All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Good
day. I'm Jim Fausone. I'm the Officer of the
Deck today here on Veterans Radio and thanks
for joining us. We've got some interesting stories
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Help for Veterans fights for veterans disability
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You can learn more about them by going to PuroClean
.com. We want to welcome to Veterans Radio, Chris
Lewis, a Marine and Army vet. We're going to
talk a little bit about that, but he's involved
in a really cool effort in getting veterans into
the drone industry. Chris, welcome to Veterans
Radio. Thanks, Jim. It's great to be here. Had
a nice kid like you first end up in the Marines
for about eight years and did a couple of years
in the Army and then moved on. Tell us about
it. Well, I am an Army Brett. I was born on Fort
Polk and I asked my mother who did 23 years in
the Army, I asked her, you know, what branch
to go into and she said, whatever you do, don't
join the Marine Corps. So naturally. Yeah, exactly.
So tell us what you did in the Marine Corps?
I did motor transport and that's kind of where
I got my first touch on drones. I was actually
deployed to Helmand province, Afghanistan and
was handed a box and said hey you got to use
this thing I said What's in the box? They said
it's a drone. I was like, what's a drone? 20
year old Lance Corporal had no idea, but we did
figure it out. So ended up flying that during
convoy operations. So we did security gun trucks
around long logistics convoys across Helmand
province and through the RQ -11 Raven and did
persistent ISR around the convoys whenever we
went firm at night and began to deploy in the
mornings as well. Well, it's really been an interesting
progression to watch how drones have become almost
mandatory gear in military life. You just have
to watch the nightly news and see what Russia's
doing to Ukraine and Ukraine's doing to Russia
and the advances the U .S. is trying to get.
And actually even Taiwan I was reading about,
trying to build up a drone arsenal whether they
are in the air or in the water. to counter some
of the activities of the Chinese. So drones and
drone operation proliferates in the military
world. How did you move your military experience
with drone operations over into the civilian
world? That's a great question. I think I got
really lucky to be honest. I got out of the military
in 2018. went to NC State using the GI Bill,
was actually given a couple of courses and projects
that involved drones, and was going to end up
in grad school doing agricultural -based research
using drones to do multispectral imagery across
North Carolina. But COVID hit, laboratory shut
down. Ended up with a nice shiny piece of paper,
May of 2020, and then found a guy at the park
right here in Raleigh, and he said, do you want
to go to California and start flying robots around
and making money doing it? I said, yes. Where
do I fly, right? Exactly. Less than 48 hours
later, we were on the road in a 2002 F -150,
camping gear in tow, robots in the back, and
we drove to California where we started doing
power line inspections for the wildfire mitigation
program out there. That was my first kind of
toes getting dipped in the water, if you will.
Finished up that contract, went down to Hurricane
Dorian in Florida. Same thing, power line inspections
down there. Eventually got licensed, became a
part 107 holding drone pilot, if you will, then
went out to the Midwest and started doing telecommunication
inspections across the Midwest. And that kind
of started my cycle of contracting operations
across the country. Naturally started recruiting
other veterans into the industry, just like,
hey, I found something. It's incredible. It fits
like a glove. You won't believe it, but come
on out here with me. So I started bringing other
veterans. My brother is an Air Force veteran,
brought him with me on one of the contracts.
or several contracts. Some guys I served in the
Marine Corps with, folks I met at NC State, some
fellow veteran students, and started bringing
them out on contracts with me. And then about
two or three years of that, we met up at a bar
in San Bernardino, California during one of these
contracts with about 40 other veterans and another
drone pilot and said, hey, we're going to formalize
this kind of initiative of recruiting. And we're
going to call it Vets to Drones and we're going
to start this program and start bringing other
veterans into the industry. Well, it's a great
and a great idea and an advancing industry, right?
