The Florida Environmental Research Institute (FERI) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit, research and education organization located in Tampa, Florida. Founded in 1998, FERI’s initial client was the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Naval Research (ONR). It was ONR's funding that allowed for the development of the tools to rapidly assess the coastal ocean environment utilizing cutting edge environmental mapping and monitoring techniques, specifically hyperspectral remote sensing. Currently, FERI is responsible for a wide range of tasks spanning from the construction and aerial deployment of several digital sensor systems to the analysis of the data generated by these systems to produce informative and functional maps of U.S. coastal regions.