On New Year’s Eve 2019, the Federal Aviation Administration released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Remote Identification of drone users. “It was 88,000 words of seemingly good intention, and 87 pages of common sense,” Tom Walker said. “There wasn’t any thing in there [the NPRM] that should have surprised anyone.” Drones continue to disrupt various corners of the private sector that very few people predicted. Presenting Drones in America an all-new podcast by MarketScale centered around drones. Every week, Drones in America will introduce listeners to guests who are leaders, influencers, and experts from various areas to talk about America’s drone industry. Topics discussed will include the history of drones, new technology, policy, and the rapidly-growing commercial market. Tom Walker is Founder and CEO of droneUp, a company that provided “end-to-end aerial data collection services for large, autonomous missions.” He appeared on the inaugural episode of Drones in America to talk about the FAA’s NPRM, how he got into the drone industry, and the relationship between policymakers and drone users. “When I was first exposed to the consumer drone market… I felt like there were two key issues,” Walker said. “First, there would be a person in the unnamed space. Second, most organizations would be unable to manage the fleet of equipment and pilots.” In short, Walker saw a need for a scalable drone platform, so he founded droneUp in 2016. droneUp worked with local emergency response services for wildfires in the West and Hurricane response in the Southeast. Join host Grant Guillot of the law firm, Adams and Reese for Drones in America with new episodes available where ever podcasts are found.