UAS News Podcast — 2012-07-25
Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to another installment on the UAS News Podcast Series. We're going to discuss the issues of news that are relevant to the Global Unmanned Technologies Community and just remember that we interview the newsmakers. And this week's episode, we're right on target with that. We're going to have a conversation with Gretchen West.
She's the Executive Vice President of AUVSI. We're going to discuss the Association's current events or current happenings and the show coming up in August, August 6th through 9th in Las Vegas. I'm your host, of course, Patrick Egan, and I'd like everyone to say a big hello to our co-host, Gene Robinson. Gene, are you out there?
I am. Hello, Patrick, and hello, everyone. All right. Strictly business here.
How's the syllabus coming for the training program? Well, you got right into that, did you?
It's getting a throw and larger as we speak, but there's a lot of territory to cover and there are the folks who keep adding things in that they think are pertinent and I think it could be pretty beefy by the time it's all said and done. I'm a little scared to see what you got when you throw it back to me, but I'm optimistic. I think it'll be good and then it'll be time to do days and days worth of PowerPoints. I am good at that.
I can pontificate during PowerPoints until the cows come home. And the book?
The book's doing good. Anything new on that?
Still, a lot of positive feedback on that and it's still available at suasnews.com slash first-to-deploy or you can go to the ePubs tab on the main page of the SUAS News home page and you can get to it that way as well. Excellent. The other one thing I did want to cover is I just wanted to say a few words and I'm jumping right off of that, but I'll say a few words about Dan Schultz that actually was kind of the handler for ASTM F38 and Dan passed away which was kind of sad and I condolences to his family.
Great guy. Knew him for a long time. You knew him too, Gene. You met him up there in Reno 2005.
It's a real tragedy. Young guy, nice guy, but our best wishes go out to his family. Anyway, moving to the first segment here. We only have 40 short minutes, well, 42 and change, short minutes.
We're going to get this show wheels up and I'm going to introduce our guest. Gretchen, how are you doing?
I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you for having AEVSI on the podcast. I just quickly want to echo your sentiments for Dan Schultz's family.
AEVSI and the whole Unmanned Systems community really benefited from his support over the years, so we echo your sentiments. I know. It was a real tragedy. Great guy.
I mean, he always had a smile on his face. Very professional, you know, warm person. I don't want to get too caught up on that, but yeah, we lost another one of the old guard. All right.
Now Gretchen, I've known you for a while. We've known each other and we converse for the benefit of the audience. We talk now and again and usually I call Gretchen and I'm like, all right, what's going on?
So we've been going back and forth for a few years here and you've been with AEVSI for a while. What I would like you to do for the benefit of the audience, people that don't know you, could you please give us a bio, how you got involved in this and where you're at today?
Well, I've been with the association for about eight years and I started out when we were very small with about seven employees and I was in charge of all of our marketing communications, exhibit sales, advertising sales. Over the years, we've grown and expanded and taken on new initiatives and kind of jumping eight years forward, I head up our government relations and advocacy work. I also do a lot with our strategic partnerships, our global business development.
I work with our regional international affiliates around the world and basically just trying to expand our presence and bring more value and services to the members across the globe.
I came into this, I kind of fell into the job. I knew the old executive director when I got out of graduate school and kind of fell into it and can't imagine being in a better place. This is really a tremendous industry and it's a lot of fun and there's a lot of excitement that's happening for sure. I would agree with that.
It seems to be, it's kind of funny and you're one of the old guard too. And that you've been here for so long that I'm sure you've seen the cyclical changes in this industry and we talk to that every now and again. Now people are like, hey, you know what, I thought of a new use for this technology. And they're like, oh really?
Well, you know, well, what is it? And it'll mention something and you say, well, you know, okay, that was already done or I got another question here from some grad students in there like, well, when do you think the first transatlantic flight of a small UAS will be?
And I was like, 10 years away or 20 years? And I'm like, yeah, it was done in the late 1990s. And they're like, really?
Hmm, you know, that's interesting. So it's kind of funny. Well, the association is, sorry, I was just going to say, well, the association is 40 years old. So this year, so that obviously signals that this technology has been around a long, long time.
