Announcements
- Diane Arehart Announced that the next Build-a-Bear event will be for children with Sickle Cell and it will be on 9/10/2022 from 2 PM to 4 PM. Sign-up online to help using the Member Calendar.
- Diane Arehart announced that the annual CNO Officer Installation Dinner will be at the Presidential on September 27, 2022. No lunch meeting will be held that Tuesday at Yankee Trace.
- Diane Arehart announced that the next flag deliveries will be on Wednesday, August 31 and the flags will be on display for seven days. There have been lots of growth this year and they need more volunteers to deliver and pick up flags. Please help if you can by contacting Tom Novak or signing up online using the Member Calendar.
- Denise O’Neil announced that the Haunted trail will be held from 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM on October 11 and 12, 2022. They need trail guides and volunteers for other jobs that don’t all require walking the mile trail. To learn more read this article about the Haunted Trail and the available volunteer opportunities. Sign-up online to help using the Member Calendar.
Volunteer Signups Available Online with the Virtual Clipboard
Did you know that you can now signup to volunteer or to participate in social events using a simple online registration form right from your phone or PC? The Member Calendar has a complete list of upcoming volunteer opportunities and social events.
Community Events
- 9/30/2022, Tri-Star Soccer, time and place to be determined.
- 10/11/2022 and 10/12/2022, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM, Haunted Trail
CNO 2.0 Venue and Details
The venue for tonight’s CNO 2.0 meeting was The Chop House, 7727 Washington Village Drive, Dayton Ohio 45459. Thank you to the team at The Chop House for great food, drinks and space.
Emily Duke won the 50/50 drawing. As always, the other half of the 50/50 is donated to the Optimist International Fund.
There were 26 people at the meeting (4 guests, 21 members and 1 speaker).
Drone Express, Lisa Barhorst
Diane Arehart introduced Lisa Barhorst, the Chief Operating Officer at Drone Express. In addition to overseeing the flight operations at Drone Express, she also oversees the marketing and local community outreach.
Lisa holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Lisa has nearly three decades of experience in broadcast television. She was VP & General Manager of FOX45/ABC22 for 5 years and prior to that was President and General Manager of WDTN-TV, channel 2 for many years. Lisa currently serves on the board of directors of Brigid’s Path, the Bellbrook Sugarcreek Educational Foundation and chairs the Pastoral Advisory Council at St. Francis of Assisi Church.
Lisa also was honored in the Dayton Business Journal’s Power 50 as one of the Dayton, Ohio area’s most influential women in business.
About Drone Express
Drone Express is a logistics firm focused on bringing safe, reliable, autonomous, eco-friendly package delivery throughout the country. They are a member of the Federal Aviation Administration BEYOND Program. Goals of the program include solving technical challenges with commercialized drone use and community concerns.
Their corporate office is in Dayton, Ohio and their Flight Training Center is in Atoka, Oklahoma.
History of Drone Express
Drone Express is a company derived from Telegrid that started in the 1980’s. The Lippos family formed Telegrid in 1984 and Drone Express was formed by that company and now Telegrid partners with Drone Express. Drone Express is now run by Beth Lippos, who is an expert in embedded systems. She created a radio mesh network that she knew would be perfect for using drones as a last mile delivery service.
The Telegrid side of the business handles the manufacturing of drones. Drone Express leases and purchases drones from Telegrid. Telegrid drones are unlike any other drones being manufactured. Their drones are being designed knowing the goal is FAA approval of autonomous flights with more than one drone per pilot allowed. The first focus of the design is always safety. FAA rules are the reason air travel is so safe. Some other manufacturers are trying to not be noticed by the FAA and they will never be approved for commercial flight.
Why Drone Delivery
The shopping public now considers the speed of the current last mile of deliveries as slow. The last mile delivery of Amazon and other package carriers is getting slower because the volume is huge and still increasing. Barhorst said that there are already too many trucks on the road and the solution is autonomous drone delivery. Drones deliver faster since they don’t have to follow roads and most of the flight can be 55 MPH with no stoplights. Another benefit is reduced pollution over trucks.
Drones Are Solving Problems Now
Papa John’s Pizza came to Drone Express because they can’t find delivery drivers. A test program is now operating in Atlanta with a 1-mile radius around the store. A pizza can now be received 15 minutes after ordering. At 55 MPH, drones can fly a mile in a little more than a minute. Your pizza arrives hotter and faster. Drone food delivery also solves the problem with food delivery companies where customers are concerned with the driver touching and/or eating their food. Plus, you don’t tip a drone.
