Christopher Sadler

Chris Sadler retired as the Deputy Chief/Deputy Director of the York County (VA) Department of Fire and Life Safety after a distinguished 35-year career. He is now the Director of the Public Safety Innovation Center for the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation. In this position, he works with technology developers and public safety entities in Virginia, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal partners to develop and integrate the latest and most advantageous technology resources into the response capabilities of first responders. Chris is a graduate of the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program, a Nationally Registered Paramedic, a Hazmat Specialist, and former Safety Officer with FEMA Urban Search and Rescue – Virginia Task Force 2. He is very involved in the Public Safety use and integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems to include representing the International Association of Fire Chief’s as a Principal on the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 2400 Standards Committee on sUAS Used for Public Safety Operations and the FAA UAS Detection and Mitigation Advisory Rulemaking Committee, the Fire Service representative to the Virginia Governors’ Secure Commonwealth Sub-panel for UAS, served on the ASTM/NFPA Joint Working Group for Public Safety UAS, a member of the ANSI UAS Standardization Collaborative, the Advisory Board for DRONERESPONDERS, and collaborator with the NIST Standard Test Methods for sUAS. He has assisted many public safety and government agencies around the Country with the establishment of their UAS team, COA applications, waivers, and standard operating procedures development.