The project: Obtain an exemption to the Federal Aviation Administrations section 333 rule banning the commercial use of drone technology

Skills developed:
Stakeholder management - Monitoring and reporting - Safety standards development and implementation - Meeting management with internal and external stakeholders - Regulatory agency compliance

This project would set the stage for my future eventually developing and running the UAV drone program at my company. At the time, circa 2015, it was illegal to use drones for any commercial purpose. This was the FAAs “Section 333” rule, with the option for companies to apply on an individual basis for an exemption to this rule. The theory behind this was that the drone industry was simply too new for the FAA to have accurate information by which to regulate companies using drone technology. An exemption to the section 333 rule brought with it an obligation to report relevant usage and flight log data to the FAA so that the organization could begin to develop the best practices in regulation of drone technology while controlling the amount of unregulated unmanned aircraft flying in United States airspace.

We had conducted testing with drone technology using consumer level devices to develop a new mapping workflow that could augment the existing land surveying mapping services offered by our company. It was discovered that we would be able to leverage this technology to provide an incredible amount of value with little extra overhead to our field teams, and the project was green-lit. I acted as subject matter expert as well as project manager in obtaining the exemption from the FAA. I set up meetings between documentation consultants, the director of operations, and officials from the FAA to discuss the requirements in the documentation crafted then submitted to the FAA for approval. Under my guidance we set up an official safety checklist, best practices documentation, standard operating procedures, and data logging and tracking processes that complied with the regulatory oversight of the FAA.

This served as my introduction and beginning of my experience in communicating and managing stakeholders that came from large regulatory agencies. I learned vast amounts about expected timelines when working with organizations the size of the FAA, as well as expectations in how to negotiate the best outcome for my company while adhering to strict and necessary safety protocols.

Together, my team was able to successfully file for and was granted an exemption from the section 333 rule and could begin operations using drone technology.