From Service to Skydio: Military Veterans Shaping Drone Technology

SOFREP Podcast host Aaron “Rad” Radl sits down with three Skydio veterans—Mike Deeds, Josh Coryell, and Bryan King—as they share stories from their military careers and discuss the unique skills they bring to their current roles at Skydio. With years of service across the Air Force and Army, they explore the challenges of transitioning from military to civilian roles, how their experiences inform their work in cutting-edge drone technology, and the significance of continuing to serve the nation in a new capacity. This conversation honors their journeys and contributions, both past and present.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, what's going on.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is Rad the host of soft Rep Radio, and
today is a very special episode.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
This I can't even I don't even.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Know how to explain it. Okay, So Veterans Day is
right around the corner.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And I have three classy veterans. I said classy. They didn't.
I did.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
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.
But first, I got to tell you about our merch store.
Soft rep dot com Forward slash Merch has all of
our branded items. I want you to go check them
out shop buy something. Christmas is coming up, birthdays, anniversaries.
I mean, who doesn't say, honey, can I please have

(00:40):
a branded softwap flashlight? Yes, they do, they want that,
so go buy that. Okay, thank you. Second, we have
a book club. It's a book excuse me, it's soft
Rep dot com Forward slash book Hyphened Club. For those
of you that already know and are part of it,
thank you for the newest listener out there. It's soft
Rep dot com Forward slash book hyphen Club. Now, once

(01:01):
again I'm your host, Rad and I have a ensemble today, Okay,
as you see from the link that you joined. So
I'm just gonna 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,

(01:24):
what they're doing in their lives, and how we can
just be out there as a positive influence in today's society. Yes,
welcome to the show. Welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
No, we're real here, Okay, this is a real podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
We're just gonna go back and forth talk about, you know,
society and what you're all about.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
And also there's a little thing here that these guys
all have in common. And it seems that I have
shaken the bee's nest at Skydio. All Right, I've had
a few of your guys on, Mike, Mark Valentine, I've
had the General from Australia, two Stone looks like ac DC,

(02:02):
Oh my gosh. And now I have you guys. Okay,
you guys are just passing me around at Skydio. So
I said let's get you all on the show. So,
so Mike, tell us a little bit about yourself. United
States Air Force. What did you do in the Air Force?

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, I was in the Air Force for twenty four years.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
First twelve of those twenty four I was an AMMO troop,
so essentially a glorified logistician that dealt with everything that
blows up. Learned how to drink, party, drive trucks, drive forklifts,
warehouse things, ms.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah, yes, I yes.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
If you ain't AMMO shit, that's it, or you're like
me guy, and did twelve years you cross train and
I became a SE one thirty load master.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Oh no, kidd huh lis there.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
You know, my dad was a Green Beret Special Forces
guy and he was also a load master for his unit.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
No way, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He would be like, yeah,
don't worry about it. I got it.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
That's all he'd ever tell me that I got it.
Don't worry about it. Just stay off my plane. Yeah, man,
because it's your plane. Yeah, you're the loadmaster. It's at
that point, it's you're deciding it, right.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Pilot then commands the dude, but I speak for him,
and therefore that's my plane.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
So let me ask you something about the load that
took off from like Kandahar years ago or one of
those you know, probably that C five, maybe C seventeen
taken off.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Seven seven, the white one. Are you talking about the
big white one that came up and then cartwill.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, yeah, probably so yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
If that was a load restrength, they had mixed load restraints,
so chains and straps and these things break and fail
at different rates, and that led to some armored vehicles
falling towards the back of the aircraft.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Which by itself is is awful because.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Your weight and balance is way off its way in
the back and you have a high risk of stalling out.
But it also took out the flight controls, so all
the hydraulics for the vertical and horizontal stabilizer became.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
An operative at that point, and there was no put
There was no way.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
There's never recover. They're just gonna fall out of the
sky like that.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yep, that's what's happened, I see, all right, from a
load master's point of view right there, all right, for
those of us that have seen that, thanks for kind
of giving us some insight on that situation.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Right now.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Being a loadmaster is where you can put like, okay,
see what thirty can hold x amount of troops, or
can hold x amount of weight with the vehicles, or
you can hold x amount of vehicle and troops. So
you know that's that was your goal is to know
every you know aspect of that, right.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, one hundred percent. We had a DASH nine that
we could reference, so like tap one, tap two.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
You know, personnel and maybe you're loading up ninety two
troops and they have all their baggage, so you can
do ninety two and one with the palette the rear.
It changed over the course of my career. I was
E NH Models first and then I went to the
J meaning it had two more palette positions, so like
a total of eight. But we also did things like
air drop and cool shit like that. Would go out

(05:01):
and drop things for folks that needed it really bad,
or you know exercises. We'd airborne dudes like your dad,
they jump out of the airplane and we'd help.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Make that back up the jump master.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
When the back door drops down, are you hooked up
like with like what they call a monkey tail and
chinooks and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, So if we're doing tailgate operations.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
If we proceed past that that line, the line where
the ramp crest is, we have to hook up, and
it's it's like a monkey tail, it's just a little
bit longer. Essentially, just not letting us fall out of
the airplane. And then if we're doing you know, true
door ops, the side doors that they usually go out of,
we don't necessarily need to hook up.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
We just need to not fall out.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, just not fall out while they sit there and
pull their static lines aside and they're just kind of
hanging out while the jump master's in charge of all
of that. And then okay, my loads out the we're
good and back to the air force base.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, we open the door and make it look like
we know what we're doing. We kick the platform out
and look out as if we have a clue as
to what they're looking for.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
And then we kicked back and open up the door
and give it to the jump master and it's all
them from there.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
You ever capture yourself hanging off the edge of the
back of the sea whe thirty doing those cool kind
of like dangling your legs and kind of flights like photos.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
I can neither actually I'm out now. Yes I have
done that.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I love that you're like neither confirmed nor deny. But
one time I got sucked right out.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know, we always joked like that last flight before
you retire, you're just gonna put on your your parachute
and like jump out, you know, not laying with the aircraft.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Then we always thought about.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
You know, life support and whether or not those parachutes
have worked very well and how long they sit on
the aircraft.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
So we decided not to do that.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, I could imagine, you know, I've watched dad jump
out of those. I've been through sea when thirties as
a young man, you know, going through all of that
kind of stuff. I actually saw more hanging out with
my dad as like a ten eleven, twelve fourteen year old,
and he was green bray than ever in the Air Force.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
It was really interesting.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
So would you do in the Air Force?

