Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Sen. Jeff Barta: Again, taking that technology from our research institutions and getting into the hands of those people who want to be the innovators. Because sometimes those are two different people. You know, you got people, they love their research, but they don't want to pursue the business with it. So how do we connect that and how do we. Because we don't want to do research and let it sit on the shelf. We want research out there improving the lives of our citizens.
[00:00:24] Intro: Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
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John Ramstead: Hey. Welcome to Hangar X Studios. And we are live at the Hive in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and we've been having some incredible conversations about the entire UAS infrastructure that exists up here. And today we have a really, a special guest, Senator Jeff Barta. Senator, thank you for being on the podcast.
[00:01:13] Sen. Jeff Barta: Thanks for the invitation.
[00:01:14] John Ramstead: Yeah. And you actually left the legislative session to be here. You had to, like, get permission to be here today?
[00:01:21] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, I had to. It wasn't a signed note, but I had to check with the leadership. As soon as we finished committee work this morning, I jumped in the vehicle and headed here so we could.
[00:01:30] John Ramstead: And you drove over from Bismarck.
[00:01:32] Sen. Jeff Barta: From Bismarck, correct.
[00:01:33] John Ramstead: So that's quite the drive. So I really appreciate your time. Three and a half hours. And you know what, though? You have. You and your colleagues have made, you know, the business climate, the environment here in Grand Forks has really. There is an incredible foundation. This has been very intentional, and it has been a beautiful partnership between the business community, the mayor, the state legislators, the Air Force, even. Right. We were talking about all these stakeholders that are part of this, some of the tenants and companies that are here. So I'd love for you to just share a little bit of background, though, for yourself, why this has become a focus of what you're doing, one of the focuses that you're doing in the legislature.
[00:02:14] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, you know, probably again, became aware of it when I was sitting on our local chamber board, and that led me to having more of an interest in running. But in my first session. So I'm halfway through my first session.
[00:02:25] John Ramstead: Okay.
[00:02:26] Sen. Jeff Barta: You know, within our commerce budget, the topic of funding, the grants guy, continued funding. So we can see the success of that and our Northern Plains test site.
So as the conversation around their budgets and funding, those came up, I got more and more into that in Those conversations start asking more questions like, how do we support that, saw the value that that brings and how as a state, we've been leaders in this for a while, being the first test site, like, we want to maintain that and we want to elevate the industry as best we can. So we need to continue to support that financially and from that infrastructure standpoint. So it began with the conversation of funding those projects and how we can continue to do that and continue to attract the best and brightest in the country in the UAS world.
[00:03:17] John Ramstead: That's right now, as you dug into it and actually looked at, okay, if we're going to deploy funds, there's got to be an ROI for the state, for the community, for, you know, the average, you know, citizen up here in North Dakota and attract people to come move here.
Where did you see the, I guess the connection between that funding and an ROI for the community?
[00:03:35] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, because ROI was one of those questions. Right. And we're getting that more and more in these days. You know, what is our return on investment? You know, what are we getting for those doll? And in typical world, people are saying, you know, we've spent, you know, $100,000 on it. What revenue have we generated from that?
And that's difficult because this is still in the research and early development stages. We're not into that full commercialization stage. And you know, how far away from that a lot of excitement. I think we're a lot closer to that. So it became focusing on more on the public service and building that infrastructure. We look at the role of government and what it should be doing. Some of it is that infrastructure side and getting a better understanding of what infrastructure is needed for uas.
You know, that's where we tie into what's happening with the Bantas network and the Northern Plains test site.
So that was an important piece of that because ultimately now focusing in on just our North Dakota citizenry, as rural an area as it is, we have underserved areas from the standpoint of primarily health care, but in law enforcement and how we can deploy resources and UAS resources give us an opportunity to serve the citizens out in those areas with services that they either don't have entirely or takes them a long time to get.
[00:04:54] John Ramstead: Yeah, and you talked about there's an infrastructure, the government is, you know, it's this partnership. But what are your priorities as you look at this on infrastructure that takes where things are now and then maybe would move it to the next level.
