The UND College of Business and Public Administration hosted the 2015 Mellem Business Symposium Wednesday.

The Mellem Business Symposium is designed to help students of the university learn necessary skills to succeed in business, government and society. It also discusses timely business topics with regional business and community leaders.

This year’s symposium focused on the emerging unmanned aircraft systems industry. It consisted of a luncheon, followed by two afternoon panels discussing the current and future states of the industry.

The first panel, moderated by Rick Thomas, Red River Valley Strategic Alliance program manager of Northrop Grumman, discussed the future of the UAS industry and Operations in North Dakota. The panelists consisted of Robert Beckland, executive director of Northern Plains UAS Test Site, Terry Sando, Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corporation UAS sector senior manager, George Guerra, retired HALE enterprise vice president for strategic ventures with Northrop Grumman and Brian Opp, manager of aerospace business development for the North Dakota Department of Commerce.

Panelists discussed the UAS industry’s recent growth in North Dakota. Industries that utilize unmanned aircraft include agriculture, law enforcement, real estate, energy and even emergency response.

Opp spoke about how North Dakota is attractive to the UAS industry due to the financial assistance it provides to UAS companies as well as the ability for companies to test and develop unmanned aircraft.

Panelists also discussed job opportunities in the rapidly growing industry. They expect smaller unmanned aircraft to become more widely used as development in the industry progresses.

When discussing how the industry has changed, Guerra spoke about how the use of UAS technology has expanded into commercial industries with significant growth such as emergency response and agricultural applications.

The second panel, moderated by Tom Kenville of the UND Center for Innovation, discussed the future impact the UAS industry could have on the state and country as a whole.

Panelists included Emily O’Brien and Whitney Page of the Dakota Venture Group, Matt Dunlevy, CEO and founder of SkyScopes, Greg Thorsteinson, co-founder of Edge Data, David Dvorak, CEO of Field of View LLC, and Luke Geiver, editor of UAS Magazine.

Geiver explained regulations of unmanned aircraft will play a large role in the development of the industry, and that it’s important for people to understand how to work with the government on the issues surrounding the technology.

The Federal Aviation Administration is currently developing a small UAS operator’s certificate to allow for better trained pilots of unmanned aircraft without the need to obtain a private pilot’s license.

Panelists also said that although regulations develop slowly, technology moves quickly.

Northern Plains UAS Test Site provides UAS companies a way to test and develop unmanned aircraft within North Dakota.

Elliot Golden is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]