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Well?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I was supposed to go on and do full fledged
security forces, but I was injured and so I got
a U turn and it directed me back into civilian life.
And so now what I do is I do large
scale wargames, and I've been doing that for about twenty
years now. And guys that have been out, guys that
are in, guys that could never join, that have asthma,

(07:23):
you know, someone who's never had the chance to even
see a C one thirty. They come out to us
and fight with us, and then they might fight with
someone like yourself who's out and you're like telling them, like, hey,
move over to the right and we're going to attack
this compound. And then after that they're going to talk
to you and say, whoa mister Deed's.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
You were in the Air Force, bro? Like, yeah, that's
something I did.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
And they had a little bit of a shoulder shoulder
moment with someone who's been there and done that. You know,
a veteran has a lot of rock star attitude, right,
and how do they take that rockstarness and shine it?

Speaker 1 (07:56):
You know?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
And so we have a stage and if you're out
there fighting with us in wargames, bro, it's gonna you're
gonna be the rock star out there real fast. It's
gonna just you know, today's air softer is tomorrow's. You know,
see one thirty, load Master is tomorrow's. Navy Seal Sniper
is tomorrow's you know, uh Marine Corps cook all right,
because every marine I've met has been a sniper. Let

(08:17):
me tell you all about it. Where's the cook? I
want to meet the cook. I want to meet the
guy that says he's a cook.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
I thought we had a marine on here doing that.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I have, no, we don't, so I'm actually picking on
the I love the Marines. I also love the Navy.
I have a real fondness for the Navy because it's
only as I'm older in life.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
That the pirate's life for me bro okay.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
And the fact is they got the Air Force on water,
they got the infantry on water. That's pretty bad ass
to be on water and having to do all of
these tasks that we get to do on dry land.
So the Navy, in my mind, is just like a
step above a lot of the other branches because they're
doing it on water like eighty percent of the time.

(09:02):
Right backpacking Army, you can't. I mean, they're backpacking and
swimming like I don't even know what do you think
it's actually?

Speaker 5 (09:10):
If I could jump in there, yeah, I have a
nephew that's in the Navy right now, and I gave
him a very long and still give him a very
long hard time just because that's what we're supposed to do.

Speaker 6 (09:24):
But I am, I am. I am very impressed with
all the stuff that he does. I don't show that
and I tell him that, but I do. I do.
I am very impressed in what he does because people
them that I am army and he is Navy, and
I am better.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
So of course, you know. And and the thing is
is like they're doing the job on a boat.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, no, it's it's real and in a wave like
it's like, you know, they're like, you know, the horizon
is always down and up on them and they're still
like just cranking away on a bolt where we get
a crank on that same bolt on dry land.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Thank you Navy. I just want a shout out.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
I got like top coun vibes coming off of this
running through my head.

Speaker 6 (10:11):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah really I love that, dude, I love it. Now.
Yeah can you hear me? Okay?

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Now, oh yeah you're coming through great, Yeah, welcome back
to the show, Josh. Now you're also you're also army, right, Josh?

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I was. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (10:26):
So my career ended a little abruptly back as when
I wanted it to. So I did about almost sixteen years.
My first twelve years. I was field artillery, so I
played Canon. Yeah, so I did thirteen series and then
beginning of my career, had an opportunity to go to
Raven School and launched UAV three aero vironment and I

(10:50):
just fell in love with it and it kind of
just stuck with me throughout my whole time as artillery.
So I was actually getting ready to ets to go
take a job to b a small UAV instructor and
I got an email from Warren Officer Recruiting saying that
it was fully qualified to become a drone warrant.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
It's like I.

Speaker 7 (11:11):
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 on your packet.

Speaker 8 (11:18):
Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 (11:19):
So I had had a very short window to apply.
I had about three months to get letters of recommendations
and I ended up getting selected. So I went from
walks to aviation Whobik all the way through the US
Technician course about a year long at schooling and ended
up being a UAS Warrant officer for the rest of

(11:42):
my career. But due to a jump injury that I
had back in twenty fourteen, 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 I yeah, yeah,

(12:06):
I got medically retired. They're taking care of me though,
the Army and the VAS done really well.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (12:12):
So I've just been doing drones out in this feeling
world ever since.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
And that's u a V right, unmounted aerial vehicle for
my listener out there. That just here's that acronym, and
what's use u A at UAS So.

Speaker 7 (12:26):
It's uncrewed autonomous systems right. So, Uh, the fa over
the years has changed the terminology used to be on man,
now it's on crude. But yeah, so when we say
UAS on crewed autonomous systems, that means we're referring to
the aircraft, the controller, all components of it. If we
say UA V, it's just speaking specifically about the vehicle, right,
So at the end of the day, they're kind of

(12:47):
the same.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (12:48):
There's so much terminology though, and the FAA keeps keeps
switching up the global standard, right, so we just recently
switched to uncrude and then manned aircraft are out crude
right so but yeah, so I've been doing that ever
since retirement. This is my third job since I got
retired doing doing drones. So I had a lot of

(13:09):
cool opportunities in it.

Speaker 6 (13:10):
Though.

Speaker 7 (13:10):
I got to deploy do Eastern Africa with NSW to
do Switchblade.

Speaker 8 (13:17):
It's gotten a lot of really cool opportunities.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
NSW is that Naval Special Warfare.

Speaker 8 (13:21):
It is, yeah, same army though. Yeah, so I was.

Speaker 7 (13:26):
I was a contractor when I retired, I see, and
I got we had a contract, so I gotta do
a lot of really cool, cool stuff with that organization
with various platforms. But yeah, so then I came to
Skydeo about two and a half years ago and I've
been loving it ever since.

Speaker 8 (13:42):
So let's go. I ended up here for.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
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 uas u a V. 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.

Speaker 8 (14:04):
From you guys, I mean, right, yeah.