[00:05:09] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, this session and we just luck we were able to get the funding through. But the $11 million that we, the state put in to obtain the FAA radar fee, because that really created a great extension of the test site network. And what we can, we can cover. And maybe you've had that conversation with others, but how we've gone from, and I may be wrong on the numbers, I think it was 3,600 square miles to 54,000 square miles. I mean, we went from covering just these small pockets of North Dakota with the Vantas network to covering almost the entire state.
[00:05:47] John Ramstead: Well, see, I knew that Vantas, we were actually just over at Gorman Field and we were talking about it with, you know, because that's where University of North Dakota, the Aerospace foundation has actually built a place to test fly UAS and short takeoff and landing aircraft. And the test site is incredible. But also the Vantas we knew the Ventus airspace was limited. Sounds to me like that actually now could dramatically change.
[00:06:11] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah.
[00:06:12] John Ramstead: Which could attract a lot of players to be coming up here and putting bases here to have access to this.
[00:06:18] Sen. Jeff Barta: And it gives us expands that opportunity for truly BB loss operations across the state.
[00:06:25] John Ramstead: And BVloss, for people who don't know is beyond visual line of sight, which is actually a big, that is a big enabler to drone services. Because I know one of your passion projects is the Rural Reach project.
And we interviewed Eyesight, that is a drone service company here that the state is going to be working with, partnering with possibly in this. Could you talk a little bit about what that is?
[00:06:44] Sen. Jeff Barta: And that's a separate. That was, as I say, my day hat because I stepped into a role as project manager with the center for Innovation at Undeveloped, taking over what we've now labeled the project Rural Reach. So it has three use tests. One of those use tests was going to focus on rural delivery. Eyesight was the recipient.
They won the submitted the winning, got the award for the RFP for that. And so that's going to focus on rural delivery. Hopefully we're going to make that rural delivery of medicine. Well, that's what we focused on.
[00:07:16] John Ramstead: Okay. That's the first test case.
[00:07:18] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, that's what we like to do. Because there was already a project out on MHA Nation, which is in the western part of the state, the Mandan Hidatsa Rikara Nation around the Newtown area where Vantas is already established.
And they did a DOT SMART grant project where they, they were looking to deliver insulin from facility in Newtown out to Twin Buttes is where it was.
So there was a project.
[00:07:48] John Ramstead: What's the distance There, do you know that one?
[00:07:50] Sen. Jeff Barta: As the crow flies, I think it was with that one, it was about 26 miles. But because of the vastness the lake, only one bridge in that part of it that would have taken a 90 or 120 minute drive to deliver that medication. So very significant impact on the citizenry there.
And it visiting with healthcare providers out in the west where we hope to do our use test and our flight with eyesight is two communities. Watford City. I've built a new hospital, heart of oil country.
But they are.
They rely on getting supplies and medications from facility in Williston hospital in Williston, 56 miles by road. And they had an incident as visiting with the CEO there where they had a premature delivery.
[00:08:44] John Ramstead: Okay.
[00:08:45] Sen. Jeff Barta: So they had an infant that was born and they needed a medication that they call surfactant.
And so they had to call to Williston to get that a 4 ounce vial of medicine or not a 4 ounce 4 milliliter.
So a very small dose. So they deployed law enforcement to do emergency run, ran that medication there. So about an hour drive. Okay. Whereas if we could deliver that medicine, a life saving medication to that infant, we could have done that beyond visual line of sight in approximately 25, 30 minutes.
[00:09:18] John Ramstead: You probably could have done it faster because I could have run it up to the roof of the clinic and zipped it off versus having to probably go through the approvals to get law enforcement to detail a car over there. And then he's out of service an hour there and an hour there.
[00:09:30] Sen. Jeff Barta: So how does that fit into the roi? Right, we're taking a law enforcement asset off the road and are we making the citizenry vulnerable to a situation? But it struck me because in 1990 I had premature children.
[00:09:46] John Ramstead: Oh, you did.
[00:09:46] Sen. Jeff Barta: Okay. We had twins born.
