bill worked as a contractor/consultant to General Dynamics
on the contract definition phase of the DX or Spruance Class Destroyer. His next job was
with the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC) in San Diego as an Anti-Submarine Warfare
Specialist/Consultant for a classified operational research program. He then moved on to
join the design team for a radical new ship concept, the Small Waterplane Area, Twin Hull
(SWATH) ship. The Stable Semisubmerged Platform or SSP "Kaimalino" was the
result of this design. Again he went to work for the NOSC as a Naval Engineering
Technician for the Advanced Lithium Battery (ALB) development program at the contractors
facility in San Jose, CA. He finally ended up working for the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)
Range for the Southern California Offshore Range (SCORE) at San Clemente Island.
At San Clemente Island, his involvement was as designer of the Cable Termination Van (CTV)
complex at West Cove on the island. He subsequently was principal in the development of
all the ASW and Electronics Warfare (EW) range support facilities on San Clemente Island.
Upon his civil service retirement in 1987, Bill started his own company Buena Vista
Associates and has continued on as a Military Training Range Development\Documentation
Specialist in support of SCORE, and AIRPAC (Ranges & Targets) , NAS, North Island in
San Diego. The ranges development tasking has been in requirements development, support
facilities design, bills-of-materials preparation, construction supervision and liaison.
Since 1988, Bill has obtained available military construction units (Army, SeaBee, and
Marine Corps) to perform the construction, renovation, and repair of range support
facilities and Naval Auxiliary Landing Field (NALF), San Clemente infrastructure. One
single deployment in 1992. utilizing military assets, saved the U.S. Navy over $1 million
dollars.
Bill continues to maintain and update the San Clemente Island chart series and database on
an annual basis. This current data is voluntarily distributed to the naval community. For
more information on the San Clemente Charts send email to: wjsljs@aol.com
©Copyright 1998 Mentor Software, Inc.
Back to The Casual Cartographer January 1999
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