Speaker 7 (14:07):
One hundred percent, Skydio is is huge ambassadors for for
hiring veterans. We actually two years ago, uh we set
up the Veteran Employee Resource Group where I'm the vice
president of it now.

Speaker 8 (14:20):
But a lot of what we.

Speaker 7 (14:21):
Do is partnering with nonprofits organizations that may have candidates
coming to them that have you know, a lot of
really good backgrounds in uas that are looking at them
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 it's just even uas like veterans who

(14:42):
you know are looking for work, definitely check out Skydio
because granted, like we're we're a drone company, right, but
not everyone hears drone pilots obviously, right like.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Right, yes, brackets brackets that there's probably crew chiefs all
the way down to administration that can come on.

Speaker 7 (14:59):
Board or you know, yeah, everything from logistics to engineering
to training.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
We've got who's injured and still capable can still apply
and try to get a job and you know, feel
some fulfillment in themselves if they're sitting there moping around.

Speaker 7 (15:15):
Absolutely, Yeah, SCTTIO is. Our recruiting program is is top
notch too. They I think Skatio has really figured it
out when it comes to hiring. It was definitely a
unique onboarding process than any other company Will works for.
It was more of a selection process rather than a
typical job interview.

Speaker 8 (15:36):
But it works right.

Speaker 7 (15:38):
It makes sense because there's I haven't met a person
at Skutia that I go, how did you get here?

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Right?

Speaker 7 (15:44):
Everyone here is smarter than me, and it's and it's
just a constant challenge to get.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Thing just makes sense. You're just like, okay, you're here,
You're here, everybody's here. Why am I here?

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Exactly, I'm here. I fly the drone. I fly the drone.
Did you get a flight suit at sky you get
to wear a flight suit?

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (16:01):
It's a big, big fluorescent yellow one headed so yeah,
it's got a big old Scottia logo on the back.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Would be in two x L just saying two x tall,
extra sexy.

Speaker 8 (16:14):
Ye get that extra alarm bicep ones?

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Oh yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, you have to wear the one you have to wear,
the one with the denim cut off.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
I will wear the one with the denim cut off short.
I will do that. I will do that.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
That's the next ear thing, Josh.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
But that would actually be good for air conditioning purposes
and maneuverability and you know, and actually you know if
you could just have like a little flat to go
to the restroom, even better.

Speaker 7 (16:45):
Absolutely, we'll make it work. Yeah, we'll start designing that now.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, my wife just bought a full on snowboard onesie
underlayer thermal that has the flat that opens up so
you can just sit down. And I was like, yes,
because if you've been ever in a full on onesie
and you have to go, you have to like basically
just get naked.

Speaker 8 (17:08):
Why why did you get undressed? Just live it naturally, man,
You don't have to get in dressed just like a Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Can I ask you a question about personal hygiene while
flying the drones?

Speaker 8 (17:20):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (17:21):
So, if you have like an.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Eight hour mission and you're flying that with an army
or skidie or whatever the case may be, are you
allowed bathroom breaks or are you hooked up.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
To the.

Speaker 6 (17:32):
What?

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (17:34):
No, so it's definitely you put.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
It on autopilot and just walk away and go to the restroom.

Speaker 7 (17:40):
Sure, so our aircraft fly an average of thirty to
thirty five minutes, and you're typically not by yourself. So
in the event of hey, hold to control, our.

Speaker 8 (17:49):
Need to run too. The pot real quick.

Speaker 7 (17:52):
In the Army was a little bit different because our
aircraft could fly. One aircraft HULD fly for nine hours.
You're inside of an actual containerized ground control station. The
Gragle could fly upwards of twenty four hours. So those
you would have to, you know, tell your your co
pilot if you will a watch it controls them.

Speaker 8 (18:11):
I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (18:13):
So I don't think I've ever had a situation where
I'm like, crap, the aircraft's up and I need to go,
and I have nothing I can do, and if I'm
in that boat, I'm by myself anyways, So I'm just
gonna pop the squad right there and have at it.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, And so then I just have to say, there's
like the female drone pilots mm hmm, Okay, do they
get a chance to take a break to go use
the facilities or are they hooked up to that machine
that is supposed to like take care of their business,
but it can malfunction on them.

Speaker 7 (18:40):
No, I've never seen an issue between male and females
when it comes to the restroom breaks like in the
drone the drone community, like we usually, especially when you
get to the larger systems that require runways, you usually
have a platoon of thirty plus soldiers. So I mean,
if it's a case of like they have to go
and there's no other options, like there's something really really

(19:01):
wrong bathroom.

Speaker 8 (19:02):
Breaks, probably like police for worries if we're in the situation.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I mean, Yeah, I met an F eighteen pilot female
and I'm not going to give her call sign out
because I don't want to call her out. But she
said that her device malfunctioned like three hours into the flight. Okay,
and so she and for guys, you can just pee
into the pee into.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
It to the pack. Yeah, the pittle pack, thank you.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
She had to have like some special suction device attached
to her that was if she had to go, it
had to like you know, it wasn't a pitdle packet,
cause all these puddles all over her F eighteen. She
had to go, and it was like everywhere. So she's
flying and I had a land on an aircraft carrier
and then opened up the cockpit and everywhere was all
these puddles.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Of urine and what's a girl to do?

Speaker 2 (19:47):
So I only asked that because that's in my mind, okay,
And I'm.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Like, oh, drone pilot, eight hour drone flight, do you
have to go?

Speaker 2 (19:55):
You know, like what about a girl's And I'm just
you know, equal opportunity drone pilot here.

Speaker 8 (20:01):
Yeah, No, it's yeah, I think it's it's a good consideration.

Speaker 7 (20:05):
I think it's the benefit of of the U the
drone world though, right is that like we're not stuck
in the cockpit, right, Uh yeah, we're not stuck behind
the controls, limited in a seat belt. We have the
ability to be a little bit more, a little bit
more relaxed when it comes to grow procedures with you know,
regarding like that.

Speaker 8 (20:21):
Kind of stuff. But considerations though, yeah, suah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
I would say something about Skedio drones. It's different than
everybody else. Is our autonomy, our ability to do things,
set up a mission and just monitor be a BEI
just we're just watching at that point.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
This is a flying.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
Supercomputer that's about this big with a little controller.