It's an area where you can see growth just happening
probably every month. But but for the uninitiated,
Chris, talk about the areas that. civilian drone
operators work. What industries use them these
days? Well that's a great question. There's a
variety of verticals across the industry and
everywhere you look there's opportunity. You
gotta make sure you stay focused in your niche
and learn your niche early. So I started in power
line inspections. So infrastructure in general
is kind of the area of expertise I sunk my teeth
into when I first got in. power line inspections
with manual flight, cell tower inspections doing
digital twin recreation using autonomous orbits
around vertical structures. Then I went into
construction mapping and then I kind of started
dipping my toes into other areas as well. the
infrastructure inspection side is what we usually
push the veterans in our program towards, because
there's a lot of employment and 1099 contract
opportunities in that area. And this is not just
power line infrastructure, it's all types of
infrastructure, is it not? Absolutely, we have
done solar farms, cell towers, construction yards,
agricultural mapping, spreading and spraying
with agricultural drones, and then with the power
lines, I mean, if you go outside, you see them
far and wide. They're all over the country. Yeah,
the agricultural application is very interesting
too, because many folks live in the big cities,
but if you drive across this country, almost
in every stage, you're going to be amazed at
the level of agricultural that we have and how
knowing what's going on from an aerial point
of view would really be helpful, wouldn't it?
Absolutely. I mean, the data and imagery received
during agricultural mapping mission, especially
using multi -spectral imagery, can give you pinpoint
accuracy of where the failure points are in a
given field. It doesn't matter the size of the
acreage. We have a growing partnership with PICS4D,
where some of our members are licensed instructors
for that software. We teach other veterans how
to use that as well. And then we have a new one
that's coming up with AgriMo, which is a agricultural
based software company that's designed just for
agricultural solutions in the drone space. I
was looking at some materials and it also seems
to me that it's also being widely used in the
real estate industry and I want you to talk a
little bit about how it's being used in disaster
relief as well. Absolutely. So on the real estate
side, There's been kind of hit or miss depending
on, you know, either you are involved in real
estate or you know, realtors and they're willing
to bring you on as a part 107 holder. There were
some gray areas earlier on where real estate
agents were just buying drones and flying for
themselves without getting licensed. And that
caused the FAA to start pinpointing people and
shelling out some pretty hefty fines. So I don't
recommend doing that. Make sure you get licensed.
It's a $175 license versus a $12 ,000 fine. Great
use case there. Even a Marine can figure that
out and know how that equation works. You didn't
have to talk to your brother who was Air Force
vet. He didn't listen to mom. I should say he
did listen to mom. He didn't join the Marines.
Yeah, it's written in plaguing crayons. Easy
to understand. Don't get the $12 ,000 fine. Go
for the $175 certification. You've mentioned
it a couple of times and I want to focus on this
because these aren't your toy hobby Drones line
of sight, you know, you're gonna crash them every
time you fly them. These are These are professional
commercial drones and as you mentioned you need
a license Tell us about the part 107 licensing
and your friends at the FAA Perfect. So the part
107 is the minimum certification to earn any
type of income when it comes to using drones
and operating in the national airspace It is
not that difficult. I tell people if you're okay
at land nav, you just add a z -axis to land nav
and now you're in the airspace. If you can read
a map on 2D, you add some third dimension to
it, you can figure it out. There's a couple of
trick questions. It is a federally proctored
test, but it is not that difficult to learn.
That is one thing that we provide as well as
the part 107 instruction through our program.
But it's the first step into getting into the
industry. It is far from enough to be considered
a true subject matter expert or professional
in this field, but it's a step in the right direction.
As I mentioned, this area is exploding. I think
there's some estimates of like there's gonna
be hundreds of thousands of jobs in this field
over the next 10 years. pays pretty good, 50
maybe to 100 grandish depending on who you're
signing on with or if you're running into contractors.
There's some real things that may be of interest
to veterans. You're outdoors working. You don't
have a boss, you know, hitting the time clock
over your shoulder maybe the same way. Technology,
these are all things which is sort of veterans
will gravitate to. But they have to know what
they're doing, and that gets us to vetstodrones
.org. Tell us what the mission of Vets to Drones
is. We're introducing veterans into the industry.
