Garret Hultgren is a patrol sergeant with the Longmont Police Department in Longmont, Colorado. He helped start his agency’s first UAS team in 2017 at the forefront of agencies beginning to use drones in public safety. His team has netted dozens of apprehensions and has had several notable, high profile drone deployments. These have included deploying drones on an active shooter incident, locating an armed fugitive who had shot at officers and was waiting in ambush, and capturing multiple critical use-of-force incidents on video. Garret has personally flown over 150 public safety drone missions in both a patrol and SWAT capacity. He is a subject matter expert with the Rocky Mountain Tactical Team Association where he instructs on tactical drone operations, and he has been endorsed in criminal proceedings as an expert witness in drone technology.
Garret also owns Altitude Hobbies which he founded in 2011. Altitude Hobbies specializes in drones and radio-controlled aircraft systems for both hobby and professional use. They are a dealer for DJI, Autel, Teledyne FLIR, ANZU, Parrot, and other popular drone systems on the market. Garret has over 23 years experience operating radio-controlled aircraft and was nationally sponsored as a competition scale aerobatic pilot. Through his business, Garret has supplied drones or other radio controlled aircraft equipment to NASA, the Canadian Department of Defense, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Airbus, Disney, Johns Hopkins University, Note Dame University, and numerous other professional entities around the world including police, fire, and search and rescue agencies which trust his knowledge and experience in the industry.
