apm-wa

Mapper since:
March 01, 2014
Last map edit:
September 15, 2026

From December 23, 2019, to December 11, 2021, chairperson of the OSM Foundation board of directors. Currently one of five moderators of the osmf-talk and talk mailing lists as well as the general, general:tagging, and foundation channels of the community forum on Discourse.

From 2022 to 2025 I was on the board of directors of American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras, a Virginia-based non-profit devoted to music education. I continue to serve as a trustee of that organization’s endowment.

I am a retired U.S. diplomat previously assigned to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, for 4-1/2 years. Equipment includes RealMe 8 5G and Samsung Galaxy (both Android) with Mapillary, CoMaps, and Organic Maps for mass collection of ground-level imagery and data; GoPro Max2 360-degree camera with 256Gb SD card; GoPro Hero 7 Black with 256Gb SD card; Garmin nüvi; and a Wintel desktop PC platform that includes Igor Brejc’s Maperitive program for generating both wall maps and street atlases. I also have a collection of Soviet-era military maps of Turkmenistan for researching municipalities, route numbers, and topographic features. SOTM 2019 voted me the Greatness in Mapping award for that year.

For those with a half hour to kill, my presentation on mapping in Ashgabat to SOTM 2016 in Brussels can be seen on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t5DxV7cXgQ&list=PLQNy8KsDknCr92fIXYcOKL42U35wRAV9Y&index=3

My banquet speech on mapping in Turkmenistan at NACIS 2019 can be seen, with slides, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpHLulm-Wq4

Dermot McNally interviewed me in 2020 and the recording of that is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC0J_mIwm4E

GeoMob’s first podcast interview of me on OSM Foundation issues is here: https://thegeomob.com/podcast/episode-29 A second interview, on the 2021 community survey, is here: https://thegeomob.com/podcast/episode-63

My address “Winds of Change” in OSM to SOTM 2020 is here: https://2020.stateofthemap.org/sessions/RRVNAM/

My keynote address to SOTM Europe 2023 is here: https://youtu.be/1BH78gnXLwc?si=BpLu7kZF2_ujS9mH

You can see my contributions to OSM here: https://hdyc.neis-one.org/?apm-wa The OSM heat map is here: http://yosmhm.neis-one.org/?apm-wa

You can see my contributions to the OSM wiki here: osm.wiki/Special:Contributions/Apm-wa and here: osm.wiki/User:Apm-wa If you are interested in helping map Turkmenistan, please review this documentation for some helpful information, and also take a look at the over 800,000 ground-level images collected so far using Mapillary.

An interview with me by OSM Belgium is here: https://openstreetmap.be/en/motm/2018/08/10/allan-mustard.html

A short video plugging OpenStreetMap on the U.S. Embassy Ashgabat Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/usembassy.turkmenistan/videos/2318943831524653/

Latest Diaries

Diary Entry Update on the GoPro Max2 360-degree camera for collecting street-level imagery

After a few “shakedown cruises” with the Max2 I began collecting imagery in earnest in August, and learned a few lessons. Massive 10Gb fil...

3 comments August 31, 2026

Diary Entry Review of the GoPro Max2 360-degree camera for collecting OSM imagery

A while back a message popped up in my inbox inviting me to compete for a GoPro Max2 360-degree sport camera, courtesy of Meta, which of course now...

4 comments August 10, 2026

Diary Entry Demystifying mkgmap

I have figured out how to get mkgmap to produce fully customized, routable Garmin-compatible IMG files for my nüvi GPS navigator. Here’s the story,...

4 comments September 17, 2023

Diary Entry Online Briefing on the 2021 OSMF Community Survey

March 10-11 I will present a series of three Big Blue Button video conferences open to the OSM community 8 hours apart to answer questions about re...

5 comments February 24, 2021