CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science (CBI) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)-New Orleans District with a signing on Wednesday, March 18.

The agreement created a formal relationship between the USACE and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Geographic Information Science Program for the purpose of technology transfer, knowledge exchange, personnel development, and student mentoring. The program will help to foster the successful transfer of new innovative ideas, evolving concepts, and advances in the integration of small-scale unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS) and remote sensing and imaging technologies for geospatial and engineering application domains among USACE, CBI, and local geomatics/geospatial service providers.

USACE is also interested in the Unmanned Air System eBee, a professional mapping drone that collects accurate digital aerial mapping, led by Dr. Michael Starek, Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Science and Geospatial Surveying Engineering at A&M-Corpus Christi.

The following individuals were present for the signing:

Dr. Luis Cifuentes, Vice President for Research, Commercialization and Outreach
Dr. L.D. Chen, Director of Engineering and Computing Sciences
Dr. Gary Jeffress, Director of the Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying Sciences
Dr. Michael Starek, Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Science and Geospatial Surveying Engineering
USACE representatives Ralph Scheid, Deputy Branch Chief Design Services Branch; and Thomas Davis, Land Surveyor.
Dr. Philip Davis, Professor of Computer Science at Del Mar College
U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Galveston representatives Matt Duke, GIS Analyst; and Rick Vera, Enterprise Geospatial Manager.