UAS News Podcast — 2013-06-12
Transcript
Welcome to the next installment of the SRAS News Podcast Series where we interview news bankers and discuss the needs and applications relevant to the global unmet technologies community. I am your program host, Patrick Egan. We can't say hello to our co-host as we usually do. Oh, wait, here he is.
Last-minute Louie calls in right now. He always does this to me. Gene. Hello, Patrick.
Sorry, I'm a little tardy, but you know, I'm on the list. I'm on the East Coast this time, so I've had a little bit of a time scheduling difference there, but I made it. Sorry for being late. That's okay.
I think you like that. Now you're like, usually you like calling five seconds before it goes. Now you're five seconds after, but that's okay. You know, that's why I got the gray hair.
Anyway, we know that, you know, you've been busier than an NSA email screener. Why don't you tell everybody where you are now, sir?
You are correct. Let's see. We are in lovely Annapolis, Maryland, which it is very lovely out here. It took me 30 hours to get from Texas to Annapolis on the airline, which was a pretty interesting adventure.
We are with the NCLETC, which is the law enforcement and tribal commission's organization, and we are discussing unmanned aircraft use in the national airspace. We have some folks from the FAA here, the DHS, the DOJ. Many other initials are represented, and it so far has been very informative. We have been focusing more on law enforcement use, and I think, Patrick, you'll appreciate that there seems to be a turning point in this, in that the transparency issue is really, really being pushed hard.
That this is, if law enforcement wants to use these assets, that transparency is going to have to be in place before they are going to be accepted by the public. I couldn't agree with them more. Yeah, I haven't heard that for a while. You just, I mean, you know, if you want to use it in the community, it can't be secretive, you know.
You've got to say, hey, it's like the police dog analogy I've used before. Hey, this is what it is. This is how it works. This is how we want to use it, you know.
Even in Berkeley, I said, hey, maybe, you know, the community needs to come together with the police and talk about how you want to use it and what you want to do with it, and we'll sign off on it. And if you abuse it, then we take away the privilege, you know. It's like anything else, you know. What's come together is community.
It takes a village, Gene. Well, you know what's even more encouraging to me, Patrick, is the fact that a lot more of these agencies are getting folks like the ACLU involved, the EFF involved, and saying, you know, let's work on some, what is it, magic word, standards. Standards?
I've never heard that one before. Really?
Oh, well, you know, it's one of those words that we've used in the past, and it seems like a curse word sometimes, but developing standards with folks like the ACLU and the EFF and those privacy advocates is the way, because, you know, one of the more interesting comments is that the police departments that have actually put programs into place met with those organizations on privacy and not only took their recommendations but made them even stricter than what they called for, which I thought was a very interesting observation out of this whole deal.
And I don't believe that the public really perceives that that's the case. No, and, you know, it's kind of, you know, interesting, you know, that you bring this up, because I think that there's a stereotype, too. There are stereotypes out there, believe it or not. Humans do that, but from people thinking about privacy that, oh, you know, you're going to be spying on me or whatever, but there's also this misconception that ACLU and EPIC and EFF and the rest of these people are totally anti-technology, which is not the case.
When you sit there and you talk to them and you one-on-one, they're like, oh, that's cool. You know, you just have to, people have the Orwellian misconception, which just, I think, this week, 64 years, 1984, and Mr. Orwell might have been on something. I think the next stop might be Animal Farm.
Just a guess, I don't know. Anyway, so they are approachable. You can talk to them. They're reasonable.
You can work it out with some people. Of course, there are some people that are hard over on the deal, you know, but, you know, realistically, you know, I don't think people are going to be, you know, I was thinking about this. Maybe it's a little vain to think that people are going to want to watch people smoke pot in their backyard. You know, there's chubby fish to fry.
But anyway, so I know you've been there. It was hard for you to get there. I hope, John, anybody I know there, any of my pals there?