[00:09:48] John Ramstead: So this is his home.
[00:09:49] Sen. Jeff Barta: So Factant was in the exploratory sages. We had to. Our children right after birth had to go 90 miles or 70 miles from here. They had to go from Grand Forks to Fargo because they didn't have that medication here. That was a research facility. So they were trials with surfactant as medication. So surfactant I can tend. Saved the life of my daughter.
[00:10:12] John Ramstead: Wow, that must have been.
[00:10:13] Sen. Jeff Barta: So when I heard that story.
Well, you know, the ambulance did it and yeah, our first children. Yeah, that was infants that were born at 1 pound 11 ounces and 2 pounds 4 ounces. That was.
[00:10:29] John Ramstead: Oh my gosh.
[00:10:29] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, they were tiny.
[00:10:30] John Ramstead: So little. How are they doing today?
[00:10:32] Sen. Jeff Barta: So our son was only with us four days, but my, my daughter's here living in town and her and her husband are thriving. And that's awesome. Yeah.
[00:10:40] John Ramstead: Grandkids?
[00:10:41] Sen. Jeff Barta: No, granddaughter. So Granddaughter.
[00:10:43] John Ramstead: Fair enough.
Yes. I have, I have, I have a grandson and a grand, grand dog, you know. And I also know is part of this UAS ecosystem that you're focused on.
And also I'd like love for you to share also from the center of Innovation at und, how these tie together as we're focusing on economic development. Because what we're seeing here, there's a fantastic foundation. But the potential here I really think is, you know, 10x from even where what we have right now. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how they're working together.
[00:11:15] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, well, as part of that just connecting people and getting, you know, got people coming with a great idea but they're not, not sure where to start or who they even where they need to go with things.
Just recently had a conversation with some young gentlemen with a great idea in the medical delivery side, you know, looking at developing prescription medications. But what we could do at the center is provide them a space like they have at the Hive here where they can establish a North Dakota presence so they can get involved as part of our ecosystem.
Opens funding opportunities for them and just being in the space, hanging with better people. Right. You know, people within that, that industry. And what we have, what the center for Innovation offers is more those people helping them evolve that idea until they get to the point where they can actually develop that business so it can move them out into an incubator like the Hive. So it's, it's that probably that's step one. Get them introduced to maybe some of the instructors, the professors at UND that can help them learn more about what needs to be done.
Or even students coming from the university who have that idea, working with their instructor, their instructor to elevate that idea to true.
[00:12:36] John Ramstead: Yeah. And you're looking at both hardware software platforms. One of the companies we had on XTI Aerospace is actually doing their.
They've now have space in the hive. They hired a team that's come out of UND to build all their subscale prototypes and just hasn't been an entrepreneur for a long time. You need honestly access to mentorship. Like okay, I have an idea, but how do I turn it into a for profit business? I need access to capital and through the economic development here, there's a lot of that there. But the other thing that you really need that I struggled with as an entrepreneur is access to meeting.
How do I get my word out there. How do I do it? Well, how do I get training on how to speak to groups or individuals and then the whole sales process, because a lot of people are engineers. But so on the economic development side, where are your priorities on those state funds and how do you deploy them? Do you think that's going to be the best benefit for your constituents here?
[00:13:28] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, you know, it becomes competitive and we have the, you know, I suppose you guys.
[00:13:32] John Ramstead: Right.
[00:13:33] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, and it becomes a little territorial, you know, considering we have a number of projects, development projects here and throughout the state. You know, our number one industry is ag and energy. You know, so. And.
But to that point, it's that energy as being one of our top industries that's elevated the uas. And we look at what is done. You brought up eyesight earlier, right? What they've done with flying that infrastructure.
[00:13:59] John Ramstead: Well, they're. They're 90% of their business is critical. Energy infrastructure.
[00:14:02] Sen. Jeff Barta: Exactly.
[00:14:03] John Ramstead: So it's the. There's a symbiotic between the revenues that are generated from the oil fields to then fuel tech startups and business growth. Is that fair?