We have five core mission sets. Workforce development
is first, making sure that the veterans in our
program understand how to use these drones at
a professional capacity, whether that's manual
flight for real estate, video, photography, that
kind of thing, or doing the full data capture
and processing and even crafting a deliverable
for their clients. After that, it's K through
12 education. Several of our members are educators
in the K through 12. through 12 realm. Others
do after school programs, drone building programs.
There's even a drone soccer league, both the
US drone soccer league and there's a Korean derivative
as well that where they're getting kids into
a STEM education using drone technology because
very exciting. Consider it like a quidditch for
drones, if you will. Then, of course, natural
disaster response, which we can dive into. One
of the concepts in the industry is drones for
good and disaster response is one of the number
one areas you can use a drone to help people
in a variety of ways. Then there's conservation.
The first project I came up with for our program
was the Veterans in the Forest project. We started
down in San Diego and we did mapping missions.
for reforestation and we went all the way up
to the Dakotas and across to Pennsylvania and
across the entire country doing these mapping
missions and then bringing other veterans with
us along the way. I turned into a cool camping
trip where you learn how to fly drones all across
the U .S. in different forested areas. Then our
final mission is recreational therapy. We do
fly days, drone demo days if you will. We travel
around the country. We get together with a bunch
of veterans and just fly. During the day, you
know, it's outdoors has to be a pretty nice day
It's a sober environment and you're learning
a potentially monetizable skill. So that's those
are our five core missions Investor drones program.
Yeah, and you can find more about vets to drones
by going to vets to drones org There's a lot
of great information there As you mentioned,
this is sort of a nationwide program not only
Have you done projects all over the country with
drones and mapping and disaster relief? But I
also see that you sort of have a regular online
program, discussion, newsletters. Tell us a little
bit about how you engage veterans on a regular
basis. So the VA newsletter came out and our
numbers have just exploded, right? We've had
over 100 ,000 people reach out in a month, and
it's just been really exciting. Before that,
we do a weekly webinar. We get online, we talk
about the drone industry as a whole, and we talk
about problems here, different events that are
coming up, job opportunities there, and what's
going on in the industry as a whole. So since
that... insurgents, you know, the influx of veterans
coming in. We've broken the country down into
10 different districts. We've began assigning
different district or regional commanders, if
you will, so we can better control and understand
different areas of the country and the needs
based in those areas. You know, one of the problems
of success is you got to figure out how to deal
with it, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. you know
when I founded this program it wasn't that uh
you know veterans need help getting into the
industry it's more that the industry needs help
from the veterans that have been doing this type
of operation for the for well technically the
marine corps had the first drone program in 1989.
you know we'll take that claim to faith there
you go we've had this this uh we have this experience
or these experiences that add into this this
industry as a whole and um you know as an american
drone industry we might we're a little bit behind
the curve when it comes to manufacturing and
some of the the processes that are are being
implemented across the industry so uh i i know
that the industry as a whole can use our help
and we get the right people the right the brightest
minds and the capable veterans in this industry
to help out. Well, it's both the technical aspect
of flying these drones, but you mentioned the
software and the data analysis, right? Because
all you're doing when you're flying is collecting
data. How does that work? Is the operator involved
in the data quality and data manipulation, or
does that get handed off to a whole other segment
of the industry? That is a great question. So
there's different levels to your kind of progression
in the industry. There's salary -based, W2 -based,
there's 1099 freelance work, and then starting
your own full -blown business. If you're doing
salary -based or W2, usually you're doing just
data collection, and there's a data processing
unit at the company that you will upload and
pass that data along to. When you get into the
1099 freelance work, you'll start touching the
data and maneuvering data a little bit more.