Another example of how drones will help is with the delivery of medicines and prescription drugs. Imagine a single mother with three children and one or more of them is sick. A drone can deliver needed items and prescriptions and all the children can stay home.
Limitations
Weather conditions, like strong winds and rain, can ground the drones from flying. If the weather is cold enough the batteries lose some of the energy capacity so the drones can’t fly as far as normal.
Even though drones now fly most of the time on their own, current FAA regulations say that drones must travel within sight of a pilot. After FAA approval this rule will go away. Delivery areas now have a 3-mile radius, which is a recent increase from 2 miles. The longer distances require multiple pilots along the route.
Again, remember that safety comes first and the additional line of sight pilots will be used until the FAA approves the technology.
There is a huge population of Americans that can benefit from a 3-mile radius. One third of Americans live within 3 miles of a Kroger grocery.
Competitors
There are only 8 companies seeking to be certified in the FAA Part 135 (P135) program. No other applicants are being accepted into P135 at this time. The drones are being evaluated with the same standards of safety as full-sized aircraft.
Only 6 of these companies are providing the same package delivery services as Drone Express since the other 2 are not multirotor aircraft which is required to lower packages into a residential backyard.
P135 certification is required before a business can charge for domestic air cargo delivery. Barhorst said that the only serious competitors for domestic air cargo delivery are Amazon, Google and Zipline.
About Drone Delivery
- Pilots must have a commercial drone pilot’s license. The goal is fully autonomous flights so that expensive pilots can monitor several flights at once.
- Drone Delivery will have billions in revenue by 2028.
- The drones fly at 400 feet. This keeps them away from full-sized aircraft. They also keep in mind where the full-sized aircraft are and avoid those lanes.
- Drones and full-sized aircraft share similar concerns like bird strikes, but they have found that birds don’t like the whirring sound of the drones.
Partnerships
WinSupply
One of the biggest reasons a jobsite gets shut down is the lack of some small part. Drones can deliver needed parts to a jobsite faster and cheaper than a human driving a truck.
WinSupply is a huge player in the plumbing and electrical parts and services business. They know firsthand how expensive it is to shut down a job site because of a missing or broken part. It is also expensive to have the part delivered by humans driving a truck.
WinSupply sought out a partnership with Drone Express to work on this costly issue. WinSupply has installed concrete landing pads at their distribution warehouse location on Byers Rd in Miamisburg and the showroom on Congress Park in Washington Township. It takes forever for trucks to travel this route especially with high traffic. Drones are flying parts during the full workday every weekday. The time and money savings are amazing.
Microsoft
Drone Express has a partnership for AI research. Microsoft wants to keep improving its AI capabilities and drones need to get better at recognizing safe places to drop off their loads and to land. Drone Express is providing the real world experiences and Microsoft is improving the AI to solve the safe landing issues.
A drone can’t depend on satellite mapping because it is not real time. Backyards change all the time. Someone could have a new pool, trees get planted, dogs and children run around.
Choctaw Nation has Partnered with the FAA
The FAA has a partnership with Choctaw Nation to improve how drones transport cargo at lower altitudes. The FAA and Choctaw Nation share an interest in safety. One goal of the partnership is to promote interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs for students seeking careers in aerospace.
Choctaw Nation is one of nine active drone pilot sites and is the only tribal government selected by the U.S. Transportation Department to participate in the Unmanned Aerial System Integration Pilot Program.
Thank You Lisa Barhorst
Thank you, Lisa Barhorst, for speaking at tonight’s CNO 2.0 meeting and telling the story of Drone Express and how drones are going to have an increasing impact on the world.
About CNO 2.0
CNO 2.0 is a club within a club of the Centerville Noon Optimist Club. CNO (and CNO 2.0) is a world class service organization. Being a member of either club allows their members all the same opportunities to participate in fundraising and club activities. CNO 2.0 was created about 5 years ago and is very much a part of the 54-year-old Centerville Noon Optimist Club. CNO has given away over $2 million during its history. CNO is a group of like-minded members that are passionate about helping youth and having fun in the process.
The speaker at each 2.0 meeting is someone with a local business success story.
Annual Fundraisers
- Christmas Tree Lot
- Avenue of Flags
- Golf Outing
Major Activities for the youth in our community
- Build-a-Bear at Children’s Hospital, 3 times a year
- Fishing Derby in June
- Kid’s Day in the Park in August
- Easter Egg Hunt