Yeah, as a matter of fact, there are a few from the FAA that you might know. I haven't had the opportunity to get in and, you know, press flash as much as I'd like to because, you know, when you get in six hours late from the beginning of the thing, you kind of have to fall into the workshops and start getting going on things. And that's the way we've been since we landed here yesterday. And that's probably the way we're going to stay until we leave tomorrow.
And that's probably the way we're going to stay until we leave tomorrow. But, you know, I've got to say that there's some really good information coming out of it. I think that there's a lot of folks that are on board with everything that we've spoused and that we've tried to get going. You know, but we're learning more and more, you know, what the restrictions are, whose hands are tied, whose hands are not, and who's not doing what they should.
And, you know, of course, we've heard everything about the political climate in Washington around U.A. is volatile. And, you know, with the 32 states now having some sort of legislation in place or in the works that is, you know, directed at unmanned aircraft, it's just a minefield right now. It is.
And, you know, I did post the video of that Senate hearing on privacy. And, you know, it's kind of funny. I mean, you probably have watched a little Saturday Night Live in your time, Gene. You spent some periods where it was good.
And but the chairman of the subcommittee on privacy and technology is none other than Mr. Al Franken. It's hard for me. Maybe it's me.
It's hard for me to, you know, take it all serious. And then, you know, even watching that, you know, I never really watched the whole video, but I just watched the whole thing. And then after this deal broke with Prism and I mean, I knew I was getting scrupled, you know, anytime you use the goog. But, you know, I mean, it makes the drone thing look like candy land.
But, you know, that's probably discussion for another time. One other thing I wanted to ask you about that we know you were on another field trip and it's bigger than Bigfoot. Can you talk about it?
Yeah, it's, you know, with the group that goes all over the world and does some of the most fascinating photography that you've ever seen in your life. But yeah, we're going to be showing what potential disaster mitigations could arise from using unmanned aircraft. And I do believe that one is going to be out in the fall. And it's cable.
I really can't say much about it. But it's. So that means you didn't make any money?
No. I spent two days awake. You know, I hate to advertise for anybody, but yeah, they had cliff bars there for craft service. And, you know, it was that was it.
You know, we lived off cliff bars, peanut butter and chocolate for two days and, you know, stayed up for 36 hours straight trying to meet the production schedule. I love cable TV. But I look forward to that. And when it gets closer, are we going to do it?
Well, bring that up anyway. OK, so that's great. You know, right here, that that's going good. We'll want a full debrief when the show is over, maybe next week.
So let's march into the show here. You know, we've we've probably mentioned this a few times, the SUAS News Silicon Valley chapter of ABSI 3D Robotics on our Kappa. We are putting on a small unmanned systems business exposition, first of its kind in the world. The idea basically behind it is, you know, we're here and we're ready to do business out of the closet.
You know, we've been we've been at this for a while. This has been part of our narrative. But now we're putting the flag on the moon. We're doing it.
We want to bring this to light to people. And I think it's part of the narrative that really needs to be brought to the forefront, just as you were talking about with the privacy and who's going to do what. And I think that this will be a showcase where both the public can come and see the business uses that have already been done and been out there. So now I mean, it's not as if people think, oh, this is this is something new or it came out of the military or it's only been here for a year.
Not true. You know, it's kind of you only really heard about it in the military. And now we're like, oh, we're going to beat the swords into plowshares, blah, blah, blah. Well, they were plowshares first became swords and now are coming back.
But we want to talk about that. You know, we want to talk about these positive uses and what people want to do as a business. So it's also going to be for people that want to be in this business to come there and hear from professionals and business people that have made money. But also we want people to be able to, let's say, get a flavor for what it is going to be to become a manufacturer or producer or end user in this field.
And so what we're going to do is I'm going to start interviewing some of the people that are going to be speaking at this. You can go to www.susbexpo.com and you'll see the lineup of the speakers. Today's speaker is and our first guest, he's going to be speaking about at the U.S. Small Unmanned Systems Business Expo.
