Charles Werner, Chair of the National Council on Public Safety UAS and Director at DRONERESPONDERS, joins URSA’s Board of Advisors

Charles Werner, retired Charlottesville fire chief, 46 year public safety veteran , and Director at DRONERESPONDERS joined URSA’s Board of Advisors.

Werner, will act in an advisory role regarding the development of UAS analytics and public safety for URSA.

DRONERESPONDERS is a non-profit program created to unite aerial first responders, emergency managers, and search and rescue specialists under a unified organization to help learn, train, and test with one another with the ultimate objective of maximizing drone operations for public safety.

“URSA’s work is groundbreaking,” said Werner.

“With this information we are starting to understand the real UAS activity and the possible harm that drones can do – especially if it is intentional. As we work to maintain safety in the national airspace with regard to remotely piloted aircraft and beyond visual line of site flights, URSA enables us to look back on flights to identify and understand compliance & non compliant flight operations and make recommendations to ensure safety of the national airspace.”

URSA will soon capture and report flight data in real time. If there is potentially dangerous behavior, we can address that behavior immediately.

Werner added that URSA’s provides critical information as a greater number of drones begin to fly.

“URSA provides the analytics that feeds an evidentiary chain that enables administrators to address issues. This information is absolutely necessary for safety in the national airspace and also for the protection of critical infrastructure.

Werner will work with URSA on numerous public safety initiatives that will be discussed in full detail in future URSA news posts.