The countdown to Commercial UAV Expo is nearing zero. We previously covered sessions on scaling enterprise drone programs, the next era of drone operations, and where regulations stand today. Now, we turn our attention to an equally important topic: the industry’s workforce, the backbone of innovation and progress for commercial drone operations of now and the future. This year’s program features sessions that cover different stages of workforce development through education to mentorship and beyond.

Workforce development starts with education. Increasingly, we are seeing new UAS-related educational programs arise for all schooling levels. Every year, CUAV Expo hosts a roundtable discussion to bring together academics of the industry to address what the needs are for the future of the industry. The session entitled Roundtable Discussion – University & Education aims to bring together academic faculty and administrators involved in UAV programs to discuss best practices for building and maintaining these programs. Topics include curriculum development, instructor qualifications, workforce preparation, liability and insurance, and student recruitment and assessment. The roundtable format encourages participants to share experiences and learn from one another as they navigate standards and regulations in this evolving field. This session features expert insights from academics Jay Seidel of Fullerton College and Tommy Sunderhaus of Sinclair Community College who are training the next generation of pilots. With them is Edward Cormier of the FAA, who’s focus is integrating UAS into college-level programs.

Continuing the conversation around academic needs is the Building the UAS Workforce: What Companies Need, What Schools Are Missing, and What Comes Next session. Moderated by  Cormier, this panel discussion addresses the critical gap the UAS workforce is currently facing, what companies are doing to improve it, and what needs to change in how the industry develops new talent. The conversation isn't just for emerging talent or hiring managers, as it also it offers insight into how the UAS workforce will evolve, which is relevant to anyone looking to grow alongside the industry. Panelists in this discussion come from diverse backgrounds, but all share the same sentiment of exceling the UAS workforce. Chris Lewis of Vets to Drones, works with military and first responder veterans to build careers in the drone industry through training and UAS certification; Jennifer Lowthian of Cynet Group, leads a workforce research initiative that specifically looks at how commercial drone adoption is transforming employment structures and skill requirements; and La’Quata Sumter of Focusing on Me, Inc. and DeVry University, who leads a workforce-aligned drone education and training ecosystem where she develops FAA-integrated drone training frameworks that forge a path between education and commercial applications.

As commercial drone operations scale and regulations grow more complex, a panel of veteran trainers and educators tackled a question underlying nearly every other conversation at the conference: who will do this work, and how will they be prepared for it? In the session Preparing the Workforce for a Rapidly Evolving Industry, panelists will examine how curricula keep pace with rapid technological and regulatory change, what it takes to build genuine public acceptance of the industry, and how to grow the talent pipeline. Moderated by Thomas Haun of Turner Staffing Group, this panel brings together experts from academia such as Gregory Blaize of Boston Drone School and Dr. Kenneth Jones, Jr of Quantum UAV Drone Academy to share their side of the story while Josh Olds from Unmanned Safety Institute will build upon the curricula conversations with an emphasis on safety training.

The discussion will make clear these challenges are linked rather than separate: weak public perception shrinks the pipeline, a thin pipeline strains training capacity, and training that can't keep up with regulatory change further erodes public trust. Closing that loop, panelists argued, will take coordinated effort from educators, operators, and regulators like not a fix from any single corner of the industry.

Last but not least, the Roundtable Discussion – Workforce Development in the Commercial UAV Industry: Education, Hiring, and Professional Mentorship will wrap together all of the ideas and challenges already mentioned and more. This session is another great opportunity for anyone in the field looking to sit down and have a candid conversation about where the workforce is today, where it needs to be, and how do we get there as a team. A group of discussion facilitators will be there to give their expert advice which includes Cormier and Dr. Jones Jr. who we talked about previously, and Desiree Ekstein of On The Go Video.biz and Donald Heon of Sonoran Desert Institute.

Taken together, these four sessions make the same point from four different angles: the drone industry's future depends less on the next piece of hardware than on the people trained to operate, teach, and lead within it. For educators, employers, and newcomers alike, Commercial UAV Expo's workforce track offers a chance to shape that future rather than simply react to it.