He's from the law firm of LeClaire Ryan. His name is Douglas McQueen. Sir, could you please introduce yourself to the audience, a little bio, and how you got involved or interested in unmanned aircraft systems?
Hey Patrick, hey Gene. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming.
Glad to be here. Glad to talk to you. By way of introduction, I'm an aviation attorney and actually a veteran airline pilot. I've been involved professionally in the field of aviation and aviation safety for at least 20 years.
I've worked as a certified flight instructor, a corporate pilot, a commuter airline pilot, and also for the major airline. I've worked in training departments and I've also been trained as an accident investigator. So as an attorney, I focus on a variety of aviation matters, but in particular accident litigation. So I'm pretty familiar with what the issues are when things go wrong, all the standard tort issues that we see in the aftermath of an accident, liability, causation of the accident, damages.
As aviation attorneys, we look into issues like, just basic issues like, was my client's action the cause of the harm? Were there interceding or other contributing factors that we might want to look at?
To do that requires a lot of fact investigation. One thing that helps me out with a long background in the aviation industry is that it helps to be knowledgeable in the field in order to do that fact investigation to understand the cases that we handle. More importantly, however, as attorneys, when we put that litigation knowledge to use, we like to consult with our clients on a variety of operational and safety issues that try to keep them out of trouble. We like to get involved with our clients before an issue ever arises.
One of the things I'll be focusing on at the Expo is talking to entrepreneurs and potential small business owners in this field about getting involved with a competent attorney before issues even arise. There'll be a lot of topic areas that we can cover that I could speak to them about where they may be interested in seeking the advice of a competent attorney, someone who is actively involved in the field. You're getting out there a little bit,
but I wanted to, as I set this up about the small unmanned systems business Expo, this being the first of its kind and really trying to, let's say, turn the Titanic myself into the future here.
Your firm is one of the sponsors of the Expo. Maybe you could give us a little background about that. We talked about the thinking there, the forward thinking, but maybe you can discuss that just a little bit of why they got interested in this and why they decided to come on board. Sure.
My firm, LeClaire Ryan, I'm a member of an aviation industry team. And our team tries to keep a close eye on the aviation field, various things going on in the industry, industry development, things like FAs, next gen project, any new legislation that comes out. We keep tabs on various accident investigations and court case developments that are going on. We try and stay current.
It's just like being a pilot. You try and stay current so that your skills are sharp and you know what's going on in your environment. So that's part of why we're interested, but also a lot of the work that we do is on behalf of insurance companies that represent a wide variety of insured customers. And these are manufacturers, operators, etc.
So we have an obligation on our aviation industry team to both those insurance companies and their customers to stay really current on any developing trends in the industry. And a couple years ago, our industry team saw the potential growth of the UAS field. We felt like we had an obligation to be prepared for both the advancements that are going to come, technological advancements in the field and changes that may occur to the aviation field in general. So that's really what spurred our interest.
Well, it's pretty forward thinking. I mean, I think for a while people were kind of thinking that this technology was kind of fringe or maybe you'll get a foothold someday. But I truly believe this to be the future of aviation. And I believe that the people that are coming on board now kind of believe the same.
Is that fair to say about your firm? Oh, I absolutely agree. I think we want to be able to have a feel for our surroundings, that kind of situational awareness of where the field is and not try and play catch up as seemingly as the FAA has been doing along the way with the technology. We want to be right in pace with the technology as it develops.
We want to help the entrepreneurs that are going to grow in this field. Inevitably, that's going to happen. So we'd like to be there and lockstep with them to be able to provide them with competent advice. Right, right.
And I think that's important. But I do think that it's a first to market thing. And I'm glad that we have you guys on board. It's something that really has been lacking in this field.
There's a huge void for services that your firm could offer. And one of those, and I believe this will be probably something that you'll be speaking about at the symposium here, the expo, is product liability. Yeah, you know, we're really, it's more even than a 3D environment. I think we're in like a 4D environment here.
