Less than nine months ago, the Silver State was picked as a site for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) testing.
Now, Ashima Devices, which specializes in the field, has moved to the Reno area, and with the Pasadena, California-based company, comes 400 jobs over the next four years with an average starting salary of $70,000. Local and state leaders held a press conference at Reno-Stead Airport on Tuesday to welcome Ashima to our area.
"When they bring research, development, engineering, manufacturing all here in our community," says Mike Kazmierski, President/CEO of Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada. "It says a lot."
Ashima is partnering with the state's colleges and universities to try to keep graduates here for work.
"That's the hardest thing for me to see some of these great, talented kids have to look out of state to move on," said Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval. "Now, they will have the opportunity to be on the ground floor of a great company in a great industry that is going to do nothing but go up."
Nevada is one of the six Federal Aviation Administration-designated sites for the aircrafts, and it was the third state to receive federal approval to begin testing. The Ashima prototype is set up to get a quick look at an area and assess a situation from the air.
"We don't want to spend a half an hour, an hour, setting a vehicle up, getting tuned up, getting a professional pilot out there to figure out how to fly it," said Ashima Devices Chief Executive Officer, Mark Richardson. "We need to get to the scene, get the reconnaissance back."
It would also be a safe way to keep first responders away from something like a brush fire.
"It can help them find people, or find hot spots without forcing them in there to do that and putting them in harm's way," said Ashima Vice President Larry Lambert.
In order to use it, they would need to be in controlled airspace and approved to take flight.
"If you're a police officer, firefighter, you get a hold of the tower," Lambert said. "You say, 'look, I'm out here, we have an emergency situation. I want to use this. Do we have permission?'"
Otherwise, if you launch it without permission, Ashima says the UAV will turn itself off.Â
In the future, local and state officials hope to get other UAV-based companies to come here.
"I'm hopeful that five years from now, 10 years from now, we look back -- they've got a thousand employees, and suddenly, Nevada is the center for everything when it comes to UAVs," Governor Sandoval said.
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