Drone Industry Advisory Council

David Krause

Co-Owner, Influential Drones

Dave Krause, is one of the co-founders of Influential Drones. He is a certified project manager, world traveler and an accomplished software architect with more than a dozen industry certifications. Having over 20-yrs of specialized technology experience, Dave is qualified to lead projects in the following sectors: transportation, commerce/banking, infrastructure and construction. He is a member of the FAASTeam (FAA Safety Team) where he travels the country educating and promoting aviation safety. Dave sits on the NBAA's Emerging Technologies Committee. The committee maintains a focus on: unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), urban air mobility (UAM), unmanned traffic management (UTM), commercial space, other future technologies and associated infrastructure that will integrate into the National Airspace System (NAS). Dave contributes to the FAA's Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) as a member of TaskGroup 8 (Safety Culture) for Small Commercial.

He is a founding member of Aviation Influence, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes aviation and STEM initiatives globally. When not working, adventurous, creative, enjoys reading and loves to learn. Dave is active in the philanthropic space, especially in the areas of wildlife conservation and aviation history.

Kimberly Penn

Founder and CEO, Professor Drones

Kimberly Penn is the President of Professor Drones and an industry recognized drone related Subject Matter Expert (SME). She consults with agencies and organizations that directly support the Oil & Gas, Public Safety, Real Estate & Construction, and the Warehouse/Manufacturing related sectors. Kimberly has provided inspection and security-related drone consulting services to organizations looking to launch or enhance existing drone programs. Kimberly Penn or the High Tech Maven also founded the first woman owned technology consulting firm (Webtropolis) in the State of Texas over 27 years ago. She has extensive HIPAA Security experience, Health Information Management (HIM), Internet of Things (IoT), and Certified Ethical Hacking (CEH) experience. Currently, she has clients in greater Houston, thirteen states, Washington-DC, Canada, Mexico, Poland, and Dubai. She has worked on technology and security-based projects with budgets in excess of $30 million+. Kimberly earned a double-bachelors from Houston Baptist University, a M.A. in Sociology from University of Houston, and a M.P.S in Technology Management from Georgetown University.

Ted Parisot

Co-Founder, Helios Visions

Ted Parisot is the Co-Founder and CMO of Helios Visions -- a Chicago-based, professional drone services company helping clients throughout the United States. Helios Visions provides aerial data collection (videos, photos, building project/site inspection, façade images, event footage) to many types of organizations including developers, façade inspection companies, event organizers, building and property managers, as well as commercial film productions. As one of the few companies with nationwide FAA waivers, including § 107.29 (daylight operation) and § 107.39 (operation over human beings), Helios Visions places paramount emphasis on safe and legal drone operations. Mr. Parisot’s 20 years of experience as a technology, digital marketing, and photography professional has led to Helios Visions becoming one of the leading drone service providers.

Jim Bonnardel

Director Of Field Operations, Hitec Commercial Solutions, LLC

Jim Bonnardel is the Director of Drone Services and Field Operations for Hitec Commercial Solutions. Hitec is a full service company providing USA made compliant equipment and services.

Hitec also sells, services, and builds radio control equipment for clients in various industries including Movie/TV, Construction, Entertainment, Weddings, Agriculture and more. Having over 1700 hours of commercial aerial utility inspections, and thousands of precision mapping missions, experience is extensive.

Michael Carlson

Director of Business Development, Performance Drone Works

Michael Carlson is the Director of Business Development for Performance Drone Works. He joined PDW from Lockheed Martin where he led the UAS Business Development and Customer Support functions for the Lockheed Martin Procerus Technologies business.

Prior to Lockheed Martin, Mike supported the FAA UAS Integration during the pivotal years prior to Part 107, analyzing safety cases for section 333 exemptions. He also served on the review panel for the Part 107 program. For 8 years, Mike led training, logistics, and support functions for Textron Systems on various UAS contracts with the US Army PMUAS for the RQ7 Shadow and MQ1 Gray Eagle groups 3-4 unmanned aerial systems.

Michael holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from The Pennsylvania State University. Mike also serves on the Drone Advisory Committee at CompTIA developing initiatives and providing guidance to industry and government bodies to encourage the safe growth and progression of the UAS industry.