And, you know, some of the stuff, you know, talking to the community, oh, you know, I'm downloading my stuff off the internet. It's not mine. So if it goes awry or whatever, it's not really my responsibility. Not so much.
So you think that'll be one of the subjects, product liability, be one of the subjects you speak about? Oh, it certainly will be. Not only speak about it, but be able to answer questions for folks about it. You know, to get to that point, and especially dealing with small upstart entrepreneurs, you know, over the years, too many businesses, it seems like, have fallen to the wayside because of issues related to liability, including products liability.
And we can discuss or debate all day the merits and the problems of having a litigious society. But, you know, that alone isn't going to fix the issue for a new business owner, a new entrepreneur. As a new business owner, what a new business owner needs to know is a way of setting up and protecting their business properly, including in regards to potential liability for the product that they produce. So, you know, that's going to be certainly products liability along that vein is going to be a big part of what we're able to talk about at the meeting.
Okay. You know, maybe some other topics, too. Another one I talk about, you know, insurance is always a big one. And you said, you know, you were kind of, of course, lockstep or kind of working with insurance companies.
And that's another one, you know, people talk about all the time. I'm like, hey, you know, you're married, you know, if I have a little like running joke, you know, you own a house. Yeah, you know, if you don't have insurance, when the sheriff's banging on the door, and you're taking a house, and the wife's divorcing you, yada, yada, yada. You know, I think you're, what you're going to bring to the show, our symposium is going to be excellent for people to start thinking about, hey,
you know, this is how I set up a business or a corporation, or I want to be a, I don't think the people really are in touch with that, that really you're talking about starting like an aviation company.
And there are going to be certain professional nuances, and t's to cross and i's to dot and all the rest of that. And so that'll, you only have, you're only going to have a half hour. Probably way too much information to cram in there. But, you know, even if we do a bird's eye view of some of the issues that these entrepreneurs may face, and then afterwards, invite them to follow up with any questions, I think that would give them a great opportunity to at least crack the shell and get started.
Absolutely. And that's exactly the, the, the kind of the ethos of the show. So, okay, I look forward to that. I look forward to meeting you, and I'm really excited about what you have to offer in the symposium.
The last thing I have for you is, is there, maybe you could give out the website for your firm where listeners can learn more about services your firm offers, will offer? Oh, sure, sure. That's a great idea. www.leclererion.com.
By way of description, we have 22 offices nationwide, over 300 attorneys, and a whole variety of disciplines. And I think that's what makes us particularly well suited to be able to handle the variety of issues that a new entrepreneur in the unmanned systems business might face is that we're a multidisciplinary firm with a pretty broad national footprint. So, people can go to our website, either look me up or look up the bios of some of our other professionals. They could also look me up on LinkedIn.
And I'd encourage them, you know, whether or not you would, they tend to show if people have a question related to legal needs of the unmanned aerial systems field that they feel free to reach out and give us a call. And again, the overriding message that I'd like to get out to people is reach out to a professional, ask questions, and get good advice before you have a problem. That's the best thing you could do, to stay out of trouble. And we all want to stay out of trouble.
All right. Well, the other thing is, this being a first, we are going to try and stream the symposium. You know, we want to bring everyone in on the conversation. We'll also be recording it and probably putting it somewhere.
I think it's a good idea, what you mentioned there. People might want to go check out the website now, look at the stuff they offer. You might open your eyes a little bit as to some of the, let's say, issues that could face you in the future. And if you're at the symposium, and we're also going to maybe try and do some questions over the internet, might be a good primer for Mr.
McQueen's, let's say, presentation. So, all right, Douglas, I'd like to thank you for coming on. That's the end of the first segment. Thank you, sir.
Thanks, Patrick. Thanks, Gene. You guys have a good day. You too.