It's really only just become more publicly, the public's really kind of caught onto it more in the last five to 10 years. But this has been around a long time. It has been and it is kind of funny how it's just like at the forefront of everything now. It's like everybody's talking, you know, we got two drones out there, man, and there's, you know, zillion different thoughts.
And it is kind of an interesting thing how this is coming back around. But I will say that the technology offers so much. It's just it's really kind of sad that we're getting, let's say we're stumbling on these issues when there's so much promise. But, you know, we as a group, we will talk about that more and try and get the word out there.
Now, you did go into some of the hats that you're currently wearing. And, you know, I know that you're very busy and, you know, you talked about some of that stuff. And then even today, you were on another call with another effort. And I'd like you to kind of also talk about some of the other things that you've been doing up on the Hill.
I texted you, I don't know, it was a couple of weeks ago. And you're like, oh, I just got out of a meeting with the FAA or I'll try and call you and you'll be like, well, I just got out of talking to, you know, Senator so-and-so's office. Could you please, could you maybe go into that a little bit of this stuff that you've been currently doing?
Sure. Well, we've been up on the Hill for the last couple of years. We've worked with various members of Congress and their staff and with the aviation subcommittee to help craft the language that went into the FAA reauthorization bill. You know, it was busy up on the Hill, but not as busy as it is now.
Once the FAA reauthorization passed, it was kind of this can of worms opened for our industry, mostly for the good, but it has been challenging. We helped with setting up the Unmanned Systems Caucus. Congressman McKeon and Congressman Cuellar are the co-chairs of that caucus and we have helped them to get more members to join that caucus. I think that there are up to 50-some members now.
And we've given them some support and some advice on caucus events and who to invite. We've presented at some of the caucus events as well. So this is all prior to FAA reauthorization. So once that happened in February, the public really took notice of this.
UAS technology and integration in the airspace really became something that people took notice of. So the media caught wind of it. So we've fielded probably 150 media interviews since February talking about this. And then of course, as everyone knows, the privacy issue really kind of came to a head.
And that's been probably one of the biggest issues we've been dealing with on the Hill. We've met with the ACLU and almost a dozen civil liberties groups just to kind of start a dialogue to talk about what privacy means, what this technology means, what it could be used for. So we've really started that dialogue with those groups to try to just make sure we all understand where each side is coming from. And we've had some good discussions so far.
From a Hill perspective, from a privacy perspective, there's been several members of Congress that have, I believe, been getting calls from their constituents that are nervous or just concerned about privacy because it's just been so big in the media in the last couple months. And there's been some erroneous statements that have been made and some misleading information that's been put out in the media to sensationalize the negativity of our industry.
So there's been some talk about some language and some amendments to bills that were going to come to the floor on the Hill that would negatively impact our industry.
So our team got up on the Hill very quickly. They've met with probably 80 different offices since June to try to educate members of Congress about the benefits of technology and not to really have a knee-jerk reaction in creating language that would be detrimental to technology that really could increase, has a lot of economic impact and can create jobs in the future. So from a legislative standpoint, that's kind of a high level of what we've been doing. There was a hearing last week about, it was really focused on DHS, but there was some discussion about the whole issue of GPS boosting.
And we've been up on the Hill trying to educate about that. We have submitted official testimony to that hearing, written testimony from an industry perspective. And we submitted some questions which I believe were addressed to some of the members on the panel of the testimony. From an FAA perspective, we have been working with the regulators fairly regularly.
Jim Williams is the new head of the Unmanned Systems Integration Office. And we talk with him regularly. We've offered our industry support in collecting information and making sure that they have everything that they need to make smart decisions. We've met recently last week in a group with acting administrator Michael Huerta.
The first thing he brought up was his support of UAS and that they are committed to the timeline set forth in the FAA reauthorization bill. However, they are concerned about privacy and they reiterated, we agree that FAA is not the right agency to manage any kind of privacy issues. FAA is really mandated to protect the safety of the skies and aviation. So there's a lot of different areas where we're focusing.
We're working, we're members of ASPM and our TCA. We're talking with SAEs. There's a lot of different areas where we're trying to represent our members and help really push this technology forward and really try to reduce the barriers that are seemingly popping up more and more. Well, that was a lot of information and I'm glad we had a chance to get that out.
