Federal 100: Col. John F. Schrader

Col. John F. Schrader
Co-Chairman, Gravesite Accountability Task Force
Arlington National Cemetery
U.S. Army

The work: Leading the effort to compile and verify 147 years' worth of burial records at Arlington National Cemetery.

The impact: Schrader and his team created the first authoritative dataset on the more than 250,000 graves at the cemetery and helped restore the American people’s confidence in the cemetery’s ability to safeguard the remains of their loved ones.

The nuts and bolts: Schrader’s team gathered digitized paper records, digital photos, geospatial coordinates and other documentation to ensure that the cemetery had accurate, complete data on all gravesites. And he took on the challenge only six months before a deadline to report to Congress on the accuracy of the cemetery’s burial records.

Read more about the 2012 Federal 100 award winners.