There are moments in life that change the direction of everything that follows.
For me, those moments did not happen in a boardroom or a venture capital office. They happened over decades.
As a young boy, my father placed me in the company of remarkable mentors who taught me how engines worked, how airplanes were built, and most importantly, how knowledge should be passed from one generation to the next.
The Marine Corps taught me discipline and the operational complexity required to safely keep aircraft in the air.
My career in enterprise software taught me that the world's most difficult problems are rarely solved by working harder. They are solved by asking whether we are solving the right problem.
My wife and I later devoted ourselves to education because we believed that teaching people how to think was one of the greatest investments we could make in the future.
Then came the drones.
For years I taught students how to build and fly their own aircraft. Watching those students experience their first successful flight remains one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
But every now and then a drone would disappear beyond the field.
I spent countless hours walking through woods and neighborhoods searching for aircraft carrying lithium polymer batteries that should never have left the flying area in the first place.
The students rarely seemed upset.
To them, the experience had already become theirs forever.
I realized I was asking the wrong question.
The problem was not how to recover lost drones.
The problem was why we were allowing them to become lost at all.
That simple question eventually became DroneNav.
DroneNav is built on a belief that the future of low-altitude aviation requires more than smarter aircraft.
It requires infrastructure.
Roads transformed the automobile.
Railroads transformed commerce.
Airports transformed aviation.
I believe low-altitude autonomous aviation deserves the same thoughtful infrastructure before it becomes part of everyday life.
DroneNav is my contribution toward that future.
My hope is simple.
To leave aviation better than I found it.
— Tony Dunbar