Speaker 8 (20:46):
And I was just down in.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Florida flying recovery efforts from.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Hurricane Milton with Brian King there, and I was doing
mapping missions over neighborhoods that were already inundated, some some
homes completely underwater and not seeing the cresting of that
flooding until later today, maybe early tomorrow. And I would
set up a mission over a broad swath of area
that takes thousands of photos. And I was eating the

(21:12):
star crunch and drinking some gatorade and BS and with
the sheriff dude that was there with us, looked just
like Farva, I swear to God, and you're just having it,
just having a good time like Shenanigans. But we could
do that because of this platform, and to everybody's point,
like that's what sets us apart, Like we have this
tiny little drone with massive capabilities, and we don't have

(21:35):
to sit there and make sure it doesn't mess up,
it doesn't mess up on its own.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Right, And you touched on this right now. So currently
while we're filming this, you know, the hurricanes have been
hitting the panhandles in the east coast Florida, and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
So Skydeo has rallied up a crew.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
You're one of them also, Brian is and you guys
have gone down there to help with reconnaissance and recovery
or you know, identify buying anything that might need to
be like with for the probably Armory Corps of engineers
that need to see like is this breaking, is the
dam breaking?

Speaker 1 (22:06):
You know, any of that kind of stuff. You guys
are being able to help with that.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Brian can speak to this a lot. He supports the law. Brian,
he's down there in Florida.

Speaker 6 (22:18):
Can you hear me? Good?

Speaker 1 (22:20):
We hear you.

Speaker 6 (22:24):
So, Yeah, we've been down there as well as Josh.
But we I'm able to get message gut you pretty
quickly understanding could you You'd be surprised on how many
kind of hurricane Alley don't understand what when a hurricane
is kind of I mean, and how to prepare for it.
So getting that information out to Scudio. As far back

(22:46):
as UH two, when Hurricane Ian came ashore, we were
able to position gear ahead uh so that we support
our agencies while they were and when I say flying,
I mean eight to twelve hours like earlier. A lot
of flying. We have an agency right now that they

(23:07):
did two hundred and fifty flights in like three and
a half days. One agency in a whole list of
agencies that were affected. I'm going into the structural in
Texas buildings and so on and so forth. We're able
to use our autonomy on sky and basically just set
some parameters and the drone and goes in and creates

(23:31):
a win of that area. I had to go downtown
Saint Petersburg, Florida on Saturday, I think it, and do
what we call a three D scan of a you
know those touch giant cranes they do construction with these,
They are real skinny. Yeah, And so about three hundred
feet up, a portion of that fell off during the

(23:52):
hurricane and fell on top of another building. I'd be
happy to share that with you too, but they it
was it was like it was almost it's like a
Universal Studios mock up of of a of a catastrophe
because it was just wasn't it just felt surreal And
so we were able to do take our drone, set
the parameters and it went in, went around, went around,

(24:13):
the crane, went around the building, and it creates enough
data points for us to to stitch them together so
that not only you can use this over time for
maybe insurance reasons, investigational reasons, but just it's a marker
in history of what happened there. You know, so super
happy to be able to respond to our agencies. You know,

(24:36):
I can maybe it's maybe you know, we had some
people there that were vets. Me and Mike were there,
and there's a handful of others. We have some people
that weren't vets, uh, and but we all just kind
of we grind it out with a couple of r v's. Uh.
Some of us were lucky to give hotel rooms. But
it was it was fun. It brings out the It
brings out that little bit of a green man army

(24:58):
man aside of me when I when I get stuff
like that. So my wife's like, Thursday morning, the storm
hits Florida, and I like my nine thirty that morning,
I'm packing the truck. She's like, where are you going?

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, dude, Yeah, there's just something in you guys that
you know, all of our veterans out there that have
that call to serve mentality, whether you're being paid or not,
there's some type of something inside of you, whether it's
helping the neighbor out just taking a step over in
their direction, or just helping them out, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
So that's probably.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
One quality you guys look for at Skydio in a
veteran or somebody that's applying, is just a little selflessness
to the mission, just making sure that it gets the
job done. And then also my question is maybe any
of you can answer who you can point to, whoever
wants to answer this. If I rad was to come
to Skydio and apply to be a drone operator, what's

(25:52):
the one thing that you would advise somebody to have
already kind of on their resume. Is it a certain
schooling of like, you know, is it geometry? Are you
guys looking for someone that's already you know, got a
business degree you know, that can fly a drone or
do they need a pilot's license?

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Can you give me some type of sure?

Speaker 8 (26:11):
Yeah, please, Yeah, I can hop on this one.

Speaker 7 (26:14):
So there's a couple of industry standard certifications that are
definitely good to have, right. So, there's the FA Part
one O seven, which is the Small Unmanned Air PREFT
Systems Commercial Pilot License, Right, So that allows you to
fly to get paid and it be done legally. So
part one of seven is definitely a really really nice

(26:37):
to have. I think a lot of it too, is
specific backgrounds. So like instructor trainer jobs. I've seen some
people come through that have really deep backgrounds in like education,
like from the military, being instructors in the military. And
in fact, a lot of our training team came from
from teaching, you know, drones in the military.

Speaker 8 (26:56):
But we also have people on that team.

