Former assistant secretary of U.S. Air Force Dr Will Roper joins Volansi’s Board of Directors

Volan­si has announced that Dr Will Rop­er, the for­mer assis­tant sec­re­tary of the U.S. Air Force for Acqui­si­tion, Tech­nol­o­gy and Logis­tics, has joined its Board of Direc­tors, where he will help the com­pa­ny’s con­tin­ued growth in the defense mar­kets.

In his pri­or role, Dr. Rop­er over­saw an annu­al bud­get of $60 bil­lion and was respon­si­ble for all research and devel­op­ment, test, pro­duc­tion, mod­erni­sa­tion, and logis­tics efforts for the Air Force and Space Force.

While at the Air Force, Dr. Rop­er made large strides to open defense mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties to com­mer­cial com­pa­nies and pri­vate investors, spear­head­ing ini­tia­tives like AFWERX and Small Busi­ness Inno­v­a­tive Research (SBIR) reform.

Addi­tion­al­ly, he led Air Force-wide tech­nol­o­gy trans­for­ma­tions for soft­ware devel­op­ment, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and dig­i­tal engi­neer­ing. He also ini­ti­at­ed high tech pro­grams for hyper­son­ic weapons, autonomous drones, and a mil­i­ta­rized inter­net of things, all while over­see­ing the day-to-day readi­ness of more than 5,000 mil­i­tary air­craft and sup­port sys­tems.

Han­nan Parviz­ian, Volan­si CEO and co-Founder, said: “Dr. Will Rop­er joins Volansi’s board with a rep­u­ta­tion as a trans­for­ma­tive, for­ward-look­ing leader. His deep exper­tise in emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and the use of unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cles (UAVs) in logis­tics oper­a­tions will be instru­men­tal in aid­ing Volansi’s mis­sion to change the future of sup­ply chain.

“I’m thrilled to wel­come Dr. Rop­er into the Volan­si team and look for­ward to his lead­er­ship as we con­tin­ue to push the bound­aries of autonomous flight.”

Ear­li­er in his career, Dr. Rop­er was the found­ing Direc­tor of the Pentagon’s Strate­gic Capa­bil­i­ties Office (SCO), which lever­ages exist­ing gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial sys­tems to solve the military’s most press­ing prob­lems.

His pro­grams spanned con­cepts like hyper­ve­loc­i­ty artillery mis­sile defense, mul­ti-pur­pose mis­siles, smart­phone-nav­i­gat­ing weapons, big-data enabled sens­ing, 3D-print­ed sys­tems, stand­off arse­nal planes, autonomous mini-fight­ers, and swarm­ing drones, demon­strat­ing the world’s largest swarm in 2017.

Com­ment­ing on his new role, Dr Rop­er said: “Volan­si is unique­ly posi­tioned in the com­mer­cial UAV mar­ket because of their focus on car­go and logis­tics, both huge com­po­nents of mod­ern mil­i­taries. I am excit­ed to help them think through oppor­tu­ni­ties to bring on-demand, life-sav­ing capa­bil­i­ties to men and women in uni­form.”

“Com­mer­cial tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies like Volan­si are lead­ing a wave of dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion for defense mis­sions. Bring­ing speed and agili­ty his­tor­i­cal­ly absent in gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment, many ven­dors have ear­ly rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in nation­al secu­ri­ty as a path to com­mer­cial suc­cess.”

Volansi’s rela­tion­ships with the Air Force and Depart­ment of Defense are well-estab­lished. The com­pa­ny was award­ed a Phase II Small Busi­ness Inno­va­tion Research (SBIR) through the Depart­ment of the Air Force Small Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer (SBIR/STTR) Cen­ter of Excel­lence inno­va­tion pro­gram.

Volan­si was also named an offi­cial ven­dor of the Unit­ed States Air Force’s Sky­borg Van­guard Pro­gram.