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The sky’s the limit: Michigan set to lead the way in drone manufacturing and training

Posted By: Macomb Daily on November 9, 2025.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

Detroit manufacturers put America on wheels in the 20th century and now they’re taking to the skies.

A recent report said the demand for drone manufacturers and drone pilots is growing and more than 100,000 drone related jobs are coming in the next two years.

“Michigan has led the world in the mobility sector. As the drone sector grows it makes sense for Michigan and specifically the Metro Detroit area to lead in this growing space,” said Dan Roeske, a manager in the talent sector of Global Epicenter of Mobility (GEM).

It is a signature program for the Detroit Regional Partnership, which is a public-private economic development group focused on marketing and business attraction for Metro Detroit.

Among those currently taking advantage of the technology are farmers and agricultural experts who use drones for everything from crop inspections and spraying to mapping. Small unmanned aerial systems are also used by the film and media industry along with the military.

“Drones are used in construction and by power providers. Imagine being able to use a drone to determine storm damage to power lines. This would allow a repair crew to be directly dispatched to the site, saving time and money,” said Roeske. “Municipalities are using drones to file promotional videos, filming street fairs, special events and unique area features to draw visitors.”

Real estate companies are also using drones, and by extension drone pilots, to capture photos and videos of listed properties and don’t be surprised if your next pizza delivery buzzes to your porch.

Drone manufacturing

The applications are already growing and with the U.S. working to phase out drones made in China, many manufacturers are transitioning their plants to accommodate the production of drones.

“We will probably be starting production in three to four months,” said Al Dustan II, owner of Close Quarters Tactical Weapons System, a Shelby Township manufacturer that provides the military with weapons and training. “This is a heavy lift drone like the one we’ll be making.”

Set on a table in the office during an interview with The Macomb Daily was the arms of a drone minus its motor and shell.

Once completed the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as the military refers to the commercial drones it will be able to carry as much as 56 pounds of cargo and provide its user with visual tracking.

Its design is new but drones are not a new concept for the military.

“The first UAV traces its origins back to early 18th century France with the emergence of the hot-air balloon, which did not require a human pilot. The concept militarily led to the ineffective balloon bombings used by Austrian forces to besiege Venice in 1849, and a decade later, to the first UAV hot-air balloon camera and aerial photograph in 1858 — sadly lost in history,” according to an article by Army AL&T Magazine. “In the U.S., the Kettering Bug, a pilotless biplane designed by Charles F. Kettering of Dayton, Ohio and developed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I for delivering explosives to enemy targets, has been cited as one of the earliest examples of a UAV.”

Today military members are piloting drones over the battlefields and beyond using them for everything from combat support, force protections and precision strikes to supply deliveries.

“Drones are convenient and they save lives by keeping our guys out of harm’s way,” said Dustan, who has witnessed the value of drones in combat situations around the world.

“It’s also a cheaper way to fight,” added Dustan, who retired after a 30 year career in design engineering and manufacturing that is rooted in both the military and law enforcement sectors.

His son will be taking over as CEO of the new drone manufacturing plant.

“All of these machines can be converted for drone production,” said Gavin Dustan, who, at age 19, is around the same age his father was when he started his own business.

Joining Gavin at the plant will be at least 80 new employees.

These will include mill operators.

“It’s pretty cool,” said Gabriel Fletcher of St. Clair Shores, who is among the mill operators manufacturing firearms but will be making a transition to the new drone plant.

The facility will be producing everything but the chips. Dustan said they will be partnering with a company in India for chips but eventually even those will be manufactured in Macomb County.

“It’s huge,” Paula Macpherson, executive director of Velocity in Sterling Heights, said of the interest in drone manufacturing. “We are starting to see at Velocity an uptick in startups developing the technology for commercial drones being used including retailers.”

Some are just making the parts and pieces for drones while others are working on manufacturing, packaging and shipping.