[00:14:11] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah. Well, you look, I said, oh, we're doing this. What else could we do with our aircraft and the operations that we have? And even from the rural delivery, even though I've been focusing the conversation on the medical delivery. But the crucial impact within that.
One of the things that we suffer from out west and even developing, and I think it's across the country, is number of CDL drivers while out in the oil field.
I was visiting with someone who runs some CDL programs. Part of the problem that we're seeing is we have CDL drivers that are off the road because they're doing these hotshot runs delivering parts out to the oil field.
And it's quite lucrative, but it's kind of a loss of a cdl. So why.
How much better would we be served if we could deliver that using drones?
[00:15:05] John Ramstead: Well, you know, here's an interesting stat for you. We're working with a company and they're. They just got a Navy contract, and The Navy does 3,500 missions a year for critical parts. And they. In the. They surveyed the weight of all these, 40% were less than 12 ounces. Oh, 70% were less than 2 pounds, and 96% were less than 50 pounds. So think about right now. There's drones that have that capacity. If we actually analyzed what they might need in the oil field. So there's actually a large oil field operator out of the Middle east that's actually looking at using this platform because they think the percentage is going to be similar. And so think about a CDL guy might be taken off the road for a 20 pound part, but it's costing the company a million bucks an hour.
[00:15:51] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just again, utilization of our resources, which some of that we're lacking. I mean people is, is, you know, we have jobs, we don't have enough people for them.
But let's not limit it to the energy sector.
[00:16:07] John Ramstead: Right.
[00:16:08] Sen. Jeff Barta: You know, when it comes to ag production, harvest time we have a small window and it's dependent on weather. So when we have a breakdown out in the field in the middle of harvest, that's crucial. And how long does it take for us to get that part delivered to them via traditional terrestrial vehicles versus they.
[00:16:28] John Ramstead: Could be way out in the field, which would be hard unless you had an off road. Is that fair?
[00:16:32] Sen. Jeff Barta: You know, at least here in North Dakota we have a nice grid system with our road.
There's the benefit of living in flat country. You can make truly a grid system. You don't have winding roads, but you still have to. They have to be navigable and yeah, so again that, that straight line of flight versus having to weave your way through some, some roads. But it be. It could be a much more delivery. Efficient, more efficient delivery system for those people. And precision AG is a big part of what we're doing. And I don't know if you've visited with any AG people while you've been up here and in the role of UAS and that, but that's a whole other sector.
[00:17:09] John Ramstead: You know, we haven't, but we'll need to. Maybe we can coordinate on some of those guys would be good to come up and talk to about how they're using UAS in their operations. I think that'd be interesting.
[00:17:18] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, in a segue I expand that into uab, you know, autonomous vehicles as well. Sure, yeah.
[00:17:25] John Ramstead: Yeah.
Now share a little bit about your role at the center for Innovation at University of North Dakota also.
[00:17:33] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah.
[00:17:33] John Ramstead: And kind of what their role is here.
[00:17:35] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, so with that I started just coming into pinch hit to finish this Row Reach project that are working on. But I'll be taking on a siber director role here once I get out of the legislature, once we finish session. So again it's.
[00:17:48] John Ramstead: So you're gonna help. You're gonna help companies get the Cibber grants through the sba, right.
[00:17:52] Sen. Jeff Barta: Which is, I can't remember, small business innovation research.
[00:17:56] John Ramstead: There you go. So these are grants for companies that are, have really cutting edge ideas. They're trying to develop an idea into a.
[00:18:03] Sen. Jeff Barta: Or even researchers taking their product, elevating their product to.
[00:18:08] John Ramstead: Toward commercialization. Right, that is kind of one of the metrics. Yeah.
[00:18:11] Sen. Jeff Barta: And then the other part of that was the small text transfer aspect, which is again, taking that technology from our research institutions and getting into the hands of those people who want to be the innovators. Because sometimes those are two different people.
You know, you got people, they love their research, but they don't want to pursue the business with it. So how do we connect that and how do we. Because we don't want to do research and let it sit on the shelf. We want research out there improving the lives of our citizens.
