Skydio’s Post

Transcript

Hey, what's going on? This is Rad, the host of SOFREP Radio. And today is a very special episode. This I can't even, I don't know how to explain it. OK, so veteran's day is right around the corner and I have 3 classy veterans. I said classy. They didn't. I did. So we'll let them define that on the show today. And we're going to talk to each one of them a little bit about what they did, where they came from. So I'm just going to kind of name off. I have Josh Correll, I have Mike Deeds and Brian King. Now Josh comes from the US Army. Mike comes from the United States Air Force and Brian comes Brian King also comes from the United States Army. And so we're gonna talk about veterans, what they're doing in their lives and how we can just be out there as a positive influence in today's society. So, So Mike, tell us a little bit about yourself. United States Air Force. What did you do in the Air Force? Well, I was in the Air Force for 24 years first. Twelve of those 24 where I was an ammo troop, so. Essentially a glorified logistician that dealt with everything that blows up. Learned how to drink, party drive trucks, Dr. forklifts, warehouse things, bombs. Yeah, yes, yes. If you ain't ammo, you ain't ****. That's it. Or you're like me and the 12 years you cross train and I became a C130 loadmaster. Ohh, no kidding, huh? You know, my dad was a Green Beret Special Forces guy, and he was also a loadmaster. For his unit. No way. OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He would be like, yeah, don't worry about it. I got it. That's all he would ever tell anybody. I got it. Don't worry about it. Just stay off my plane. Yeah, man, because it's your plane, right? You're the load master. It's at that point it's like. You're deciding it right? Pilot and commands the dude, but I speak for him and therefore that's my plane. Now. You're also, you're also Army, right, Josh? Yeah. So my career ended a little abruptly faster than I wanted to. So I did about almost 16 years. My first 12 years I was field artillery, so I played cannon. Yeah. So I did 13 series and then beginning of my career had an opportunity to go to Raven school. And launched UAV through our environment and I just fell in love with it and it kind of just stuck with me throughout my whole time. It's blurry. So I was actually getting ready to ETS to go take a job to be a small UAV instructor and I got an e-mail from Warren officer recruiting saying that it was fully qualified to become a drone warrant. It's like I called warrant recruiting and I said, hey, I think you guys made a mistake saying this to me and they said no, we don't make mistakes. Under WAFA packet, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had a had a very short window to apply. I had about 3 months to get letters, recommendations and I ended up getting selected. So I went to from walks to aviation rollback all the way through the US technician course, about a year long schooling and ended up being a a US Warrant Officer for the rest of my career. But due to a jump injury that I had back in 2014, did some deployments to eastern Afghanistan, had a lot of injuries. And so getting ready to go to Ranger Regiment, went for my physical and they said not only are you not going to the regiment, you're not continuing your time in the Army. So. Yeah, yeah, I got medically retired. They're taking care of me though. But you're mean. the VA done really well. And yeah, so I've just been doing drones out in this feeling world ever since you're retired. An aerial vehicle for my listener out there that just hears that acronym and what's use. UAUA S So it's uncrowded TONUS systems, right? So the FAA over the years has changed the terminology, used to be unmanned, now it's on crude. But yeah, so when we say US on crude autonomous systems, that means we're referring to the aircraft, the controller, all components of it. If we say UAV, just speaking specifically about the vehicle, right? So at the end of the day, they're kind of the same. There's so much terminology. And the FDA keeps keeps switching up the, the global standard, right? So we just recently switched to include and then manned aircraft are now approved, right? So, umm, but yeah. So I've been doing that ever since retirement. This is my third job since I got retired doing doing drones. So, umm. Had a lot of cool opportunities in it though. Got deployed to Eastern Africa with NSFW to do switchblade. Gotten a lot of really cool opportunity W is that naval special warfare? It is your army though. Yeah, so I was, uh, I was a contractor when I retired and I got, we had a contract. So I've got to do a lot of really cool, cool stuff with that organization with various platforms. But yeah, so then I came to Scotty about 2 1/2 years ago and I've been loving it ever since. So I ended up here for my veteran out there that's listening to you who might have, you know, been in the UAV world as well and you're still doing it, right? You're still out there working US UAV. So Skydio, are they? Open to veterans like yourself to apply for this because it's a drone company. Skydio and I have a lot of you guys that I get that are with veterans from you guys. I mean, yeah, 100% Skydio is is huge ambassadors for for hiring veterans. We actually two years ago we set up the veteran employee resource group where I'm the vice president of it now. But a lot of what we do is partnering with nonprofits. Organizations that may have candidates coming to you and have, you know, a lot of really good backgrounds and US that are looking to the company and so we do a lot of work with them. But but yeah, absolutely. And it's not I wouldn't say just even US like veterans who, you know, are looking for work. Definitely check out Skydio because granny like we're we're a drone company, right, But not everyone hears drone pilots, obviously, right, Like, right, yeah, brackets, brackets that there's probably crew chiefs all the way. Down to administration that can come on board, you know, everything from logistics to engineering to training. We've got injured and still capable, can still apply and try to get a job and, you know, fill some fulfillment in themselves if they're sitting there moping around. Absolutely, yeah, Skydio, uh, is our recruiting program is, is top notch too. Um, and they, I think Skydio has really figured it out when it comes to hiring. It was definitely a unique onboarding process than any other company I worked for before. It was more of a selection process rather than a typical job interview, But it, it, it works, right? It makes sense because there's, I haven't met a person that's got you that I go, how did you get here? Right. Everyone here is smarter than me. And it's it. And it's just a constant challenge to get things. Just makes sense. You're just like, OK, you're here, you're here. Everybody's here. Why am I here? Yeah, exactly. Now you work with law enforcement, Brian. And is that a division through Skydio? Are you guys all working in different lanes as subject matter experts? You got drones. You've got your working drones. But law enforcement? Yeah, sure. Umm, can you hear me? Yeah, for sure. OK, Sorry. My video, my camera cut out. I think so. Yeah. So I'm engineer with Skydio. And so my role is to work with the account executive to go out and talk to safe public safety agencies to make sure I guide them down the right solution path, be a hardware software. And matter of fact, I'm sitting in the parking lot of the of the Mets spring training facility. I'm about to meet an agency. Here to give them a little bit of a training on their new skydio X 10s that's kind of what I do I make sure that they're comfortable make sure they know what they're getting make sure they know how to use it and I'm I'm I'm kind of the liaison between sales sometimes support and a lot of other things that go on with the customer and I've been doing this for roughly about seven or eight years now as a solution to engineer in the drone industry so. It's, it's pretty good. We do have our own vertical of, uh, we call it SLED state local and education is the acronym for, for our, for our, our team here at studio. We handle all the, you know, state, municipalities, counties, Emergency Management colleges, universities, things like that. And I work with them on a day-to-day, hourly basis, making sure that they understand what they're getting and how they're getting it so that they can get out and be functional. Operational as soon as possible. I guess the the mission is happy veteran's day. Thank a veteran. You know Skydio is out there looking for a good work in individual that wants to be in the drone space. If you're a veteran, you got a little bit of a leg up. Just submit your resume to skydio. com. Try to figure that out.