Nancy E. Bone

The office environment at the National Photographic Interpretation Center during the tenure of Nancy Bone was noted for having a heavily blue collar orientation. A large number of analysts came from the enlisted ranks in the military and did not have college degrees. Other employees were high school graduates who had started in the mail room and were allowed over time to work as imagery analysts. In many cases, these employees could look at imagery and count numbers of what they saw, but had only superficial domain awareness of the area to which they were assigned. A lack of formal training in higher education also limited the ability of these employees to work effectively in supervisory positions.

A number of employees did not have formal training in foreign affairs, which limited their ability to build domain awareness or discuss complex foreign affairs topics that related to imagery analysis. An employee who was employed at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and assigned to NPIC had a college degree in animal husbandry and was promoted into a section chief supervisory position. This supervisor was ignorant of foreign affairs, was unsophisticated and lacked common sense. He allowed a senior analyst also from DIA to sit at his desk and make up negative stories about co-workers. He would then get up and act on these comments against innocent employees. This DIA section chief and his DIA analyst ran off multiple people that NPIC wanted to keep.

This supervisory DIA employee who had a college degree in animal husbandry was supervising CIA employees who had college degrees in international affairs. He did not have any interest or ability to mentor staff from CIA. The office atmosphere was extremely toxic, a situation that in reality benefited the enemies of the United States.

It was in this setting that Nancy Bone transferred from the editor's desk at NPIC to the Third World Forces Division where the DIA section chief with the college degree in animal husbandry was assigned.

Nancy Bone was a branch chief and supervised the DIA section chief with the college degree in animal husbandry. This DIA section chief was completely unsupervised. No one paid any attention to what he did to subordinates or how he behaved in the office. The DIA section chief with the college degree in animal husbandry could sit in front of a supervisor's desk and make any excuse that came to mind and the branch chief and division chief would go along with it.

Nancy Bone received her BA in 1966 from St Louis University, graduating magna cum laude with a concentration in English language and literature In 1973 she earned a master's degree in library science.

After spending two years as a secondary school teacher, she joined the Central Intelligence Agency in July 1968 as an analyst of information at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). In April 1972, she received promotion to intelligence officer. She served as a branch chief for two years and then as deputy branch chief of Administration at NPIC. It is not clear that she completed the NPIC Basic Imagery Analyst Course, which employees are required to take in order to work as an imagery analyst. Between 1976 and 1993 Bone served successively as branch chief of Image Analysis, as division chief in Graphic Arts, as executive officer, as director of Management and Planning in the Directorate of Science and Technology, as chief of the Priority Exploitation Group, and, between 1991 and 1993, as director of Imagery Analysis.[2] Nancy Bone retired in December 1999.[2]

On October 3, 2017; Bone was inducted to the Geospatial Intelligence Hall of Fame Class of 2017 by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, during a ceremony at the agency’s headquarters in Springfield, Virginia.[3]

Nancy Bone led the way for women in the intelligence community[4] as the director of NGA’s predecessor agency the National Photographic Interpretation Center. She spearheaded the effort to create innovation in information sharing which led to the first time NPIC analysts and support personnel could electronically access CIA files, exchange work documents and communicate with colleagues. She also pushed NPIC to increase dissemination of digital products and become a major provider of products and information on classified shared networks, increasing the availability of essential NPIC products for customers worldwide.[3]