If you own your own small business and is your
brand out there approaching the clients, you're
collecting the data, processing the data, and
producing that deliverable for the client. So
it's not just one thing or the other. And do
you find that there are veterans going into,
hey, now that I've got my experience and sea
legs here on this, I'm going to go ahead and
start my own business. I want to be my own entrepreneur
here in this area. Is that possible? Absolutely.
I see it all the time. Many folks want to start
their own drone business, and that's sometimes
how they approach us, even before they have their
part 107. But what I recommend is the crawl,
walk, run approach. I tell exactly how I did
it. I got into the industry, got paid to learn,
used other people's equipment to learn how to
maneuver the technology, and then once I built
my bank account up enough, started my own small
business and was able to pull in different contracts.
And then I continuously rotated between W2 work
and 1099 freelance and having my own small business
all at the same time to kind of get things scalable.
Yeah, you got to build momentum, build reputation,
be able to Get new experiences to apply to to
future experiences when somebody's got an RFP
out or asking for Hayes is something that can
be done I think I cut you off earlier. You mentioned
it again. I want to come back to it and that's
the disaster relief aspect of this You can you
know, it's easy to visualize how This how drones
are used for information gathering in the field
in the battlefield Tell us how it's used in disaster
relief. Perfect. So we've responded to a hurricane
every year since 2020, at least one, right? Some
tornadoes, stuff like that as well. The first
initial use case is search and rescue. You have
thermal enabled drones. It is so much easier
to get in the air and fly with a thermally enabled
drone, especially at nighttime and identify where
people may or may not be stranded or unreachable.
definitely unable to see them with the naked
eye, right? So that is, first and foremost, the
most impactful use case. Search and rescue using
thermal and night vision enabled drones directly
after a disaster. After that would be moving
supplies. So these larger drones are able to
do deliveries. Some of the agricultural drones
can carry over 100 pounds and move supplies to
and from areas that may have been cut off. We
saw it during Hurricane Ian with Sanibel Island.
They were using full -blown Chinooks, right?
We didn't have as many delivery drones back then
at our disposal, so they were using Chinooks
to move things back and forth when the islands
cut off. During Hurricane Helene, there are thousands
of bridges out, so there was no way for Chinooks
to go to every single cut -off area in that mountainous
and highly elevated terrain, so drones were it.
Using a delivery drone, an agricultural drone
that was capable of carrying a heavier capacity
was what was the easiest way to get supplies
to and from these areas that were cut off. I
know we've seen some areas were using inflatable
rafts across a river with a rope. That rope can
get cut and go down river and all those supplies
are gone, but a drone is just gonna easily pick
up 100 pounds to and from every single time.
They're built that way and we're talking we're
talking to Chris Lewis who is the founder and
grand poobah of vets to drones dot org and You're
in North Carolina. So being able to use drones
As a result of the damage done by Helene in North
Carolina Had to be really satisfying to be able
to help the community Which I think is another
thing veterans want to do we want to serve? This
is kind of an interesting way to serve your community,
isn't it? Absolutely, so I'm born and raised
in Louisiana, grew up right outside of New Orleans,
I moved to North Carolina, well just about 20
years ago now after Hurricane Katrina. You thought
you got away from it all, didn't you? Yeah, you'd
think so, yeah. Well now I chase it, so I don't
know, but it's a passion project of mine, right?
You know, the first year I got in the industry,
ended up down responding for Hurricane Dorian
in a commercial aspect, right? Doing the power
line inspections and then Hurricane Ian and Ida,
same thing, commercial aspect with a little bit
of humanitarian sprinkled in, doing cell towers,
capture down there too. And then disaster surveys
as well. Post -Helene, we've been up there since
directly after the storm. Since it's in the state,
we had a huge huge support network from fellow
veterans across the state was sent there by the
National Guard Association. The United States
Veterans Corps out of Raleigh was a massive support
network where we landed on the ground as the
scouts, being the drone pilots, right? We're
first ones in, we have the technology, we're
able to go and live off the land for weeks. at
a time, and then the logistics network of veterans
just started flooding in. We set up shop right
just north of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, which
we still have a brick and mortar office today,
and then began once the search and rescue operations
ended, we began mapping the area to further assess
the the effectiveness of the assets that were
being deployed by the 18th Airborne Corps Active
Duty Army on Title 10 action. The North Carolina
National Guard, Tennessee National Guard, I believe
Kentucky National Guard was down there as well.