Talk to you soon. All right. And then that brings us into segment two. And it is AUVSI Board of Director Election Season.
Upon us again, they offset it. And we had some folks on last year. And we talked about what their, let's say, view is as a candidate, and for them to talk about their visions for the future and whatnot. And so, kicking this year, off is our next guest.
And he's been on the show before. But, you know, we want to have him back on here. It's Mr. Doug Davis.
Doug, you out there? I'm here, Pat. Thanks for having me. Hey, Doug.
You're always welcome here, pal. All right, good. We go way back now. You know, we've known each other for a little while.
Now, you know, I did say that you've been on the show. And we have had a, you know, we've had a couple of listeners, a couple over, I don't know, 225,000 listeners. And not all of them come back every week. So maybe for the benefit of the audience, would you, could you please give us a little bio about yourself and your history and how you came to be where you are and what you're kind of doing?
Sure. Yeah, sure. Sounds good to be happy to. So again, Doug Davis, I work with New Mexico State University in the Physical Science Lab.
I've been there for about four years. Before that, after a brief stop with Raytheon for a few months, now forgive me for background noise. I'm actually at the beach with the family, taking a little bit of a vacation here before things start. But I can't control the background.
But before that, I spent 25 years, this side 25 years, with the FAA, started as an air traffic controller and got into airspace procedures and traffic management and supervision and things. But the last five years in particular with the FAA, I was the manager of the Unmanned Aircraft Program Office, the first one, stood it up and hired a bunch of people and tried to get some policies in position and some things moving until I decided that I'd had enough working for the government. So I left in 2009.
So currently, I am a jack of all trades. I have my fingers in a lot of things going on. One of them, I co-chair along with Dr. Steve Cook from MITRE, the OSD, Simpson-Navoyed Science and Research Panel.
And we're a group of experts in the community that are looking at research gaps, in particular the void. We hear a lot of discussion about products and technical things being developed, but there still are a lot of research gaps that we don't have filled in yet for Simpson-Navoyed that we need some focus on. It's not going to keep things from getting developed, but I think it's going to make it harder. And so we work with the DOD.
Next week, we have a meeting with the FAA at the Technical Center and the DOD and NASA to discuss collaboration across government agency lines with this kind of capability. So it's very exciting. I think it's going to bring good things forth. A couple of the other things I do, I think it was mentioned on some of the show prep stuff, but I also, New Mexico City University belongs to CANSO, which is the Civil Air Navigation Service Organization, and they represent 90% of the world's air navigation service providers.
And so in that role and that membership, I represent CANSO in the IKOUAS study group. So we play a lot with, in fact, just in Montreal last week, the latest IKOUAS study group, and they have a lot of a global reach and a global feel being a part of that group. So that's, I mean, we could go on for a while, but I think there are a couple of the key things, Patrick, that are relevant to the subject at hand today. Right.
Well, first, I want to thank you for taking a little time out of the family vacation. I know that that can be a little difficult. You're trying to enjoy yourself, so I appreciate that. But you touched on, and that's why we like to have you on here, Doug, because you're an interesting guest.
You're a little involved in the program here, but you went over a lot of stuff. And before we kind of get into this, I'd like to talk about that. You said some people are working on products, and we had Chuck Johnson on, and I was asking him too. And he kind of alluded to this, but do you think that a lot of these manufacturers, let's say the bigger ones, that people would recognize the name, are they working on solutions in the dark, kind of on their own?
Well, I don't know that any of them are doing a whole lot on their own just yet with internal funds. IRAD is called Internal Research and Development. Not when it comes to unmanned aircraft. I still, and I may have this all wrong, I still think some of the bigger companies are not really dumping a whole lot of IRAD money into some of the bigger products unless the government's funding it.
Well, I think it's a risk proposition. I think clearly that whenever you're trying to develop technology that don't have standards for it, then you're at risk with product development. That was my question. Is the standard thing just so murky, like that nobody can stare into the crystal ball, so it's too risky to invest money in sensitive void type products?