The only thing I will say about the privacy thing, and I want to kind of reiterate this, is that as an industry or manufacturer of any good or service, you assume that the end user is going to use that product within let's say the confines of the law of the land. And it's like anything else. I mean, if you manufacture a toaster or a printer or whatever, you're manufacturing that and you hope that people are going to use it responsibly. And I think that's the same thing with unmanned aircraft.
I mean, I try and tell people too with the sensors, look at the EOIR sensors that are already out there and in use by local, state and federal law enforcement. And you can be seen at a slant range of 20 kilometers. Most people, the public out there on the street don't realize that. So I think people are waking up to a lot of their privacy has been eroded by technology and they've given up some of that privacy from technology.
And I think we're caught up in that web. But I don't want to get too far. Well, I just want to say in response to that, we have, you know, in response to some of our members and some of our conversations with the regulators, we published a Code of Conduct just several weeks ago and it really focuses on exactly what you just said. It's on safety, responsibility and respect.
And it's really making sure that the users and the manufacturers use these systems in a responsible manner. And, you know, we've gotten some, there's been some press that it's not, you know, we're not in, it's a voluntary Code of Conduct. And we did that intentionally. We're not regulators.
We're not, we're not, we're a trade association. So this is a Code of Conduct that we've put out there and we've gotten a lot of support from our corporate members that do endorse it and will hopefully continue to endorse it. And it's a voluntary guideline for the industry. It's not something that we plan to, you know, enforce as some kind of regulator.
Right. And the other thing is being like, you know, an industry group or whatever. You can only put guidelines out there and then it's up to the community. I mean, if somebody goes out there and uses this technology, let's say in a way that's unsafe or whatever, the community is probably going to shun them and say, you know, we don't know who this guy is over here.
We don't condone that and you're going to be kind of disowned by the community. And that's all an industry group can do. We don't have any legal recourse. We can't make laws.
So I think people have to realize that. I think some people, I mean, I've seen stuff out there where they say, well, you know, if you're a golfer, you could be thrown off the golf course. We're not talking about golf. Okay.
We're talking about technology. But anyway, I don't want to get too caught up on that. I think that's a good step in the right direction. And I think that that should kind of be a living document.
And as the technology is being so dynamic and diverse, as we move into the future, we can always add to the document or subtract or whatever we need to do. So good for a start. You know, you can't please all the people all the time to ask me how I know. You know, I'm telling you, my mantle is not cluttered up with Christmas cards anymore.
I got plenty of room. So it's an appeal for cards. The other thing I wanted to talk about now, you talked about a lot of stuff that you guys are doing. And I know that you're spearheading a lot of these efforts, but I know that there's some other members of the team.
Could you please talk about Ben and Mario at all? Sure. Well, you know, as a nonprofit, we actually do have a very small staff. We have a lot of different initiatives outside of advocacy that we do with knowledge and meetings and events and publications and so on.
But Ben Guilo is our government relations manager and general counsel. And he is really focused on the UAS. So he's the one who kind of leads the charge with the FAA on the Hill. He's going door to door to talk to various members of Congress.
He's the one who actually sits in on the ASTM committee meetings and he attends the RTCA symposium. Mario Moreno is another one of our government relations managers. And he is actually focused on the ground and maritime advocacy efforts that we've got going on, as well as some of the export control advocacy that we're working on as well, which is more relevant probably for your audience. But Mario does also, he has been on the Hill helping educate members of Congress about the power of the government.
He's been helping educate members of Congress about the privacy issues, et cetera. So Ben's kind of the lead for the UAS advocacy activity. Well, and yeah, Mario is a great guy. Ben's a good guy.
I've met Ben in person. I've talked to him on the phone. And when the dust settles down, I want to get these guys here. But it seems like everybody's really busy.
You're working on a lot of stuff. They're working on a lot of stuff. And this is going to kind of go into the next question. You know, I mean, you can't really, I don't think people understand, you really can't put the playbook on Front Street.
