GEOINT 2025 - Mark Munsell
** Note: Forgive us for the Audio Issues. We had unexpected Interference with our mics. **
In this insightful interview recorded at GEOINT 2025 in St. Louis, Project Geospatial talks with Mark Munsell about his extensive career and exciting new ventures. Munsell, who recently retired from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) where he served as Chief Technology Officer, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, and Director of Digital Innovation, shares his journey. He began his geospatial career in 1990 with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a software engineer and field technician, performing coastal mapping and early digital transformation. He describes his career as being defined by "digital transformation," bringing organizations into the next technological era, from introducing Windows and TCP/IP networking at the Defense Mapping Agency in the 90s to working with AI systems that write their own code today.
Munsell, a St. Louis native, is now dedicating his time to promoting his home city and fostering its economic development. He has joined Greater St. Louis Inc., a premier economic development nonprofit, to leverage his technical and geospatial background. His mission is to build on the energy started by initiatives like GeoFutures, attract new companies, and create jobs within the geospatial ecosystem in the Greater St. Louis region.
Key initiatives discussed include the energy generated by the GEOINT symposium in St. Louis and the upcoming opening of the NGA's new West Headquarters in late September/early October. Munsell aims to revalidate St. Louis's geospatial goals with the community, aligning everyone under a common strategy to be relaunched this fall, potentially under a new brand beyond "GeoFutures". He is tasked with designing this new organizational structure and assembling the right team.
He highlights partnerships with existing entities such as the Taylor Geospatial Institute, which brings together eight universities, and the Taylor Geospatial Engine. This new group will help orchestrate coordination and align efforts among these partners to bring the entire ecosystem together. Munsell anticipates unveiling these plans before the new NGA campus opens. He emphasizes the immense opportunity in St. Louis due to the unique overlap of agriculture, biosciences, public health, medicine, and defense sectors with geospatial technology, citing Boeing as an example of the city's defense heritage. He invites anyone interested in being part of this growing community and its future efforts to contact him or Greater St. Louis Inc.