Is that what you're kind of saying? What's your opinion?
Yeah, well it's my opinion. I think that there are probably a few companies working on things, but again, whether they're doing that for IRAD, I still think I was listening to part of your previous guest, and you mentioned this, I think, the whole first-to-market stuff, and I agree with you. I think there is a desire to get first to market on a lot of operationally capable aircraft. The issue is when you talk something serious like sense and avoid, which has to go through a very in-depth formal certification program, doing that without standards is a significant prospect.
Well, I had a little, it's a possible scenario. You know, that maybe this is kind of, you know, it could go either way, but you know, the Congress might say, all right, that's enough. You clown the horse around enough, and we want integration into the NAS now, and then they pull the, out of the playbook, the TCAS Hail Mary, and you know, Company X comes up and goes, hey, here it is, you know, we've been working on this. I think that's a possibility.
No, I don't think so, not here. Yeah, I don't think so yet, and I think by and large, and this is where what I want to bring to the Board of Directors for UVSI kinds of lines up, but it's about a business proposition, a commercial business case, and I think, as you and I have talked for years, Pat, that there clearly is one for small and mid-air aircraft. It clearly is a low-hanging fruit that we should be optimizing because of risk, operational needs, and the business case that's there, it's ready to push the trigger now on, right?
But the larger aircraft, you know, not so much yet, and so when's that going to happen, and how's that going to cause some of the investment in the business, as well as the pressure that we can bring to bear as an advocacy group onto the Hill to get those kinds of structures and things in place to be able to help them? A lot of those guys are saying, well, show me the money. Where are the jobs?
Where really is this technology going? It's still not very clear. Well, that's, you know, kind of what we wanted to do with the business expos, hey, you know, these guys are out here and they've been doing this and yada yada. And, you know, kind of as to one other question is, you know, you're working with the IKO thing, and a lot of people point out that, you know, you just mentioned the small, and
I think we're on the same page, that there are, you know, let's say they crack the door open, but it seems to me that a lot of these groups get together and they're like, yeah, you know, the low-hanging fruit is the smalls.
We got to do something here, and that's about a conversation for about five or ten minutes, and then we're right on to the big stuff. Do you see that?
I mean, it's kind of, you know, I just start wanting to bang my head on the wall, because then the next thing, you know, the guy's like, oh, hey, you want to see my business plan for Global Hawk? You know, and I want to run out of the room screaming. Right. Well, something that looks like, you know, it could fit inside the palm of your hand, isn't as sexy as the X-47 or the UCAP, you know, that kind of stuff.
That's really cool stuff. So, you know, that's where the money is. That's not really where the numbers are. I mean, the numbers don't show that there's going to be huge amount of numbers of large unmanned aircraft.
There's going to be a huge amount of numbers of small UAVs, period. And so, that perspective, it's, you know, I'll get back to this again, but the concern I have, and I've always advocated is we don't want our community to walk away with the perception from external folks that the products we're building and want to fly and operate are disposable or expendable. I think that might sound, send a bad message. Yeah, well, it does.
Imagine if you were a car company. Yeah, you know, just leave it on the side of the road. What's the matter?
You can throw it away. That's right. You may not survive, but hey, yeah, no, I think we're on the same page of that. Now, I just, I wrote a little, like an op-ed called the Drone Dealer Diaries, and I talked about, you know, I've had, since sequestration, I've had some of these, let's say, servicing contractors call me up and pick my brain about commercial business cases, say for ag.
And, you know, you say, okay, well, this is great. You know, what are you guys going to fly?
Oh, we got these shadows over here and we're going to, yeah, and I'm like, I don't think so. I don't know how you're going to make a shadow with all the people and equipment and the cost and all the rest of that work. And if you really go out to Farmer Brown and you tell them or Global Hawk or whatever you tell these people, yeah, it's going to be 10, 20, $30,000 an hour, I think they're going to look at our industry and go, are you having your mind?
