Veterans group offers industry-specific training on commercial drones

My name is Tony Canaday and I am at MCON 2025 and I am with Vets to Drones, a nationwide

nonprofit organization that specializes in providing workforce development, mental health resources, and industry solutions to enable veterans to become qualified in the UAS industry

Currently in the UAS industry or what some people currently know it as the drone industry

right? There's many different echelons and environments that you can use drones

We train our veterans to have the industry standard solutions to enable them to be successful

in most, if not all of them. So once a veteran or one of our members acquires their Part 107 license

we help and assist them in utilizing industry standard tools and capabilities that are very

industry specific. Real estate, construction, mapping. We also give them access to things like

ArcGIS. We are partnered with emergency response resources such as air data that enables us to

provide live stream capabilities of the drones in a search and rescue environment if there's a

natural disaster. None of our veterans pay a single dime for any of our resources. It is

completely free to them. The only thing that we ask of them is time in order to study

the material. And then once they acquire their one of seven and take their one

of seven tests through the FAA, they will purchase their own drone and use the industry resources and capabilities to go out and test those resources and become comfortable with them That the important thing Every veteran in order to get them certified is ultimately dependent on them and how much time that they invest into it The best trip or tick that was given to me

was schedule your test first, don't study. And it gives you that capstone event, if you will

that we're familiar with in the veteran industry of I have two weeks to study for this test

and I am scheduled to take this test in two weeks because the test is expensive. It's $120. And sometimes that can be a little overbearing for

a veteran, right? But if you set that expectation and you set that goal, in two weeks, I'm going to

go take that test. Then you invest yourself, invest in yourself and in your future to go take

that test. And we see about a 97% pass rate overall. For all of our veterans that are very

interested and might be nervous in getting into the UAS or the drone industry, it's okay to

feel uncomfortable, it's okay to feel nervous and anxious, but rest assured that we have a network

of qualified veterans across the country in every state that are ready to answer your questions and

provide guidance, direction, and support and enable you to be successful in the drone industry

In order for veterans to get involved with Vets Drones, all they have to do is go to our website

It's www.vets2drones.org. You'll verify your veteran status or your dependent status through ID.me

You'll answer a handful of questions and you'll get an onboard email and give you all the instructions in order to move on to the next step to be a full member

So if you're a veteran, dependent, Gold Star family and you're interested in becoming a qualified UAS pilot, feel free to go to our website

And always remember to move forward. Just look up