Speaker 7 (26:58):
That weren't prior you in srastructors, but they they hold
certain attributes, right, like because you know, to be a teacher,
you got to be comfortable with public speaking, right, right,
And so a lot of times two we look for
industry experts, right. So if you look at our global
government seeming on the defense side, each of us, even

(27:18):
the three on this call, like we all have a
very unique set of skills, but you know, kind of
like Liam Neeson and Taken, like we've all been trained
in the very set of skills and and together it
forms a really really good team because we each have
our own areas of expertise we call yeah, yeah, and uh,
but yeah, I think and I think a lot of

(27:40):
it too, is just having motivation and make change is
a big one and that really gets That may sound cliche,
but Scottie was really really big about that because we've
been around ten years, but we're still considered a smaller
company and there's there's no idea here that goes into
trash can, right. And and I think that's what's huge
for BET because as a veteran myself, I experienced when

(28:02):
I got out was and I won't name companies, but
first couple of companies I worked at. You know, I
had all this motivation and drive and this experience I
had that I wanted to put somewhere right. For sixteen years,
it was one hundred percent NonStop, and I wanted to
have an ability to get to place that somewhere and
the option is never there was well we've been around

(28:24):
for thirty years, forty years, like this is the way
this runs. You're not making change, right, And that was
my biggest, biggest pripe was like I want to be
creative and use that energy and I couldn't. And I
think that's what's really nice about Skydio is that there's
no there's no bad idea here, right, and no idea
just gets overlooked. So that's that's a huge thing for

(28:46):
bets too, I think is is I'd say me, we're
a little bit of adrenaline junkies, right, So yes, there's
there's opportunities to do that here as well. So but yeah, yeah,
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
No.

Speaker 6 (28:59):
I wanted to jump in there because I think a
lot of us vets share a unique skill set and
that we don't we always look to do something outside
the box. You know, we're always looking to quote unquote
accomplish the mission. Even if there's a wall that's twenty
feet high, we'll call somebody out and say, hey, you

(29:21):
know how to get over that wall. Let's make a
team and make it happen. You know, let's let's find
a way to make things happen. And when I know,
when I'm going through interview processes with with bringing people
on board VET or not VET, prior law enforcement, whatever
the case be. In college grad, I look for that,
you know, I look for that skill set of being
understanding like, yeah, I understand there's a wall there, but

(29:44):
I don't have all the answers, but I know where
to find the answers.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
I'm really impressed. I'm literally like, how do you get
on at Skidio.

Speaker 6 (29:53):
But well, but joking.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Aside, it's like if you if I was working and
all of a sudden you showed up to do this
job at the Seed, I would be like, how do
you get that job?

Speaker 4 (30:05):
And a lot of people ask that, right, And we're
constantly growing, And to both of these gentlemen's points, there's
a few things that we definitely look for, and there's
obviously there's obviously been a general like idea of how
we do stuff, and it's very similar to what I
assume a lot of the people you talk to had

(30:27):
done things in their prior military careers. Now, first off,
I was not special Forces. I supported them sometimes and
even deployed on occasion and support of special people doing
cool things. But this organization Skidio is at least on
our side of the house, our global government side of
the house, which is where Josh and I work, and

(30:47):
I see it extending into the law enforcement. So it
is a corporation wide feeling of a flat and fast organization.
Right the newest youngest do has just a impactful voice
when vetting ideas and bringing up things that may need improvement.

(31:09):
As the most senior person and That's super important because
that newest guy with that lowest level of experience may
see things differently than everybody else did previously, right, And
that's super important. But one of the key things that
I think is prevalent across the entire company, whether you're

(31:29):
talking to Brian or Josh or me or anybody on
our teams. Yes, it's a passion for what we're doing.
If you don't bring with you that inherent passion for UAVs,
for service for aviation in general, then you're probably not

(31:50):
gonna be picked up for that slot because we're gonna
look for that person that comes.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
With that passion, because that fills a lot of.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
The gaps, Like when it may suck the worst and
things are really hard and challenging, that passion sometimes is
what keeps you at the grindstone to like drive through
and get things done.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
One hundred percent passion in what you love to do
will just keep you going. Right, If you believe in
it so much and someone tells you no, you look
at them like, I believe in it, though, I'm gonna
walk away with this and I'm so passionate about it.
And you know, you try to that's the most entrepreneurs
are passionate about something when they're out of a job. Right,
the definition of an entrepreneur is someone who's out of
a job. They're like, Oh, what am I going to

(32:30):
do for myself?

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
What am I really good at? Well, I'm really good
at call of Duty and controllers. Maybe I could work
at Skydio and drive the robot, you know. I mean,
there's just like, what are you going to be good at?
You know, how are you going to bring that? Maybe
you know coding, maybe no HTML, you know how to program, right,
and you could be really passionate about it. It's like
how do you how do you put it onto canvas? Though,

(32:52):
at the end of the day, like how do you
get that out of you? So it seems like Skydio,
you know. And I'm not saying that you guys are
the end all for every veteran to come and apply,
but you guys have a very healthy environment for that
type of persona.

Speaker 8 (33:05):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. And I think too.

Speaker 7 (33:09):
Kind of go back to to what Brian was saying earlier,
was when Hurricane Milton was coming and they put out
the message that like, hey, we need to start prepping
a team for the upcoming hurricane. Like myself and Mike
were at a government offsite out in Dallas and just
like the.

Speaker 8 (33:29):
The reaction like there was no like, well, why do
we have to do this?

Speaker 7 (33:32):
It was an immediate like we went to a separate
conference room, we started pulling up resources.

Speaker 8 (33:37):
What do you got? What do you got?

Speaker 7 (33:38):
What do you And it reminded me a lot of
like when I'm listening to the military of like, hey,
you have this operation you have to go do you
only have twenty four hours of planet? Go and figure
out your own resources on the way. And I think
that's where that mentality, like that mentality comes in because
they can go, Okay, I know how to plan this out,
I know what to look for. They can you know,

(33:59):
thinking those tiny little details that maybe the other person
doesn't think about. And so that mentality to you know,
golf of what Mike was saying is just that's huge
here and you come with no certifications.

Speaker 8 (34:09):
They're good. That mentality, Yeah, like absolutely love you.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
I knew you'd say that at one point.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
I knew it wasn't just like you have to have
like every single X on the resume, because if there
is somebody that can fit the bill.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
You'll know, you'll know.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
And if they come to you and approach you and
have that Genesse quack, then then there it is right.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
True story.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Now, now, I know none of us are in an
airport right now, and I feel like I'm hearing a
restaurant in the background.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Am I hearing that? Are you hearing that, mister Deeds?

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, that's weird. It's almost as if we're in an
airport all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
But but but wow, it's gone. It's magic. Oh my goodness,
I oh wow.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Here we all are. We must be in the airplane
now pressurized with no sound.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Well not a.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Well done now now, now, mister Deeds, how many ferraris
do you really have?

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Huh?

