Commercial UAV Expo content at Amsterdam Drone Week  

September 3-5, 2024  •  Caesars Forum  •  Las Vegas

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Speaker Details

Mike Blades

Mike is a retired U.S. Air Force pilot with over 21 years of active service. He has accumulated nearly 2,500 flight hours in various aircraft including the KC-135 Stratotanker, E-3 AWACS and C-21 learjet. Mike commanded sorties supporting Operations Northern Watch, Southern Watch, Allied Force, and Noble Eagle. He also controlled all C-130 traffic in and out of Iraq during a deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While assigned to staff positions, Mike served as a data reduction analyst for the Phillips Lab (now the Air Force Research Lab) at Kirtland Air Force Base where he split time between the Argus airborne test bed and the Satellite Assessment Center. He also served two tours in Air Education and Training Command (AETC) as the Chief of the Tanker/Airlift training branch and Chief of the Flying Training Section responsible for financial planning and analysis for all mobility training aircraft in the command. Mike’s expertise is centered around worldwide flying operations as well as training and simulation.

After retiring from the Air Force, he was hired by Frost & Sullivan as a Senior Industry Analyst for Aerospace, Defense and Security he was a market analyst and consultant for nearly 10 years and rose to the position of Vice President. Mike’s main areas of research and analysis were the global unmanned systems and military training and simulation markets. He has spoken about UAS and Counter UAS markets at AUVSI’s Xponential Conference, Technology Training Corporation’s UAS West and East Conferences, the Interdrone Conference, the Energy Drone Summit, the Commercial UAV Expo, and the Commercial UAV Show (London). In 2017 and 2018 he took part in keynote presentations at the Commercial UAV Expo and presented a keynote at the 2019 Interdrone Conference.

In July 2021, Mike was hired by DroneUp to serve as the company’s Senior Director of Platforms. While at DroneUp, Mike managed the first drone delivery in the US conducted completely over 5G networks. In February 2023 Mike joined allocortech, inc. as their Head of Business Development

In addition to his undergraduate degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Mike has a Master’s degree in Aerospace Operations as well as a Master’s of Business Administration.

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