126 Business View - November 2015
Kucera International, Inc.
Leading the flock in the field of aerial imagery
“A lot of people think that all of this imagery that’s on
Google Earth comes from satellites. But that’s not really
the case. It’s actually imagery that’s captured predomi-
nantly by companies like ours,” says John Antalovich, Jr.,
Executive Director of Kucera International, Inc., a company
that has been flying over, photographing, and mapping the
earth’s features for over 60 years.
“The company was started in the late 1940s,” Antalovich
explains. “The name, Kucera, is the name of the original
founder of the company – Bob Kucera. He was an avid pi-
lot and he was interested in a business that would involve
flying. At the time, following World War II and the Korean
War, there was a lot of activity in the aerial sensing busi-
ness for military applications, and Kucera picked up some
surplus equipment and started to do commercial-type
aerial mapping services. That’s how it all started; he was
basically looking for a vocation to support his avocation,
which was flying. He loved to fly. He purchased someWWII-
type aircraft, and had them outfitted with camera systems
and away he went.”
Kucera incorporated his company in 1953, and even
though the idea of getting information from aerial photog-
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