You know, we've got all these potential items that we can be working on and you put some effort into them. And then as I was saying, this technology is dynamic. The regulation part of it is dynamic and the public acceptance part of it is dynamic. And things really change quickly.
So moving along to the next question. You know, over the last eight years, I've heard the din from the community kind of getting louder, you know, and not only, I mean, we're focusing on AUVSI, but, you know, people are always saying to me, well, what's AUVSI ever done for us?
And that kind of reminds me of that scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian. And, you know, besides the information and details of the last few answers and the aqua deck, what is AUVSI, you know, people are asking, what is AUVSI, AUVSI ever done for us?
And besides the stuff that you just mentioned, you know, maybe you can speak to some of the other things that are offered by the association. Sure. And part of it depends on what community you're talking about. And, you know, we try to, AUVSI represents air, ground, maritime, defense, civil and commercial markets.
So we're really kind of spread thin as far as the entire industry that we represent. Obviously, the most activity right now is in the unmanned aircraft side of the domains. And, you know, I've obviously mentioned all the advocacy work that we've got going on with that. But again, we also have conferences and events that we're doing.
We have publications. We have our monthly magazine that we put out. We have a weekly e-brief that we put out. Within that, there is a section that we put advocacy news out.
So anyone that wants to know about what's going on in the Hill or with FAA or any news that we've learned, we put it in our weekly e-brief right away in the advocacy section. So there's just a lot of education that we're trying to get out to the community. We're also starting what we're calling our communication campaign, which is a pretty major undertaking that hopefully will be launched in the next couple months. And essentially, when FAA reauthorization happened, the public really took notice of our industry.
And there's some naysayers and a lot more supporters that we found. But it's time for us as an association to educate the general public about the benefits of this technology. So we've been collecting information on all the different applications for defense, civil, commercial, the different types of platforms that there are so that when we do launch this campaign, we're going to be able to really show that there's a lot of great benefits of this technology. We're working on an economic impact study so that we'll have facts and figures to talk about the impacts of UAS integration.
We're working on a jobs report, which we did one back in 2010, but this is going to be kind of a deeper dive and obviously a more updated report from the 2010 that shows the jobs that are going to be available. And a lot of that's going to be used mostly from an advocacy perspective to get the message out there, to encourage more legislators to be more supportive of our industry. But there's a lot of different things that we have. Sorry, you were going to say something?
No, I'm sorry. I didn't want to cut you off. But you hit on a lot of good points. Finish your thought and then I'll ask you some other questions.
I wanted to say we have a knowledge department that is collecting a ton of information. In the next few weeks, we're going to be launching a vehicle database. It's going to be the preview, the beta version of our online vehicle database, which has contact information and specification information for platforms all over the world. We've looked at other reports that have been done, other databases that have been collected from other groups, and we've uncovered more platforms than anyone else.
So that's going to be something that we're going to be previewing at our show in a couple of weeks. And then it will be available most likely to our membership. Various levels will be available to our membership following the show. But that's going to be really valuable for the industry from a matchmaking perspective.
So if you're a sensor manufacturer and you're looking for platforms, this database will give you the information of the type of platforms that are available where your sensor would work. And so on. That's just one small example. So this knowledge team is also looking at writing business cases, doing more market analyses, just really getting more information so that our members, as they're entering the market or they're expanding in the market, they'll have good information to understand the market.
And then also from a lot of what we've talked about is really more U.S.-centric, but we are an international association, so we're doing this on a global basis. So again, we're focusing on some export control issues. We're looking at other markets in other countries to understand what's there. I'm jumping a little bit, but I didn't bring this up before.
I was focused on the Hill activity in the United States. But we are also working with the IKO UAS study group. We've just been invited to join that as an observer. And that really opens a lot of doors for us to have a more active voice on a global scale with UAS integration.
Well, and that's good. If you ever need anyone to go over there and sit in, I'm happy to volunteer. Now, it sounded like Gene wanted to interject. Gene, did you have something you wanted to say?
Well, there was a couple of things that I wanted to mention. I went to the AUVSI back in San Diego several years ago, and it seemed to be more of the large contractor centric than it was anything else at the time. And as a small manufacturer, a very small manufacturer of UA, it would be interesting to me to hear what sort of effort is being put into the smaller end, the guys who are coming up with these really innovative kind of things that don't get filtered up to the larger contractors until they're bought out or taken over, top of the situation.
