NUAIR Names Craig Marcinkowski as Next President & CEO, taking over from Ken Stewart on April 1st

North­east UAS Air­space Inte­gra­tion Research (NUAIR), oper­a­tor of the nation’s most advanced FAA-accept­ed sur­veil­lance-as-a-ser­vice infra­struc­ture for low-alti­tude air­space, has announced Craig Marcinkows­ki as its next Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer

Marcinkows­ki will start his new role on April 1st and suc­ceeds Ken Stew­art, who has led NUAIR since 2020 and will remain until March 31st, to ensure a seam­less tran­si­tion. Stew­art will con­tin­ue in an advi­so­ry capac­i­ty through the tran­si­tion peri­od.

 A Leader with Deep Roots in NUAIR’s Mis­sion

Marcinkowski’s con­nec­tion to NUAIR pre­dates the organ­i­sa­tion itself. In 2017, while serv­ing as a leader at Grif­fin Tech­nolo­gies (now SRC Inc.), he col­lab­o­rat­ed with Stew­art to estab­lish the first Beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone cor­ri­dor in the Unit­ed States, in Ohio — the oper­a­tional proof-of-con­cept that laid the ground­work for NUAIR’s New York cor­ri­dor.

Marcinkows­ki also played a key role in devel­op­ing the orig­i­nal Empire State Devel­op­ment (ESD) grant pro­pos­al that pro­vid­ed NUAIR’s found­ing invest­ment.

Stew­art said: “Craig is some­one I’ve worked along­side since the very begin­ning of this indus­try. He did­n’t just watch NUAIR get built — he helped build it. He brings exact­ly the com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal depth, com­mer­cial expe­ri­ence, and mis­sion align­ment that this orga­ni­za­tion needs for its next chap­ter. I have no doubt this is the right call.”

Back­ground and Qual­i­fi­ca­tions

Marcinkows­ki brings more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in sur­veil­lance sys­tems, unmanned air­craft, defense tech­nol­o­gy, and busi­ness devel­op­ment. His career spans:

• SRC Inc. — Radar, EW, and sur­veil­lance sys­tems for defense and pub­lic safe­ty
• Lock­heed Mar­tin — advanced sys­tems and defense pro­gram lead­er­ship
• Saab, Inc. — sen­sor inte­gra­tion and com­mer­cial tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions
• Fotokite — drone sys­tems for first respon­ders and pub­lic safe­ty oper­a­tions

His expe­ri­ence encom­pass­es both the tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial dimen­sions of UAS oper­a­tions, with par­tic­u­lar depth in sur­veil­lance infra­struc­ture, law enforce­ment drone-as-first-respon­der (DFR) appli­ca­tions, and defense-adja­cent sys­tems — areas that direct­ly align with NUAIR’s cur­rent ser­vice port­fo­lio and strate­gic direc­tion.

Marcinkows­ki said: “I’ve been fol­low­ing NUAIR’s progress with pride and with an eye toward what comes next. The infra­struc­ture is built, the reg­u­la­to­ry foun­da­tion is in place, and the com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty is real. I’m grate­ful to Gov­er­nor Hochul for her lead­er­ship and to New York State for more than a decade of sus­tained invest­ment that helped cre­ate the foun­da­tion for this work.

“I’m hon­ored to lead this team and look for­ward to build­ing on that progress in part­ner­ship with the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers who will help scale what comes next.”

 About the Tran­si­tion

NUAIR’s lead­er­ship tran­si­tion fol­lows a strate­gic plan­ning process under­tak­en by the Board of Direc­tors. The Board con­duct­ed a for­mal search and selec­tion process, pri­or­i­tiz­ing can­di­dates with deep UAS and sur­veil­lance exper­tise, famil­iar­i­ty with NUAIR’s pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship mod­el, and estab­lished rela­tion­ships with key stake­hold­ers includ­ing the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion and Empire State Devel­op­ment.

Rob Simp­son, Chair­man of the NUAIR Board of Direc­tors and pres­i­dent and CEO of Cen­ter­State CEO, said: “I want to con­grat­u­late and wel­come Craig as he steps into this new role. His expe­ri­ence and lead­er­ship are exact­ly what this moment requires.

“NUAIR’s progress reflects the strong part­ner­ship between New York State, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor, three con­stituen­cies that must con­tin­ue work­ing togeth­er.

“Craig under­stands both the oppor­tu­ni­ty ahead and what it takes to oper­ate suc­cess­ful­ly in this envi­ron­ment and brings deep expe­ri­ence work­ing across these part­ner­ships. We are grate­ful to Ken for his con­tri­bu­tions to the orga­ni­za­tion and con­fi­dent that Craig is the right per­son to guide NUAIR through its next phase of growth.”

Empire State Devel­op­ment Pres­i­dent, CEO and Com­mis­sion­er Hope Knight, added: “The col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts of ESD and NUAIR con­tin­ue to accel­er­ate New York State’s posi­tion as the nation­al leader in the uncrewed air­craft sys­tems and advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­tries, and both Ken and Craig have been incred­i­ble part­ners.

“I want to sin­cere­ly thank Ken for help­ing us advance those focused efforts from con­cep­tion to exe­cu­tion and look for­ward to fur­ther­ing our suc­cess­es with Craig at the helm of NUAIR.”

About NUAIR

 NUAIR is a non­prof­it dri­ving eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment through inno­va­tions in UAS and Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty to safe­ly inte­grate into the nation­al air­space.

With sup­port from Empire State Devel­op­ment and the State of New York, NUAIR oper­ates the Cen­ter of Excel­lence for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty at Syra­cuse Han­cock Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Syra­cuse, New York and man­ages 1,900 square miles of FAA-approved sur­veil­lance-as-a-ser­vice infra­struc­ture — one of the largest low-alti­tude air­space man­age­ment sys­tems in the Unit­ed States.

Deliv­er­ing demon­strat­ed pub­lic return on invest­ment of near­ly 7:1, NUAIR is proud to be the cat­a­lyst to not only New York’s air­space inno­va­tion, but mobil­i­ty advance­ment around the globe.