Speaker 4 (35:13):
It was corvettes and I gave them all to my
friends at the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
You're the best, oh jeez. And then you go back
to work just to be like the rest of us.
What an amazing person.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Of course, And my foot is definitely not black, no,
as far as you know.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
As far as I know, yes, exactly. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
You're awesome and you just have to live with that,
just like I just called Forrest Gump all the time.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Hey Forrest. Yeah, I'm like, thanks, Hey, I was running.
Now I'm tired.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
I get the mister deeds all the time.

Speaker 9 (35:47):
I get the dirty deeds done dirt cheap and facty deeds,
basic training, basic training off the bus. Dirty deeds done
dirt cheap was out of the TI's mouth before or
you knew it.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Dude, He's like, where's dirty deeds done? Dirty? Which one
are you?

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Oh, Lachland, good old Lachland the gateway, Yes, sir. Now,
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've got drones, You've
got your working drones, but law enforcement?

Speaker 6 (36:31):
Yeah sure, can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah for sure?

Speaker 6 (36:34):
Okay, sorry my video my camera cut out. I think so. Yeah.
So I'm a engineer with Skydio, and so my role
is to work with an account executive to go out
and talk to see a couple public safet agencies to
make sure I guide them down the right solution path,
be a hardware software. Matter of fact, I'm sitting in

(36:55):
a parking lot of the Mets spring training facility. I'm
about I mean an agency here to give them a
little bit of a training on their new ex Studio extends.
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 kind

(37:15):
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 we call it SLED. State Local and Education

(37:36):
is the acronym for for our for our team here
at Studio, we handle all the you know, state municipalities, counties,
emergency management colleges, universities and things like that, and I
work with them on a day to day hour league basis,

(37:57):
making sure that they understand what they're getting and how
they're getting in so that they can get out and
be functional and operational as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
How does someone know to call you?

Speaker 6 (38:07):
Because I'm Brian Kinge, they know to call me?

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Anyways? John Story in the show.

Speaker 6 (38:14):
Yeah, yeah, So so, I mean we're pretty We're pretty
well known out there. We do a really good job
getting out in front of the customer doing real live demos,
hands on demos. We go to big conferences. We partner
up with people that are out there, so you know,
if we can't make it everywhere, at least somebody's out
there talking about us. And uh not for nothing. But

(38:36):
you know, we we've spent a We spend a lot
of time on the road each week getting in front
of customers and making sure they understand the complete solution
that we offer, which I mean I'd be willing to
debate and argue that we are the only ones, uh
in the US market, Uh maybe maybe the world that
have an end to end hardware and software solution to

(38:57):
do a lot of a lot of drone activities. At
least in public safety wise, we're able to really showcase
Scuidio from the time you turn on a computer to
the time you pull in somebody that did something bad.
We're able to use our technology to assist officers and
officer safety to the community on all sorts of levels.

(39:18):
To really drive home this technology as a resource that
the higher ups want to have in their ascy.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Now, would America be okay, with a low level drone
flying into New York and picking off a drug dealer
and then flying away.

Speaker 6 (39:38):
The answer is right now, no, no.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Right, right?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
And so sometimes America does that though, and has a
bad rap for it, where we fly into another country
with a low level draw or take out a low
level person of interest and with a drone.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Right, And there's a lot of that out there.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
So you know, as the US, we find it like
we can go and do that, right, Well, we don't
do that here.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
So do we have the means to stop that from Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, Like let's say let's say you, let's say you
were the other guy on another team and you were
doing that here. Do we have the system in place
to stop these drones? Because like, have you seen Terminator ever?

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Any of them? Yes, sir?

Speaker 2 (40:23):
So I just want to make sure and I'm all
for what you guys do. I just want to bring
that other aspect out is you know, what are we
talking about here? Something that has no feelings? Yep, something
that just has a mission and if it's autonomous, it's
on it's on its course.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
But you know we I mean, let's talk about President Obama.
He was very heavily. You know, drone happy. Okay, he
liked to use that a lot, and it's public record.
A lot of presidents seem to like the drones, but
we don't like the drones in our airspace.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
How does that affect you, guys?

Speaker 6 (40:55):
So I think I can talk to a couple of
different levels here and Josh, Mike, please been and help
where you can. So one of the things that we
do is when we go into an agency, we talk
to them about the community and how they're going to
accept how they may perceive the drones, because we are
not public safety wise, we are not enabling our drones

(41:16):
to interact physically at all with with agency with people
in the community. So we do we talk to the community,
say hey, let's be transparent. Let's tell them what the
drones are for. Let's tell them all the value the
drones give to the agency and the money they're gonna save.
You know, instead of buying a twenty four million dollar helicopter.
I'm not saying the aircraft isn't needed and are isn't important,

(41:39):
but there is a value in saying, hey, maybe we
don't need that six helicopter. Let's buy a bunch of
drones and we can monitor areas and we can do
things with those of value. Secondly, you know, the industry itself,
when you talk about the domestic you know, domestic United States,
the industry itself is very watchful of each other. We

(42:00):
are we are always commenting, we are always uh researching,
We're always talking with other people. Uh. And I don't
think the community would accept that. And I'm what I
and I know that the maybe there's people, you know,
if there's a doctor evil out there that's gonna do
right right, uh right, But the community, I'm telling you,
the community is very tight and they're going to raise

(42:21):
that flag immediately. Oh, I mean immediately. And I have
no proof of that other than what I see every
day on social media in between.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Uh it too, and you're living through it, so you're
kind of doing the job and it's not being you know, attacked. Now,
let me ask this question just now. You're in Florida.
Let's say I'm in Florida and I'm somewhere in the
Everglades and you're flying over me and I see this,
and uh, you know, I feel that it's a it's
a threat. Whatever's flying over us. You know, no one's coordinated.

(42:52):
I'm powers out are as anybody trying not to shoot
these out of the sky.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
From that perspective, There's.