Well, if you were there in San Diego, that would have been in 2008, and our show has grown significantly since then. But you're right. There are all the major contractors that are at our show, and there are some that say our show looks more like a defense show. And we've really been trying very hard to diversify.
I'm sorry? It really does look more like a defense show than a contractor show than anything else. And it does. And the main contractors will be there at our show this year as well.
But from a show perspective, from an advocacy perspective, from a publications perspective, we are really actively trying to better represent other markets, specifically the civil and commercial markets. The majority of our advocacy efforts is focused on the civil market right now and primarily at small UAS. And that doesn't mean we're ignoring the defense market or large systems at all. But this is the low-hanging fruit right now.
And we believe the community that needs our help the most is smaller companies and the civil and commercial market. We want to get those markets opened for our small members or even our larger members to have access so we can grow the market in a variety of different ways. So we're actively working on that. And I think we're going to have to wait a little bit longer for anybody that goes this year.
I think you'll see we have over 550 exhibitors. Yes, all the big contractors will be there. But we also are trying to diversify and get more robotics companies in. We do have a lot of really small startup companies.
We're not doing it this year, unfortunately, but we're going to see about implementing in the future some more B2B-type haul time, I would say, where the smaller companies are going to have dedicated time with the larger companies. We're also talking about setting up some, I'll say, online communities where we can do some more matchmaking between smaller companies and larger companies to present business opportunities to small companies. Anyone that has ever been to our Unmanned Systems Program Review event, it typically has been a defense-related conference where we have military
and government speakers reviewing various programs.
And for next year, we're looking at adding more civil and commercial discussions and not necessarily be a program review, but be a discussion about business opportunities for those markets. For example, the agriculture market is going to be a huge market in the United States. It's already a huge market in other parts of the world. So we really want to bring that to the table and get manufacturers thinking about how they can have better their technology for agriculture to help really open up that market.
So we're trying to butt off as much as we can chew at one time. And yet we are viewed as more of a defense-focused group, but we are really actively trying to diversify more. And we're always open for suggestions. If there's something that we could be doing more for smaller companies, please let us know because we're always looking to do more for our members.
That's why we exist, is for our members. And that's really one of the things that I wanted to bring up was that since I am a small UA manufacturer, there was nothing to entice me to go ahead and pay that $500 to join AUVSI because it looked like it was more contractor-oriented than it was anything else. And I guess maybe that's why I needed to hear the enticements. What would make it advantageous for me as a small business to join AUVSI?
So thank you. Well, and when we say that we're actively looking to expand, we're going to be reaching out to industry. And again, we're limited in our staff and resources, but we are looking to revamp and make sure that our benefits add value. We haven't changed the benefits since I don't even know when.
Now, I'm not saying that we would not offer the magazine. We will always have a magazine because it's a great benefit for members. But if there's something we're missing, we may just not know about it, and we want to make sure that we're giving the best value. So we will be reaching out to the community and just doing some informal surveys and talking to people about, you know, if you're not going to join, why not?
And what would you like to see out of a membership within AUVSI? So my email address is west at AUVSI.org. And I encourage any listener that's interested, that has feedback, to send me an email. Let us know what you would like to see as a membership benefit.
We can't promise that we would do all of them, but we definitely want to provide better value, the best value we can to the industry. Well, you guys ran right through my show. No, I'm teasing. There's still plenty to do.
Okay. Now, I'm going to be backtracking. I know we're all good. And I think that that was good to hear that.
That's exactly why we wanted to get you on here. Because, like I said, I hear people all the time, what are they doing for me?
I got a magazine. And it's like, hey, man, you know, it's with the advocacy work that I have done and my involvement in this industry, it's like, you know, what you put into it is what you get. And I believe that a lot of people are looking for excuses to sit back and be apathetic. And that apathy has gotten us to where we are today.
So, you know, get involved, you know, get involved and see what you can do. What's that saying?
