The Kucera organization was founded in 1947 by Robert “Bob” Kucera, an avid pilot and early innovator in the US aerial mapping services profession. Bob Kucera purchased US military surplus aircraft and outfitted these with floor ports for use with a variety of cameras/sensors. Kucera initially served local industrial, commercial, and professional clients, but soon expanded to larger government and research projects throughout the US and in Central and South America.

In the 1970s Kucera updated its aircraft fleet with Cessna twin and single-engine planes and was an early convert from analog to optical train stereo mapping systems, becoming the largest user of these systems. In the late 1990s Kucera upgraded its twin-engine aircraft to dual-port Piper Navajo Chieftains, was one of the first companies to move to from analytical to digital photogrammetric mapping and imaging systems and became and early user and supporter of GIS and CAD technologies.

In the early 2000s Kucera expanded into GPS-based ground surveying and became again one of the first companies to utilize large format pushbroom digital aerial cameras (Leica ADS), aerial lidar systems (Leica ALS), oblique imaging systems (Geospan GeoVista), and multispectral/thermal sensors (RIT WASP). Since 2010 Kucera has added turbine twin-engine aircraft (Cessna Conquest) to its fleet and large format digital frame cameras (Vexcel UltraCam) to its sensors, and has upgraded and expanded its automated photogrammetric processing, lidargrammetry, GIS support, IT infrastructure, and data/web hosting capabilities.

With this focus and its high caliber resources, extensive experience, sound management, honest and ethical business conduct, and superior customer relations Kucera continues its mission of being a world leader in the aerial mapping/geospatial services profession. Kucera is an ESRI Business Partner and a longstanding active member of the ASPRS and MAPPS professional organizations.