Smart Business Magazine, July 2015
22 Smart Business Akron Canton July 2015 Former SpaceX engineer Jeff Taylor has landed in Akron His company Event 38 is constructing drones intended for aerial photogrammetry but the companys customers have had a slightly different take on their application I built it for surveying or with surveying in mind from the beginning says Taylor company president and founder So that was just kind of general purpose map making being able to make georeferenced maps and 3 D models of the landscape That is definitely still a reasonably good part of our business but agriculture has kind of found its own way into these products and has been using them their own way The drones look like remote control airplanes but theyre equipped with software for remote sensing and image capture Theyre classified as drones because the aircraft autonomously navigate waypoints that are programed by the user Farmers agronomists and other service providers in the agriculture industry are using them to get up to date high resolution maps of their Former SpaceX engineer Jeff Taylor navigates regulations fast growth at Event 38 The challenge at the edgefarms or crops And theyve found that to be very useful in the most basic sense just to get that big picture overview of their land and of their crops from the air which when youre looking from the ground you really cant see Taylor says Founded in 2012 the company now has sales in 49 countries We started selling them online and anybody has the ability to come to our storefront and buy one easily And we make it as easy as possible more like buying a computer than like buying an airplane he says That is almost as easy as buying a computer Drones privacy and the FAA There are concerns in the U S about the use of drones their surveillance capabilities and how the combination may infringe on peoples privacy rights Those concerns present a challenge for Event 38 Its been a huge hindrance for us in the U S Taylor says The FAA Federal Aviation Administration does have very strict rules in place right now about the commercial operation of drones and since the drones that we make are basically by nature going to be used for commercial applications thats really really slowed down the number of sales that we can get here in the U S Not necessarily abroad but here it has certainly been slowed down quite a bit Taylor says the one advantage Event 38 has is that the company is selling to commercial operators which makes it Its definitely been hard for me to give up some of the engineering side of things I do still like to keep my hands dirty as much as possible and its still possible to an extent but yeah I definitely have to set the goals walk away and let people do it themselves sometimes which is a bit of a challenge JEFF TAYLOR PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER EVENT 38 FEATURE EVENT 38 SOCIAL MEDIA To learn more about Event 38 follow it on Twitter @ Event38 BY ADAM BURROUGHS ABURROUGHS@ SBNONLINE COM
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