Many hands make light work. So. Well, and I thank you for that because, and I thank you for saying that. I thank you for the opportunity to have me on here because it is, I think this is a good opportunity to reach out to the community to say, you know, please do get involved, especially from an advocacy perspective, the more people that can share our message, which we are happy to share our talking points and get the word out, the more people that can join us and help in that mission, the better.
And the more feedback we get from the community about what they're looking for, the better we can provide value. And if we don't know what people are interested in, then we can't change. Well, there's that. And then also, you know, I mean, the grassroots thing is very powerful, you know.
And it's hard to have grassroots if you're sitting over there on your hands. So, you know, there are so many times and I know Jean probably feels the same way. I get people, you know, email me or call me. What are you doing for me?
You're not, you know, you've included me. I want to, you know, it's like, well, hey, guy, you know, where have you been?
You call me up out of the blue. You're yelling at me. You know, I'm not really inclined to do much, but I'm trying, you know. I think that, you know, that message that I'm out there and I know like in the Silicon Valley thing, I mean, my thing is I want to monetize unmanned technologies and robotics technologies.
And the whole room lights up. Yeah, we want to do that. So when are you going to do that for us?
And I'm like, hey, if I had the magic phrase or I had a unicorn I could pull out of the closet and make it all happen, I'd do that. But I don't. So you've got to help me reach that goal. And that's what we're trying to do even with this podcast series.
So I want to go back. I want to backtrack. And I wanted to ask you now I heard about the study on the the the we have a president's telecon for the presidents of the chapters. And they were talking about this study, you know, and now what's going to have the U.A.S.
study and regulation. And one thing I want to add to that is I think that it might be interesting to to say, OK, well, if we had, what's possibly going to be proposed in the as far and the four hundred feet and five miles from an airport and fifteen hundred feet laterally and within that envelope, the industry is going to look like this. And I'll throw telephone numbers out and say, well, it'll be a two billion dollar a year industry.
But if we had that industry in the mandate of 2015 and now NASA's opened up to us and we're all flying around, then it's a hundred billion dollar a year industry.
And I just wanted to bring that up because that might be something to again, their telephone numbers. But that's where everybody gets their numbers. There's they just pull them out of the sky. So I figured I might as well get it on the act.
But I just think that might be something we want to look at. So, you know, food for thought. You know, and when that comes out. And that's what we're looking to do.
I mean, we need to know those numbers and it's not going to happen overnight. A lot of these studies take quite a bit of time and we're going to get them out as soon as we can. But that's exactly what we're going to do. I mean, you can't promote an industry just by saying there's great technology.
I mean, you really have to have some numbers and economic studies behind that. And that's what we're trying to do. All right. Well, that's just something to look at.
The other thing I wanted to talk about was the cross-pollinization between the technologies. You know, and you were talking about it's kind of interesting that you were talking about the other technologies and robotics and ground vehicles and underwater and surface and yada yada. Because I find, OK, I guess I'm a little bit of a geek. I'm less of a program and more of a user kind of guy, you know.
But I find all of this technology really exciting. We had the guy on Bryant Walker Smith who did the he was also part of the driverless car summit that you guys did in Detroit. And, you know, he came out and he a lot of good knowledge or insight into as this technology becomes commercial. And I don't think people even thought about it as product liability and the laws associated with that and everything else.
And even at my meeting, I was like, hey, you know, I hope you guys are all taking this in because you're going to be in business with your insurance guy and your lawyer. And if you're if you're making we'll call them subpar products, you're going to have product liability issues. So you might want to listen to what this cat has to say. And but I hear people all the time.
I don't even care about that. I don't care about that technology. But I think there's a lot of crossovers. Well, that was kind of I can comment in several different ways.
First of all, yes, there's crossover in the technology. Second of all, you brought up the whole thing with insurance. And that's just that's just one bit of all the things that industry is probably going to have to deal with with integration of US in the sky, cars on the road, whatever it is. And that's something that we're it's on our schedule to really start looking at.
We've had panels at our show before where we've brought in folks from from different insurance companies to start talking about this, because that is a big deal. You know, integrating US in the national airspace. When that happens, if there's if the insurance issue hasn't been addressed, then that kind of puts the industry at a halt. So we're looking at a lot of the different surrounding issues and we're trying to to wade through them.