And then the massive amount of veteran volunteers
that showed up at the camp that we had set up
just north of Spruce Pine on a fellow veteran's
property. We're using the term drone, which is
sort of like saying. Kleenex instead of tissue
paper, right? There's a zillion different types
of configurations and models of drones in the
commercial space when you're doing these different
types of inspections. How big are these drones?
How costly are these drones? What capabilities
do these drones have? Can you fill us in a little,
Chris? Here so some of the smaller UAVs unmanned
aerial vehicles will be purely for data collection
You can go into some of the larger ones for agricultural
and delivery operations the data collection drones
will cost between two and forty thousand dollars
really depending on the type of data you're doing
and collecting and if it has an interchangeable
sensor payload on there those sensors can range
between four and twelve thousand dollars just
for the sensor alone let alone the drone to fly
it. The agricultural drones will range between
20 and 60 ,000. They're much larger. You need
a higher level of licensing per state to be able
to spread and spray different chemicals. So you'd
have to get your part 137 and your pesticide
spraying license for each individual state to
be able to get into that. Then there's the fixed
wing drones that are used for long range beyond
visual line of sight mapping and corridor mapping
based off the needs. of the client or the use
case you're diving into. For Helene in particular,
we mapped along the rivers and the mountains,
which is very hard to reach areas. We mostly
use quadcopters, which are the smaller, either
Mavic series from DJI or the larger M300 series,
using a mechanical shutter to do photogrammetry
missions. That was in support of the Appalachian
Rebuild Project, which is a project we helped
establish up there in the mountains to raise
money and rebuild some of the houses and other
churches and other infrastructure that was damaged
during the storm. Doing those mapping missions
was very interesting and difficult because we
had to use another layer of technology called
an RTK, a real -time kinetic base station that
attached to the drone itself so that the drones
could fly nap of the earth versus just flying
at a flat altitude. This enables the drone to
be able to see where it is on earth. So if it's
flying at 300 feet it will follow the elevation
as it maps instead of flying straight into the
side of a mountain. Never good. No, I mean we
do train veterans and you know not all of us
eat the purple crayons so they do get crashed
from time to time. I bet they do, I bet they
do. As we're coming to the end of the time here
again I want to thank Chris Lewis of veterans2drones
.org of taking some time and it's really interesting
to see how this military application is moving
over to the civilian world. and that veterans
have a role to play. Now, I know you got all
kinds of inquiries because VA put the spotlight
on you. Are you still interested in having vets
reach out to you and how do they do that? Oh,
absolutely. If you go onto the Vets2Drones website,
you can find out how to reach out. There's a
sign up form right there that'll get you onto
one of our onboarding calls. We can start getting
you into the mix. So we'll be providing that
part 107 training for free so you can get licensed.
And then there's a slew of expertise from the
fellow veterans across the industry and instructors
that we hire as well to provide instruction.
Well we appreciate the time you've given us today
Chris and an interesting look into this growing
industry of civilian drone operators and really
sounds like a great opportunity to veterans.
Thanks for your time today. Thank you Jim, appreciate
you. We want to give you a little advance notice.
We're going to have a Veterans Radio event on
Sunday, September 28th, 2025. Radio on the River.
We're doing a new location on Freedom River in
Livingston County, Michigan. We want you to save
the date. We're going to have veteran storytelling
and guest speakers. We'll have raffle items,
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there's going to be an opportunity to fly in
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But plan on supporting Veterans Radio either
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I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans
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