Michael served in the United States Army with 3 different job skills; 19Delta - Cavalry Scout, 11Bravo - Infantryman, and 96Uniform - Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems Operator. As a Cavalry Scout, Mike was a fire team leader in a Stryker Brigade. As an Infantryman, Mike was a squad leader in a light infantry company. He served a 13 month deployment to Iraq in 2004-2005 and earned the Army Commendation Medal. Mike served as an instructor/standardization operator at the US Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training Center at Fort Huachuca from 2006-2008 and has accumulated 5000+ flight hours on groups 1-3 UAS.

Mike lives outside of Salt Lake City, Utah with his wife, 3 dogs, and are expecting a new member of the family in March 2020. In his free time, Mike enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding, and playing Ice Hockey.

Robert Dahlstrom

Founder and CEO, Apellix

Bob is the founder and CEO of Apellix™ which provides software-driven aerial robotics platforms to paint, coat, clean and test, in situations where until now, humans have done the work at physical risk to themselves. A serial entrepreneur, Bob is passionate about designing and creating software-controlled robotic systems that keep people out of harm’s way and save lives.

Bob is an FAA certified drone Pilot, a business mentor for “Startup Quest’, “Startup Weekend by Google for Entrepreneurs”, and a volunteer at startup accelerators. He is also a former college professor at Florida State University, and a marathon runner.

Pharns Genece

CEO, USOG

Pharns Genece is CEO and Founder of Unmanned Systems Operation Group, a pioneering logistics solutions company specializing in unmanned systems and secure drone delivery missions.  The company’s autonomous systems are integrated with a next-generation electric delivery truck, which features a control center for an unmanned aerial vehicle operator and an auto-launch and recovery system located on the vehicle’s rooftop.  Pharns is a former US Air Force Medevac with 18 years’ experience as a highly trained flight nurse, certified to administer critical and emergency care for patients during flight rescue operations.

Formerly an Audio Engineer and Technical Lead at The Walt Disney Company in Anaheim, CA. Pharns’ interest in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles goes back many years.  He has integrated and flown numerous UAV platforms.  He is a graduate of the MiraCosta College UAV/ROV Operators and Technicians program, an FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot, holds an FAA Daylight Waiver for night operations, and is a TOP Certified Pilot and a member of the FAA Safety Team.  Phans has combined his medical and technical skills with a passion for UAVs and founded Unmanned Systems Operations Group. The company recently embarked a pilot project to deliver prescriptions from a pharmacy to customer’s at home.

Adam Gittins

General Manager, HTS Ag

Adam Gittins developed a love for agriculture at an early age while helping out on the family farm in Neola. He attended Iowa State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agricultural Business, with an area of emphasis in Farm Business Management. Working with GPS while crop scouting, Adam developed an interest in Precision Ag that led to a position with Ag Leader Technology in Ames, IA. He worked in their technical support department providing assistance with hardware and software to dealers and farmers around the world. Adam assisted with testing products and was the GPS and Guidance specialist. In the fall of 2005, Adam joined the then small Precision Ag team at HTS and relocated back near the family farm. With his in-depth technical knowledge, he hit the ground running and helped HTS grow their Precision Ag Department exponentially. In 2013, HTS was sold and the Precision Ag division became its own stand-alone company, HTS Ag, with Adam taking the helm as general manager. Adam has helped position HTS Ag in the drone industry, offering drones, training, and image stitching software for field analysis.

David Kovar

CEO, URSA Inc.

David Kovar has over twenty years of extensive technological experience in fields ranging from computer forensics to search and rescue to small unmanned aerial systems. He developed the practice of UAV forensics in 2015 and now runs URSA Inc., a unmanned systems risk management startup.

Prior to URSA Inc. he worked at Ernst and Young’s US Advanced Security Center (ASC) where he was a senior manager. He coordinated EY’s US incident response program and provided computer forensics, security monitoring, and malware analysis leadership, services and project management.

Mr. Kovar is currently working on a degree in international affairs with the goal of applying his extensive technology background to international public policy and humanitarian aid issues. He also continues to perform research on UAVs and other disruptive technologies and continues to assist with search and rescue as time allows.