Export control doesn't really affect companies that aren't looking to sell overseas. But that's another possible stumbling block. Frequency spectrum is another one that affects any any of our technologies, air, ground or maritime. And that's something that we're looking to get more involved with and help kind of get rid of that stumbling block.
Because there's a lot of other stumbling blocks that can affect all three of those domains as far as fielding systems and getting that this technology out into the hands of the users. And we're you know, we're trying to address all that. But, you know, I've obviously listed a lot of things that we're working on, a lot of things we want to work on. And we need we really need industry help to get a lot of this done.
It's not you know, we know a lot of the issues that are out there and we're committed to getting to them and helping fix them. But it's a big task. It is. It's a little overwhelming sometimes.
But, you know, you're I'm kind of with you on that all the technology should be rowing the WACA together. And the WACA is a canoe. We should all be rowing in the same direction. And I, you know, don't discount.
I always say don't discount one technology for the other. You know, I did the Sea Perch with my mentor in my spare time, the Robotics Club at the local high school. And, you know, the kids, they kind of looked at it. They said, oh, that's a little peanut whistle.
But as soon as you got them operating this thing in a 3D environment, they were like, oh, man, this is cool. We didn't know, you know. So don't discount it is what I'm telling the listeners. You know, get see the other technologies.
Go see them. It's really interesting what they can do. I'm sold on all of it. If I was independently wealthy, I'd have a 10,000 square foot shop where I was building all this stuff.
You know, I'd be going nuts in my spare time. But all right. Well, it is fascinating. And stay tuned because in the next few weeks there might be a picture of our CEO of our association riding in the Google car with his hands up in the air showing that he's not driving.
So you never know. This technology is everywhere. It's a lot of fun. And I agree.
Don't discount it because it's here to stay. And there's a lot we have to, a lot of hurdles we have to jump. But we're working on it because this is this this is going to sound so cliche, but it is really the wave of the future. I haven't heard that.
No, I'm teasing. I think it is definitely it's here to stay. There were some people that were like, it's a passing fad, but they're crazy. There's the old guard and the believers are like, you're nuts because this is here to stay.
And in the future, I mean, I'm in automation. But all right. Well, I do want to say, you know, don't think that there aren't people watching and there aren't people that know that there are efforts going on. And I wanted to thank you.
And I want to thank Ben and Mario and the rest of the team for all of that effort. I know probably like myself and some other people, not that it's, you know, a martyr or anything. I know that you probably spend more than 40 hours a week on this. Is that a fair assessment, Reggie?
Yes. But I think everybody these days, the 40-hour work week, I don't think exists for anyone anymore. No, I don't think so either. Well, I'm looking for one of those 40-hour a week gigs because then I could probably have two more jobs in my spare time.
But, you know, it's seven days a week around here. But, you know, thank you. I want to extend that thank you from the community and myself for everything that you're doing. I know it takes a lot and you have to be passionate about this field or you're just not going to put that type of effort in.
So thanks. Well, and thank you back to you and to the industry for supporting us and being a part of the EVSI. And just keep up the support and keep giving us feedback. Well, and then, you know, it's up to our members and community to do that.
Now, I want to go into segment two here and I want to talk a little bit about the show. And, you know, people that haven't been, it is very big. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming. I know that I have a hard time just even making it through the hall.
I run into, you know, the last one in Colorado, me and Jay and Wilmot were roaming the hall. The lights were off and everyone was gone. You know, because we were sitting there talking and talking and talking and people come by and they talk to people, you know, and blah, blah, blah. It's like, hey, are you going to that after thing?
I'm like, I'm just too tired and I've talked myself hoarse. So I do think people have to get out there. And we did kind of run over some of this. So I'm going to go through this here.
You did mention how many exhibitors there are this year. Do you want to run over that number one more time?
Sure. We have over 100, I'm sorry, 100, 550 exhibitors that are signed up to attend an exhibit of the show. We had 8,000 attendees last year and we're tracking right now based on our historical tracking of registration. We are well ahead of last year's numbers.
