Marcus L. Blackwood

Marcus Lee Blackwood, PhD is the fourteenth and current Director of the Centre. He was born on 3 May 2410 and has three doctoral degrees - one in biochemistry, one in pathology and another in theoretical physics.

Early Life
Born in the centuries-old traditions of his family, Marcus Blackwood is the latest in a long family line that of scientists that have long been involved in the fight against the things which threatened America. Since the first Blackwood arrived in the USA in the latter half of the 17th century as an explorer and military surveyor for England, the men and women of the line have been studying and pursuing those things that man found unnatural or even "beyond science". The ultimate rendezvous with destiny for his family was when his eleven-greats grandfather, General Kevin A. Blackwood - who was a trusted military advisor of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt - was the first man appointed as Director of the Centre.

The heavily fortified Centre compound at Executive One, which had served as the organization's headquarters since shortly before the Last Great War, was where a young Marcus would grow up. He did not set foot outside of the complex or see the American Wastelands as anything other than images on holocam screens until he was 16, and during the first half of his life he availed himself extensively of the advanced laboratories and libraries that the complex had been equipped with. From the time he was 18 until he was 23, he traveled the American Wasteland on numerous occasions with a Centre SpecOps team and saw the ruins of Washington DC, Cleveland OH, Richmond VA, Charlotte NC and Atlanta GA.

Traveling Years
Three years prior to becoming Director, Marcus went to the burgeoning reconstruction settlement of Industria that had been established atop the ruins of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, assisted by scientists and engineers of the Centre who posed as Technic specialists, the settlement was gradually restoring several large and small-scale industrial facilities that were becoming an integral part of efforts to restore civilization and the means to sustain it. Sent primarily as a representative of his grandfather, the Director, to monitor reconstruction, Marcus was also there to address a report of anomalous behaviors in one of the fabrication units at the factory known as A-11.

While there, Marcus helped quarantine and gain control over A-11. Responsible for the containment of the facility, he had to detain and ultimately terminate four workers who had been tampering with one of the Foundry fabricators and had discovered part of its abnormal capabilities. He worked for several months with the medical team maintaining the crews at Industria before returning to East One in September of 2344. In the interim until becoming Director on the first of January 2347, he worked with the the bio-technicians on numerous paranormal projects.

Director
Since becoming Director shortly after the death of his grandfather Harley Samuel Blackwood on New Years Eve, Marcus has been limited to the Directorate Sector of Executive One, from which he now manages the considerable assets of the Centre in the post-apocalyptic world. He has turned several non-critical assets to subtly helping restoration and reconstruction efforts, and has often times masked critical Containment Initiatives underneath these benign activities.

Because his post as Director prohibits him from having any direct contact with any operations the Centre currently maintains, or is actively pursuing, he must act through a handful of trusted subordinates, all close friends of his, who serve as his eyes and ears in the Wasteland and to the personnel of the Centre. Primary among these is his chief of staff, fellow pathologist Doctor Theodore Lupentramme. Also prominent is his close colleague Doctor Benjamin Stravinsky, a bioengineer who has been heavily involved in studies on several  Keter type Assets.

When necessary, Doctor Blackwood will also reach out in a military fashion, employing the armed strength of the Centre against threats to or opposition against its operations. For this, he turns to another colleague, John W. Oublenmach, who is both a Ph.D. in weapons engineering and mechanical engineering and is the general manager of the Public Safety Maintenance Department.

Personal Life
Doctor Blackwood has been married since 9 May 2428 to Victoria Regina Faversham, with whom he has four children, all sons - Benjamin Marcus, Christopher Alan, John William and Seth Carter.