“There’s definitely more than a dozen companies who have products being developed or are out in the marketplace,” Machperson said. “This is the first time in quite a while where we’ve seen technology create a boom not only in the consumer industry but also concurrently in the defense sector.”

Fueling some of the ventures are state grants.

This past July, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a new executive directive to establish the Michigan Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Initiative designed to fuel the momentum, ensure safe and efficient integration of these technologies across the public and private sectors and position the state’s workforce, manufacturers and infrastructure as national assets in the deployment of drones.

At the same time, four new projects received more than $4.1 million in funding.

“As the global competition for aviation and autonomous aerial mobility heats up, the U.S. must use every asset we have to design, test and build the uncrewed aerial systems technologies we will need to strengthen critical supply chains, protect our national security and reduce our dependence on foreign manufacturing,” Whitmer said, in a news release. “Michigan can lead the way.”

Among the four projects that received funding in the second round of AAM grants were:

• CVS Health received $1.9 million for a drone initiative that will include partnering with multiple stakeholders to test using drones to make it faster, simpler and more environmentally sustainable to deliver critical specialty medications to patients.
• Jack Demmer Automotive Group received $1 million. The Group, which partnered with DroneUP, Blueflite and Airspace Link, will focus on utilizing drones for the rapid delivery of high-demand automotive parts within a 12 mile radius of Jack Demmer Ford dealerships. The project aims to address current logistic challenges caused by road congestion and workforce shortages in urban settings such as Metro Detroit.
• The University of Michigan also received a $1 million grant to create M-Air. This will be an expansion of the Mcity public/private partnership. M-Air will also help incubate, attract and nurture startups in aerospace, improve students’ experiential learning from K-12 to graduate education. Most exciting will be the partnership between M-Air and Michigan Central, which will establish an air mobility corridor from Detroit to Ann Arbor with a hub in between that will serve as a connected ecosystem for innovation, testing and deployment.

“The next frontier of mobility is moving from land to sky, where drones and electric aerial vehicles can transform how we move people and goods,” said Karen Thole, the University of Michigan’s dean of engineering and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Michigan engineering’s M-Air partnership will play an important role in propelling the state to national leadership in advanced aviation technology and developing the workforce we need to sustain it.”

Drone pilots

As the drone sector grows so too will the need for certified drone pilots.

Among the Michiganders helping in this sector is Mario Swaiden.

As a Michigan State University student specializing in neural engineering, Swaiden began building drones in his dorm room, and became the first person to receive the Federal Aviation Association’s Part 107 certification at the Michigan Institute of Aviation Technology.

The FAA offers a Part 107 license for commercial drone pilots and a recreational license for hobbyists. In the works by the FAA are guidelines and regulations to allow for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone operations.

After graduating, Swaiden went to work as a clinical researcher for a physician at the University of Michigan. This experience with data and his own research in developing a marketplace for other drone pilots led him to create AerBots, a drone manufacturing company based in Detroit, and its subsidiary, Drone Pilot Academy, a training school for drone pilots that’s been crazy busy.

“All of our classes are full,” said the young entrepreneur, who received GEM funding to support a four-week course that provides students with the knowledge and skills to build their own drone, using a kit manufactured by AerBots, and become certified as a commercial drone pilot including weather interpretation, operational procedures and safety protocols. The four-week runs every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

What kind of money are drone pilots expected to make? Roeske said this can vary depending on the type of job and whether it’s full-time or contract gig. What’s being posted currently on job search boards presently shows full-time positions offering anywhere from $45,000 to more than $100,000 yearly.

“The independent jobs can see $35 per hour and up,” he said.

However, even this is likely to change as the industry expands and more and more uses are developed.

“Delta Airlines used to send someone on a ladder to inspect their planes. Now they use drone pilots for inspections,” said Swaiden, whose students have run the gamut from cowboys looking to map farm terrain to conservationists wanting to inspect Michigan’s trees and invasive species.