So, you know, we'll see what happens when we get to the show. But we are expecting about 8,000 attendees to be there as well. Excellent. That's good news, especially in a down economy.
Yes. You know, there was kind of a sour mood at last year's Paris Air Show, but that's good to hear that things are picking up. The other thing I wanted to say, and this is, you know, maybe you could tell us who some of the keynote speakers are going to be, you know, for the benefit of the listening audience. Well, two, for this, I would assume for this audience, the two most important keynotes that we have are going to be the Acting Administrator, Michael Huerta from the FAA.
He's going to be speaking Tuesday morning to kick off the keynote session of the show. And then he's going to be followed by Leslie Carey, who's the Secretary for the ICAO UAS Study Group. So those two will be the keynotes for Tuesday, which is going to be, you know, that's obviously very relevant for the UAS community, especially on the civil and commercial side. There's a lot of programming that goes into the show.
There's daily keynote sessions. There's technical sessions. There's panels and workshops. There's hot topic sessions.
And it focuses on air, ground, and maritime. From an air perspective, we've got next gen UAS integration. We have Jim Williams from the FAA speaking. We've got public use of UAS training and on and on and on.
I would recommend anybody that's interested in seeing the program, if you go to AUVSIshow.org, you can go through the program by day, by program track, by air, ground, maritime. There's a variety of different ways that you can easily search for the different sessions. Instead of listing them all here, because I could be here all day, I would recommend anybody that's interested to look at the website and see what's there. Well, it is impressive.
And you have some top tier folks. You know, I'm going to want to hear what the FAA people have to say and see if, I don't know if anyone's taking questions, but you know, I love to ask questions. And people just love my questions. We'll see if that opportunity presents itself.
I'll check out those times for sure. Let me see here. I did have a couple more. And again, we kind of ran through that.
Oh, you know, I was speculating why we had picked the Las Vegas venue in August. And you know, I used to live in Las Vegas. It gets kind of hot there. It does.
I was kind of speculating that maybe in the parking lot of Mandalay Bay, you guys were going to get like, you know, a couple hundred yards of sand set up to HESCOs and maybe give people that OEF deployed experience. I don't know. No, we're not planning to do that. Well, because the event is so big, there's only a handful of cities we can actually choose in the United States that can fit our show, that can host us.
This venue was selected four years ago because we have the book so far out. Obviously at the time there weren't any public issues with Las Vegas. Yes, August we knew in advance it was going to be Las Vegas in August. But Washington, D.C.
in August is a hot time of year as well. So because of that, in 2014 we're actually switching the show. It has traditionally always been in August, but we're moving the show in 2014 to the May timeframe. So we're going to be getting out of those hot months and pushing to May.
That will allow those across the world that typically are on holiday in August, they will allow them to be able to come to the show. In addition, we'll be able to have more congressional support of the show because Congress is obviously out of session in August. That makes it very difficult to get that kind of support. So only two more years of our show being in August.
All right. Well, I just wanted to, you know, get some insight on that. Again, we were just speculating, but thanks for clearing that up. The other thing is I noticed there was going to be maybe some more areas where people could do some side barring because most of these symposiums and whatever else, I think for me that's the best.
I get to see people in person that I'm usually speaking on the phone and get to see people I haven't seen all year, whatever, and speak. I did look that floor plan over and that looks pretty good. There's a lot of stuff going on and I'm kind of looking forward to it and I'll be there and I hope to see you too. Anything else that we missed that you may want to speak to?
We have about 45 seconds left. Well, I just encourage people to come to the show. Those that haven't been, it's a great event. Those that have been, we look forward to seeing you again.
Again, going back to my original comments, please continue to send us feedback on ways we could provide better value to you as a member. We really truly appreciate the support and we hope to see you all in Vegas. It's all indoors, so really if you're in the Mandalay Bay, you don't have to even go outside. Patrick, you'll be fine.
Yes, exactly. I'll just stay indoors. I love that desert. If I'm not standing outside in a desert, I'm just not happy.
All right, Greta. Well, we can send you out there if you want. I appreciate that. I'll go get stuff out of the car.
Thanks for being on. Everybody have a good week and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Thank you.