I mean, maybe, but it always seems to go to the larger systems right off the bat. You know, I don't know. It's a little disappointing, but. Well, look, I think the real thing to stay away from is that we can't be cookie cutter because every situation, every business demand may be different and they demand a different platform.
And so we should always keep in mind, you know, what we do for the platform. But one of the things I did that I didn't talk about was I helped out with the Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program with the Arctic Council, trying to get unmanned aircraft up on the Arctic to fly cross-FIR operations. The first thing that scientists sometimes want to do is look at the platform before they decide what kind of data they want to gather. So the real question is what do you need to gather?
You know, how do you need to gather it and then go by your bus? We consider the frame always to be the bus, but decide what you need for and then decide what needs to go around it to carry a transport at that kind of place. I'm sorry. Well, it's just that's a great point because, you know, at the end of the day, it's collecting data, you know.
And I think you're right on that. A lot of people get caught up on, you know, even the same with the privacy thing. Oh, you know, all this technology on a drone, you know, it's just a platform, you know, and figure out the platform you need to get the data that you need and let's say in an economy of scale. But now we ran long on that.
But now you did outline a lot of your experience. I mean, you know, as far probably as far as experience goes and the regulatory side of things, I would say that Doug, you're hands down. And obviously, you bring a lot of experience to your candidacy. So how, you know, let me ask you, how would you apply that in the framework of the AEBSI if elected?
Well, I think it's all about influence, Pat. I think it's all about passion for the industry and where we need to go with it and convincing others to come along with you. You're not a single board member. You're a member of a composite of 22 or 23 others.
And so, you know, it's influencing and convincing others that, but you know what you're talking about, you need to move off in a certain direction. And I have not, admittedly, I have not had a whole lot of inner workings with how the board functions on AUBSI. I respect and honor their staff. Mike Cascano is great, so is Gretchen.
And I know them well. And so from the perspective of how my role plays, I think I bring both the civil side as well as the military side with the experience I have and then also with the industry side and research. So it really, it gets down to what's the strategic vision of the organization?
Where is AUBSI needed the most right now for the next three years, next five years, whatever it's going to be? And how do you make it effective now?
How do you make it effective five years from now? And then as I put in, I think my short write-up, how do we forecast the next big thing like privacy?
Something else is going to hit us right between the eyes, right? Something else is going to hit us. How are we as an industry or an advocacy group prepared to handle what I don't think we handled privacy very well as a community and I don't think it was handled as well as it could have been by AUBSI. And I think that the question is what's coming next and why aren't we prepared for it?
Right. And I would agree with that. I mean, I don't know if you listen to the podcast or read about my experience in Berkeley, California. It was definitely an eye-opener as far as what the public thinks about privacy.
But I do think that we could have done a better job. And I don't want to Monday morning quarterback that too hard, but these people are still open. Gene's at that symposium on the law enforcement thing now and there's people there and they are open to hearing about it. We just had to have a better message.
I don't think you can go in there and treat these people with contempt and canned talking points. You really got to open up and be human with them. I think we can do that. And I think that privacy thing was really the detriment of the first responder.
Any comments on that? Well, I think it's unfortunate that we had members of the legislation of several states overreact, I think, to something that they weren't educated on. And they were responding to it in an emotional way. And that brings up the issue, well then what education are we doing on an ongoing basis to kind of help offset things like that?
How much education could we have done over the past several years leading up to that instead of it being controlled by the press? You know, the term drone is a great example. We have tried to flick that bugger off our fingers for as long as I can remember. And we're still not winning that.
Right. I think that fights over, my friend, just because the media now is all about clicks. And drones are just popular. I mean, it's funny, I called Barbara Boxer's office out here, another, trying to chip away at the stone.
And I said, yeah, I want to talk about unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS. Huh?
