As a passionate and outspoken member of the drone industry, I am excited to share my decision to join the most advanced drone company in the United States, Skydio. With my experience in photogrammetry (mapping) software at Pix4D, coupled with business development at a public safety drone startup and research in drone-based remote sensing, the decision to join was easy.
A few observations from my first few days. I have never experienced a company with such an open and honest culture. With a team of highly qualified specialists, I've been impressed by the collaborative, supportive, and advanced work happening every day to build this innovative company and deliver the best products possible for our customers. I found it is really easy to ask the hard questions and have transparency on tough topics, and the team is really open to market feedback on our product specifications and how Skydio's drones perform in the field.
Drones are complicated technology, combining aspects of aviation, remote sensing (imaging), wireless, autonomy, machine learning, consumer electronics, and software. Because of how hard it is to build a company, and how hard drones are to design and build, it’s not trivial to be in the drone space. I knew Skydio was unique, but I didn’t anticipate how pumped I would be to be part of a team that is on the leading-edge of the American drone industry.
My role will act as a bridge between Skydio and our North American channel partners - the companies that sell our products to end users. Just like those partners, I am here to serve the end user. The Skydio channel network allows us to put more technology in the hands of end users. The channel network is made up of folks who have sweat in the sun, warmed batteries under their armpits in the cold, and strived to help develop the use cases that show drones are not toys, but powerful tools. I am beyond excited to be one of the faces of Skydio’s expansion as we develop this critical program.
Many of us see the transition our industry is going through as it grows. As drones become a mainstay technology in the professional space, growing security concerns around the dominant foreign players have made U.S. companies and a domestic supply chain even more important. It makes sense to me personally to work for and to help promote a domestic player that is helping create U.S.-based jobs and supporting America's economy while producing world-leading technology.
By joining Skydio, I will not only work with the technology I am personally driven to be involved with, but I will also support my friends in the channel networks, the end users, and support high-tech American manufacturing. That seems like a win to me.
