Jack Elston (ElCompEngr’03, MS’05, AeroEngr MS’07 PhD’11) had a hunger for better uncrewed aerial systems that he has turned into a successful business. With fellow CU Boulder alumnus Maciej Stachura (AeroEngr PhD'13), they founded Black Swift Technologies, which develops purpose-built aerial platforms for scientific research in extreme environments.
In your own words, what does your company do?
Based in Boulder, CO and founded in 2011, Black Swift Technologies is recognized for delivering reliable, robust, and highly accurate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) capable of flying scientific payloads in demanding atmospheric environments (high-altitude, arctic, desert, corrosive particulates, and strong turbulence).
Its purpose-built scientific aerial platforms are used around the globe for a variety of specialized atmospheric research missions in extreme conditions, including monitoring and assessing wildland fires, volcanoes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We've developed advanced systems enabling machine learning and machine vision for applications like preventative maintenance and automated remote landing with collision avoidance.
Our team of industry leading experts continue to develop cutting edge capabilities that push the possibilities of unmanned aircraft systems.
Why did you decide to take the plunge and start a business?
Both myself and the other founder, Maciej Stachura, who also graduated from CU Boulder, really enjoyed our time here in Boulder and wanted to stay as long as we could. Additionally, from our experiences doing research at CU we had plenty of time to work with commercially available autopilot systems and were convinced we could do a better job regarding ease of setup and use.
We started from scratch, throwing in a bit of money from each side (which was incredibly limited as we were both on graduate student salaries at the time) and build our first few avionics systems in my living room.
How did your education at CU Boulder prepare you for the challenge?
CU provided me with both the tool set and the contacts necessary to succeed. Our business didn't really "take off" until we were able to win a grant from NASA, which years of publishing papers had prepared me well for the technical writing aspects of. Plus, the unique understanding of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) that was required for the research I was performing at CU, essentially tornado chasing with small fixed-wing aircraft, allowed me to understand the details of avionics as well as the use case of UAS for atmospheric science. That knowledge and the great network of NOAA and NCAR contacts I met while doing research certainly helped in the process of creating a business.
Our team of industry leading experts continue to develop cutting edge capabilities that push the possibilities of unmanned aircraft systems.
What do you like the most about your work at Black Swift Technologies?
Solving difficult problems. Everything we do from the volcano monitoring to hurricane observations has it's own unique challenges, and it's great not only to try and figure out how to overcome them, but also see a system working correctly in some very difficult conditions. Additionally, our systems are generating data that ideally helps to improve the understanding of these systems and ideally will eventually lead to better warnings and the associated reduction in the loss of life and property from some of the severe phenomena we help to observe.
How has your company grown since being founded?
We've been fortunate enough to have steady growth since we bootstrapped the company in 2011. From a two man operation taking place in the living room of my apartment we've expanded to a staff of 10 people with offices in Boulder and a regular schedule of interesting projects.
Find out more about Black Swift Technologies at their website