Drones. Oh, okay. So that's what's out there. We got to go with it.
But the thing is, I think the community, I'll go anywhere and talk to anyone. You know, I'm taking Ted Ware's, you know, let's say, the way he'll go anywhere and talk to anybody about unmanned aircraft, especially the AV line. But I'll go anywhere and talk to anybody about it. And I'll have an open and candid discussion about it.
And that's what I really think needed to be done and should have been done. But yeah, the DOD thing was easy money, man. You know, we could just sit back and say, oh, hey, you know, let's, we'll just ride this one in. That was to our detriment.
You know, I'm a little outspoken, Doug. I don't know if you've heard that about me. No, no, no, I don't believe it. Not one bit.
I know. But the, you know, I said that years ago that really we should be kind of focusing on what we can do and bringing it more to the small business, you know, doing, you know, showcasing smaller businesses would be people you might recognize as, you know, your brother or uncle or cousin or something else that is developing this and wants to be an end user. And I think as a community, if we would have done more of that, people could relate to it. If you ask most people, hey, what's a drone?
They go, oh, it's that whale thing with a missile on it. You know, and then you say, hey, well, you know, your police department wants a drone. What do you think?
Hell no. You know, it's an association thing that we haven't worked real well. And we're almost out of time, but you know, I did mention earlier that we, I watched that Senate hearing with about privacy. Did you get to see that?
I did not. I'm sorry. Well, you know, there was Mr. Frank and you remember he watched Saturday Night Live, right?
So, you know, it was kind of maybe suggesting that the FAA deal with privacy and, you know, I know it's kind of a loaded question, but what do you think? Do you think that they could get the expertise to deal with that or is that better left elsewhere?
I don't think that's in their job jar. The FAA is a great safety organization and a regulator and a service provider, but the Department of Privacy, no, I don't think they need to wear that. It needs to go somewhere else. It scares me.
I don't, you know, the exposure that I've had to the FAA, not that it's a bad thing. I just, you know, I'm a little, let's say apprehensive about an administration like that or a governing body interpreting the Constitution for me. That's, and I'll leave it at that. But in closing, Doug, anything else you would like to say about your candidacy or your vision for the future, sir?
Well, I think one of the things I'd like to see on the AUVSI board is a little bit different structures as well as process with this. It seems a little bit disadvantageous, I guess I should say, to the way they rack and stack certain board members against each other and then certain ballot areas are strong, certain are weak, and you don't have a whole lot of choice. And I think that that ultimately harms the composite. I think I understand why it's down, but I'm not sure that it's being as effective as it could.
The other thing I guess is that I think that, and I've got a number of friends who are in the government and who sit on boards like this and others, I'm just not sure that government employees, full-time government employees, are an appropriate fit for an advocacy association. I think there's a potential conflict. It's kind of scary, Doug, that we think more alike than might be comfortable, but I thought the same thing. People that ask me, too, well, why didn't you run for the board?
I'm a busy one, but I am a little outspoken and there are a lot of these issues that you bring up are some of the same issues that I have. And then another gentleman that's been with the association for a long time, Jay Wilmot, and he can, you know Jay, don't you?
Yes, I do. He's the only guy I know that can sandbag me. And he's like, you know, Patrick, you just got to change comes from within. And I'm like, okay, because I was ranting and raving.
I even suggested that he become the ombudsman for AEVSI. He's so well known. He's been around for a long time. He's a great guy and he can talk to everyone.
So I agree with you, sir. I wish you the best of luck. You know, your bracket that you're in is really the bracket that I know everyone in and I'm going to give other people an opportunity to come on and share their vision. I wish you the best of luck on that, sir.
We need visionaries like you in the organization, I think, to move the ball forward. And so best of luck on that. And thank you for coming on. Thanks to you and Gene for having me and I look forward to more work in the future with you guys.
Okay. See you soon buddy. Have a good time on vacation. All right.
Thanks, bud. Bye-bye.