James V. Taranik

Early and personal life Taranik graduated from Stanford University in 1962 with a B.S. in Geology, where he also earned a varsity letter as captain of the water polo team. He served as Staff Geologist for two years in 1966–1967 for the U.S. Army Engineer Command Headquarters in Vietnam, during which time he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. In 1975, he received his Ph.D. in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines, for his geological mapping study, Stratigraphic and Structural Evolution of Breckenridge Area, Central Colorado.

He was the great-great-grandson of Sergeant Patrick Gass, an officer of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition, established to explore and map the newly acquired western half of the United States. Gass wrote the first printed journal of the expedition.

Taranik died just nine days before his planned retirement from his position as Director of the Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering. While in Iowa, he also taught at the University of Iowa, including pioneering aerospace remote sensing courses. He next served as Principal Remote Sensing Scientist at the EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), from 1975 to 1979. In 1979, he became branch chief of the Non-Renewable Resources section at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC,

He was dean of the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) from 1982–1987, during which time he also served as a full professor in UNR's Department of Geological Sciences. — the environmental research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education — from 1987–1998. He was an advocate for Newmont's expansion of its sustainability programs.

In 1987, he took on the role of President and CEO of the Desert Research Institute in Nevada, a statewide institute of the Nevada System of Higher Education devoted to cross-disciplinary environmental research. He would hold that position until 1998, when he retired as President Emeritus. During this time, Taranik also served as a technical advisor to the Naval Research Laboratory's Hyperspectral Digital Imagery Collection Experiment (HYDICE).

In 1998, Taranik returned to the Mackay School of Mines to resume teaching and research activities as Regents Professor and Chair of the Arthur Brant Endowed Chair of Exploration Geophysics. The following year, he became MSESE's first Director, a position he would hold until 2009, when he stepped down to focus on teaching as part of the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering faculty.

Professional associations and memberships American Association for the Advancement of Science American Association of Petroleum Geologists American Geological Institute American Geophysical Union American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Explorers Club Geological Society of America International Academy of Astronautics Society of Economic Geologists Society of Exploration Geophysicists

Selected publications