Speaker 6 (42:59):
Actually been a case that's gone all the way through
a gentleman in Florida hashtat Florida man has did take
down a drone, a sheriff's drone over his backyard. I
don't know the reasoning for flying the drone there, but unfortunately,
again education of drones and what they use for, and

(43:20):
the fact that they are just like any other aircraft
in that airspace. If you were to shoot something at it,
if FAA can come after you, and they have and
they they are not getting any easier on their punishments.
We're actually probably getting more stringent. So uh, it's it's
something that people need to uh and maybe on us,

(43:41):
you know, not saying skytio maybe his scudio maybe yeah,
or more education, more more willingness to show them. I
mean every a lot of agencies I work with, they
take these drones to what they call Chief's night out
where they have all their swap vehicles and they have
sniper rifles, and they have their boats, and they have
their cars, they have their canines. Now they have drones there,

(44:03):
and they have them there to show the public that
we use these and people come up to say, what are
you using those for? You watch in my backyard? Like no,
I mean, if you're not doing anything wrong, then you
you'll be fine. Now you have power companies that are
pushing hard to do beyond visual line of site. I
was just driving down the street to other day and
there's a power company, a very large power company headquarters

(44:24):
right down the street, and there's a drone going down
the power line doing power line inspections. Nobody in sight,
not a pilot in sight. Uh. And so it's it's evolving,
and I think the community is strong enough and educated
enough and willing to share that information with the public.
I think it's gonna be a transitional there's gonna be
a transitional period and we're in I think we're probably

(44:45):
in it right now, but gonna it's gonna evolve over time,
and I think it's gonna be okay. I think it's important.
Uh here's I'm gonna get on my soapbox for a
second here. I think it's important that American manufacturing and
American jobs and American roes are the ones that are
flying over these communities. And I think that's important, and
I believe that it's the right thing to do. Create jobs,

(45:08):
create drones, and and we'll have it. We'll have a
nice little mixture going on.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
I would agree with I would agree with that statement.
You know, if we can have it built in house,
you know, and you know, just hopefully have it that
streamlined process where it is all you know, the US
made and backed and you know used. I get that,
you know, and if I can go ahead, please yeah, Josh.

Speaker 8 (45:32):
No, sorry, I was I was gonna say too, kind
of go off.

Speaker 7 (45:35):
What Brian was saying was that if you look at
the history of aviation, right, if you look at their
early nineteen hundred's when the first man flight occurred, the
perception across just the US itself was that'll only be
used for male We'll never ride in those things, will
never use them.

Speaker 8 (45:52):
They're dangerous, like we're not going to touch them.

Speaker 7 (45:55):
And I mean, look look on and ten years later, right,
and it's the primary mode of transportation.

Speaker 8 (46:03):
Like I've been on four planes just in the last week,
and so yeah, it is.

Speaker 7 (46:09):
And if you look at uas we're kind of in
that spot in our history timeline of like we're in
that stage is if people are they're freaked out, they're
scared of it.

Speaker 8 (46:19):
They don't know what it is.

Speaker 7 (46:20):
They think it's just a thing at the moment, and
it's going to be done in a few years and
the technology is going to go away, but it's definitely not.
I mean, if you look at the dull, dirty and
dangerous drones are becoming, they're going to be a household
item very soon because missions that are dull, missions that
are dirty and dangerous. We can now remove humans out

(46:42):
of that loop right right, and we can do it efficiently, safely.
So I think that we're just we're at we're starting
to go up our uphill battle that mand Aviation went
through over one hundred years ago, and I think in
one hundred years from now, no one's gonna be able
to imagine life without without a drone.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
I really there was once time without a drone.

Speaker 8 (47:02):
Really exactly was.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
That right around the time they made the wheel.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Exactly just like the coming on the tail end of that,
And maybe wrap back around your initial question, like Joshu,
one hundred percent, we're at an inflection point.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, I love what Skydio is doing.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
Because a lot of the key reasons that we've enabled
the capabilities that these drones have is to keep that
human operator out of harm's way or potentially keep them
from going into a risky situation that they don't necessarily
have to, but get similar, if not better results than
if we had set that person. So to wrap back

(47:44):
around to your question about kinetics and you know, using
drones to take out that drug dealer around the corner
or abroad, right, and you brought up autonomy, I think
a very important thing to understand and like be mindful
of our leadership, whether it's skidial leadership or our governmental, federal,
DoD presidential leadership, all the way down. Everybody is on

(48:10):
board with always having a man in the loop. IFO
we're making a hard decision concerning someone on the ground
with a drunk SCUIDEO, we do not weaponize our products.
Our autonomy is used for compelling use cases, to keep
people out of harms bay and to provide like Great

(48:35):
Brian brought up to three D scans right, like that
rain that fell into that building, Well, now they have
to figure out how to get the crane off the
building without causing more damage or hurting anybody, but they
can't well that well, now they can that three D scan,
they have a digital twin to centimeter level accuracy to
look at and like go through with the contractual engineers

(48:58):
that are going to be looking at all, like okay,
how do we take the crane and effectively remove it
without causing any more damage or hurting anyone. And we
provide those things. But in our federal which is what
I do. I support federal globally using our products. Even
in Ukraine. Our drones keep people out of harm's ways

(49:22):
so that they can make hard decisions.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
And I was going to bring up some Ukraine, you know,
because there is a man that I interviewed. He was
doing press for Esquire magazine over there, and he was
in the trenches with like a twenty year old and
he's like, how did you learn all of these maneuvers
that you're doing, bro?

Speaker 1 (49:39):
And he's like, I just it just came to me.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
And he's like, no, there's something about this guy, the
way he hold his gun, the way that he was
doing this mission.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
The fifty year old was like, let's go this way.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
The fifty year old Ukrainian was like old Russian taught Ukrainian.
The twenty year old is like, just sit still for
a second, hold on and watch, and he sent a
drone up and they went and did whatever they had
to do. And he's like, you know, so he's merging
that you're not in your head.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Josh. You're like, yeah, rad, this is what's up. You know.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
The old grunt was just like, let's just charge the trenches.
And the young dudes like just sit still for a second,
hits his big gulp and just starts flying it. Dude, Okay,
and that guy lives another day, the old dude. So
you know, there is a young man's game involved, right,
But not to say that someone in their fifties sixty

(50:26):
year old couldn't bring that skill set as well.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
You know, it's amazing. It's amazing. You know.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I do talk to so many people, you know, mister Deeds,
that have been in all these different conflicts, and they
talk about these drones and talking to you guys directly
is just kind of a cool thing for me.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
I'm trying to keep it real, I tell you what.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Because there's air drops, right, there's guys on top of
mountains and that get it, Like they have heavy duty
drones that can take their stuff right up to them,
working on ski lifts all that kind of stuff. So
there is a very cool need for these types of things.