Brian Kravets

UAS Operations Manager, SPACECO, Inc.

Brian Kravets is responsible for the coordination of UAV flights and data processing at SPACECO, Inc., a civil engineering and land surveying company. He supervises a small team of UAV pilots, and is responsible for all data processing and analysis, and built the UAV department from the ground up. He helps integrate UAV captured data into the engineering and surveying workflow. A graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a B.A. in Cinema Art and Science, Brian brings a creative eye to his work. Brian has over 4 years and thousands of hours of UAV flying experience with several types of UAV's.

Sharon Rossmark

Chief Executive Officer, Women And Drones LLC

Sharon Rossmark is the CEO of Women And Drones, the premier global platform featuring women who are disrupting, innovating and shaping the future of the drone industry. She is also a FAA Certified Drone Pilot. In 2018 and 2019, the company was listed as one of the “Top 100 Companies To Watch” in the drone industry by UAV Coach. Sharon is an international speaker, panelist and facilitator on the topics of drones and board governance. She has taken the stage to share her passion for drones from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC to the World of Drones Congress in Brisbane, Australia. The organization’s educational theme centers on “learning through the wonders of flying robots.™” The focus is on collaborating with community and educational programs to incorporate drones into STEM programming for youth with an emphasis on engaging girls. She is the co-author of several books introducing young children to drones. Most of the characters in the books are girls which is a purposeful, important part of her commitment to engaging more girls in STEM and aviation. Sharon earned her MBA from University of Illinois – Chicago and her BS from Illinois State University

Douglas Spotted Eagle

Instructor/Examiner UAV, Sundance Media Group, Inc.

Douglas is a primary instructor and industry consultant for Sundance Media Group, Inc. and VASST, authoring several books and DVDs and serving as an advisor and guide for videographers, software manufacturers and broadcasters. Douglas Spotted Eagle is a giant in the video and audio industries, having received Grammy, Emmy, DuPont, Peabody, and many other awards.   Douglas is a well-known musician and a world-travelled speaker/instructor and he now focuses his energy and experience within the UAV/sUAS industry, having written six books focused on specific UAS tasks and workflows.

Skydiving since 2006 and instructing UAS since 2011, Douglas is an accomplished aerial photographer who thrives in the adrenaline-filled world of fast-action videography. Appointed as a Safety and Training Advisor at Large in the aviation world, he is a risk management/mitigation subject matter expert. With an intimate knowledge of the FAA FARs and FSIMs, Douglas’ vision is to incorporate his years of imaging and aviation experience into best-practices for everything drone/UAV/UAS. Douglas is a frequent (and dynamic!) speaker and consults on UAV cinematography, commercial and infrastructural UAV applications, UAV risk management, night UAV flight, aerial security systems, and 107 training to ensure pilots clearly understand the FAA laws.

Probyn Thompson III

President & CEO, Office Air Probe LLC

Probyn ‘Probe’ Thompson has over forty years of demonstrated experience in planning and executing operations globally for both military and private sector business operations. Probyn retired from active duty service in the US Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel after completing over twenty-three years as a fixed wing combat aviator, Squadron Commander, Military Attaché, USAF Weapon School Instructor Pilot, and Air Liaison Officer (ALO) to the US Army. Probyn deployed to Afghanistan to lead flight operations as a UAV Detachment and Mission Commander, embedded into a US Army Combat Brigade to supporting military combat operations. He then returned to work in the UAS industry for four years before founding Air Probe UAV (APUAV).

Air Probe UAV specializes in providing remote aerial services and academic instruction to assist clients in establishing a FAA Part 107 qualified UAV drone flight programs. APUAV has trained students in high school, college, to adults in Public Safety professions at the North Carolina Justice Academy.

Probyn’s formal civilian education includes: Bachelor’s from the University of Miami, Florida; Masters of Aeronautical Science (MAS) from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Grad Certificate, ‘Community Preparedness and Disaster Management’, UNC-CH; and FAA Certificates: Private/Commercial Pilot (manned) and the Remote UAS Pilot certificate