Welcome

The establishment of the Mid-America Remote sensing Center (MARC) grew out of an interest in a relatively new technology, remote sensing, by a faculty member in the Department of Geography in the early 1970's.  He generated interest among faculty on campus including an agricultural economist, a computer scientist, another geographer, and a soil scientist.  That group, supported by the Murray State University administration, trained and conducted research at the NASA Earth Resources Laboratory (Stennis Space Center) through the late 1970s.  The group also added a systems person during that time period.
 
The initial group, supported by the Murray State University administration and NASA, was designated as the "technology to Kentucky" on Nov. 21, 1977, by Julian M. Carroll, Governor of Kentucky.  The MSU Board of Regents established MARC as a university entity in May 1979.  MARC was located on the top floor of Lowry Center, the recently vacated annex to Pogue Library.  With support from the MSU Foundation, offices, image processing equipment, map and image libraries and a classroom were completed in September 1980.    

Through the early and mid-1980's, MARC Associates continued to work closely with NASA Stennis in the area of technology transfer as NASA researchers visited MARC, presented workshops and provided support for faculty, staff and students.  MARC broadened its expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the time, providing services in remote sensing and GIS locally, regionally and beyond through research projects, workshops, visiting scholars programs and international exchanges of faculty.  In 1987, MARC established a relationship with the MSU Center of Excellence for Reservoir Research (CRR).  That association has been most beneficial as it broadened the focus of research activities by including new research faculty and students.