The Marine Applied Research Experience (MARE)’s mission is to protect and restore the ocean’s invaluable, yet threatened resources by providing technology and expertise need to see in deep water environments.   MARE is a California-based non-profit organization dedicated to supporting environmental conservation and marine protection.  MARE uses robotic technologies to gather unbiased data and observations of the underwater marine environment (between 50 – 1000 feet below sea level).  MARE contracts with businesses, non-profits and governmental organizations on monitoring, research, retrieval and clean-up projects that support this objective.

MARE programs and services include:

• Deepwater fish and seafloor habit assessment
• Multi-year monitoring and assessment of protected areas of California’s Marine Protected Areas.
• Deepwater site characterizations of National Marine Sanctuaries
• Biological baseline for enterprises which may have an impact on the ocean environment
• Data geo-referencing, analysis and post-processing of subsea video and photographs
• Location and recovery of derelict fishing gear, and lost scientific equipment in >60 meters of water.

Project Description:

Our goal with this project is to develop a growth strategy to increase the number of projects handled by the organization.  By mid-summer, 2013 Mare obtained/ built 4 robots with different capabilities for fish and ocean bottom assessments.  So we have a lot more capacity than previously.  The project is a request for a growth strategy which will identify new customers, expansion of existing customers, or possible partnerships to leverage MARE’s additional capacity.  Preferred project outcomes would be:

a) an assessment of the demand for deep water assessments in California and the west coast of North America,
b) identification of target clients interested in funding deep water and ocean floor assessments, and
c) pricing strategies for the contract part of our work.