Speaker 7 (51:02):
Yeah, and that's and it's interesting because that's kind of
where Scudio started, right Scutio, uh, when they started back
in twenty fourteen, was was made for action sports recording
like snowboarding and mountain biking.

Speaker 8 (51:14):
And and look.

Speaker 7 (51:16):
Ten years later and we're completely entrenched with with these
three verticals, you know, the fens and sleds. So yeah,
it's crazy how much can change.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
But yeah, boarding, Yeah, snowboarding, Okay, that's me.

Speaker 8 (51:31):
Yeah. Maybe if you like parkour you could use it
for park ord.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
I guess snowboards are right there, bro, Yeah, I'm in
Joe really oh really right there, I'm getting bad.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
You got a spot on your couch. Sounds going to
be falling right here? All right here, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Utah, we write it brighton, Brighton love brighton.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
Yes, come ride with me, you and and and give
me one of those drones that can like I can
like a button on me and it follows me.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
We can do that.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, yeah, man, I love the snowboard.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Holy cow.

Speaker 7 (52:12):
Yeah, that's what and that's what the company started on.
I don't know if Adam or CEO ever had the
ever had the thought that in ten years where it
would be right and you just now look at us
and we're just we're global, right, which is awesome.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
A good job, Adam, Good job, Adam. Yeah, rock and
roll right there, bro Yeah, okay. Well, And the cool
thing about snowboarding and extreme sports and getting outside yourself
is it's great for veterans. I like to say thrills
before pills here at soft Rep, you know, we like
to say, yeah, go check yourself out, get pre checked,
you know, go get your colonoscope, go get your I

(52:50):
envision tested, and go make.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Sure that your blood levels are cool. Don't be scared
of that.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
And you know, get outside and go, like, you know,
explore the environment around you.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
I'm fortunate enough to live at right outside of like
everybody's bucket list of ski resorts, and I get to
ride them like seventy to eighty times a year in
a season, So I know that I'm blessed. But I
tell you, every time I'm on that ski lift and
I see sparkles of snow in my eyes as I'm
going up. I'm like, I'm free. I'm not like ninety

(53:23):
nine problems and snowboarding ate one of them. Okay, but
thanks Adam at skidio for being about adventure sports and
now your business has grown, sir, and into some type
of realm that is still growing.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
You're growing your own realm and you've.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Got all of this expertise that is riding along with
you and the team at skidio and Kelly and Mark,
you know, and all of you guys. Just congratulations on
you know, bringing me cool.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Guests for the show. Dude, That's all I got to say.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
You guys keep coming out with them, like, yo, Rad,
you want to talk to one of our other guys.
I'm like, yes, we should just be saying idio slash
soft rep. But at the end of the day, you're
veterans who chose to call to serve your country. You
raise your hand in a ninety degree fashion, probably more
than once. Okay uh, And that's a big thank you

(54:17):
from me and from my listener and from our community
and our country and even our allies that depended on
you to show up in the darkest hours of their day.
You know, they were really grateful for our American soldiers
and our American sailors, airmen, spacemen.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Can I say that? Okay? If you're out there and
women space women okay, yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Marine corps because you're different, your marines okay. And if
there's a marine out there, a sky deal that wants
to get on and represent and talk about how it
is to be a marine, you just send him my
way or her.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Love it.

Speaker 8 (54:55):
I think we have a handful of them, yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
A handful of some marines.

Speaker 8 (55:00):
We keep them around.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Just bring me your marines, yes, yes, bring your marines.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I love it. Now listen, guys,
I can't believe it's been an hour and we've been
talking back and forth already. I guess the mission is
Happy Veterans Day. Thank a veteran. You know, skidio is
out there looking for a good working individual that wants
to be in the drone space.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
If you're a.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Veteran, you got a little bit of a leg up.
Just submit your resume to skidio dot com. Try to
figure that out. We'll have it posted up down below.
Like you know Skidio's link. You know a little bit
of our dissertation. So I really want to say thank
you for being on the show and uh and helping
to like helping humanity with the drones, okay, because we've

(55:49):
all seen Terminator.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (55:51):
No, I appreciate you having us and getting us on here.

Speaker 7 (55:54):
And it's a great opportunity to just kind of talk
about what we do and where we've come from and
how we look forward to grow and yeah, I really
shate this, this opportunity.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Oh, you're all three rock stars. I could talk to
each one of you individually, your waffit packet. We can
go over that army. We could talk about your army
life and what you did in the Army Air Force.
We could just get right into all the C one
thirty jokes and like you know, puffin twenty five millimeters shell,
thirty millimeters shells.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Whatever comes out of you know, all day long.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
So thank you again, And and you guys are welcome
back at any time to give an update on what's
new with your your company at anytime on soft rep.

Speaker 8 (56:31):
Awesome. Thanks so much, man, appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (56:34):
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Yeah, couch, Yeah, Kelly, she's still here.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
I think she is.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
She's probably on a flight, but we'll give her a
shout out. You know what I'm saying, because she knows
what's up. She's always like, rad let's just get some more.
You guys are great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
Love it, thank you. The couch is right here, Bud,
it's right here.

Speaker 6 (56:55):
Cool, I'm on it right.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Here as you get that first Did you get the
first due?

Speaker 1 (57:00):
All right?

Speaker 6 (57:01):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (57:01):
We well we already got snow in September.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
We're hoping for it here this weekend and we'll know
in the next few weeks if we'll be writing before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
So bruh, love it.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Now on behalf of Josh Coral, Mike Deeds, Brian King, myself,
soft Rep Skuidio. I want to say thanks to my listener,
my viewer, and if you're out there, like and subscribe.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Comment down below, hit the notifications. It wasn't for you,
there be no us. All those things matter. I'm gonna
say peace.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
You've been listening to self Rep Radia