Dave began his career in the Marine Corps as an instrument-rated CH-46E helicopter pilot. He developed the skills of detailed flight planning, weight-and-balance calculations, and complex logistical movements of personnel and cargo. He qualified as External Lift Pilot, Firebucket Pilot, Flight Instructor, and Division Lead. His flight experience includes urban and shipboard operations, often at night. Most importantly, he learned to work as a team in a leadership role. Most of his 1000 flight hours as a helicopter pilot were at 500 feet above ground level (AGL) or below–the same low altitudes he flies as a commercial drone pilot today.

Dave migrated to Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in 2012. As a military drone pilot, he practiced a workflow that he uses to this day: receiving high-level mission requirements for critical information requirements, decomposing information requirements into a robust sensor gameplan, planning a mission to support the sensor gameplan, collecting raw multisensor data, processing/exploiting the raw data, and delivering actionable information to the customer. He qualified as Mission Commander, Tactics Instructor, and Standardization Instructor. His roles in unmanned aviation included Lead Instructor, Chief Pilot, Operations Manager, Operational Test Pilot, Class Desk/Systems Engineer, and Program Manager. The teams he led spanned multiple disciplines, aligned toward a single objective. He developed skills of advanced airspace management for unmanned systems, training management, and organizational operations management in squadrons of 50+ pilots/operators.

Dave’s education includes a Bachelor of Computer Science, Master of Business Administration, Certificate of IT Project Management, Certificate of Systems Engineering, and Certificate of Robotics Engineering. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). His military qualifications include Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI), Space Operations Officer, and Cyberspace/Electronic Warfare Coordinator. He is DAWIA qualified in Program Management (Level II), Test and Evaluation (Level II), and Engineering (Level I). He holds an active Top Secret/SCI security clearance. Dave continues his research in advanced Robotics Engineering and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with focus areas in autonomous Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC); Sensor Fusion; Machine Learning (ML); and Computer Vision (CV). He serves as an FAA FAAST DronePro and as a Data Scientist for a non-profit organization. Dave is FAA Part 107 certificated, AUVSI Trusted Operator Program (TOP) Level 1 certified, and ISO 18436 Category I Infrared Thermographer certified.

Our Equipment

The Skydio 2+ is the industry leader for autonomous flight, obstacle avoidance, and 3D modeling. And it is made in the U.S.A. We use our Skydio 2+ for photorealistic 3D modeling, infrastructure and critical asset inspection, and any other mission that requires flight in tight spaces. Its novel onboard Artificial Intelligence makes this the safest drone on the planet. Our workflow features the advanced Skydio 3D Scan control application, and the robust photogrammetry of DroneDeploy.

The Anafi Thermal is our premiere drone for thermal inspections and other thermographic applications. It has the same 4K camera as its cousin, and also features a radiometric thermal sensor (the powerful FLIR Boson) that measures the surface temperature of each item within the field of view. Thermal imagery is processed by industry-leading FLIR Thermal Studio Suite for professional reports on your critical assets.

The Anafi 4K is our “up-and-away” drone for commercial jobs. It features a 21MP photo, 4K video camera that tilts from nadir (straight down) to zenith (straight up). We use it for Location Photography, Inspection, and Mapping.

The F550 was our first drone for research and development purposes. We use the Cube Orange flight controller with an Ardupilot flight stack and Mission Planner GCS software. This drone features a GoPro Hero 7 camera that still records some of the best quality video we have seen for a drone of this size.

The Sparkfun Quad was an old hobby kit that we refurbished with new avionics for research and development purposes. We replaced the Arduino board with the ModalAI Flight Core running PX4 and a QGroundControl GCS.

Our equipment is NDAA compliant, meeting the DoD requirements for non-covered entities.

FAA CERTIFIED

REMOTE ID COMPLIANT