[00:18:38] John Ramstead: Well, you know, there's so many projects that are great ideas and they just die in this valley of death between having enough expertise or capital to take some of the best ideas ever and commercialize them. And some of the best ideas ever are just still sitting, sitting at the other end of this valley. And these, these programs are really important because they, they help entrepreneurs and companies get through that.
[00:18:58] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah. Well, then the key word to that is the capital. You know, the capital is. Is. That is one of the roles with it. Give them the dollars to elevate that research and innovation and getting them in touch with people who are willing to put some money into that so we can elevate it because it just doesn't happen.
[00:19:14] John Ramstead: Well, in North Dakota and you know, through the state and, and locally, some of the programs you guys have come up with to help entrepreneurs with access to capital have been seen. Has that been anything you've played a role in?
[00:19:25] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, just entering into it now, just part of the conversations.
I don't get so much into those things in the committees that I'm serving on. I happen to chair our industry and business, so I'm more, right now I'm more on the regulatory side of things. So I deal a lot with that. But that being said, banking is part of that. So you know how we're, you know, here in North Dakota, we have a great asset in the bank of North Dakota and they're, they're kind of the, the backbone. So for some of that, the funding too, and what we have with our Lift Lift Fund is, is one in particular. So. Yeah, that helps facilitate that technology development.
[00:20:02] John Ramstead: Yeah.
[00:20:03] Sen. Jeff Barta: Growth.
[00:20:03] John Ramstead: I love that. So, you know, as we kind of wrap up, what, what are just some final thoughts you have for people watch and they're, you know, looking at either growing their business here or they're thinking of coming here or maybe even expanding their operations. Like, you know, we, we didn't, we came up here what, six months ago, and now we're opening a studio here. We have an office here. We've hired people here. Like this is an incredible ecosystem that we didn't know existed until I was up here on a business trip and met Johnny Ryan over here at the Hive.
[00:20:34] Sen. Jeff Barta: So, yeah, the.
I think it's that collaboration. You know, I talk about communication and collaboration.
[00:20:42] John Ramstead: Yeah.
[00:20:43] Sen. Jeff Barta: You know, that's the key piece of that. You know, what it creates. And we see that in, it's within this deep three block area, just the downtown Grand Fork. We have the people that you run into, you know, with Olivan Hotel down the street.
[00:21:02] John Ramstead: Oh, it's fantastic place.
[00:21:04] Sen. Jeff Barta: Who you run into in the lobby and the conversations you just strike up. You know, you get the napkin deals and the napkins.
[00:21:12] John Ramstead: These are major companies from Northrop Gun, General Atomics, Cirrus Aircraft. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. Who, who've decided to make a serious presence here.
[00:21:22] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, I'm sure someone that you've met with already up here has thrown out the Silicon Drone Valley moniker, so rolling with that. But it is just putting great minds, great people together so they can create great ideas.
[00:21:37] John Ramstead: Yeah, fantastic. Well, let me ask you a question. So as a legislator, what can the business community do, you know, the tenants of the hive here, these 28 people that are building companies, what can they do to feed into what you guys are doing at the legislator to help you guys with your mission?
[00:21:55] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, I think it's the education. Okay, so this platform in itself and introducing to it because, and at least from my experience here, it is gaining that knowledge and what we have to deal with because we are citizen legislators, you know, we go there 80 days out of the year to or out of the biennium to deal with, with issues.
But there's so many issues to try to grasp. So the more we can share information, and I've even encouraged my legislators from other parts of the state to come on out here and visit us because we can have conversations around the Capitol or in the chamber about these great things going. But one of the frustrating things when going back to the funding spot aspect was people say, well, that's a Ground Forks project. And I say, UAS is not a Ground Forks project, it's a North Dakota project. It's a United States project, It's a world project, you know, so don't undersell what we have going on here and what we can do to elevate the UAS ecosystem and the commercialization of it. We are leaders in it. We've, we've invested the money. You know, our congressional delegation going years back, Senator Hoeven with the word. He started as governor when he was governor, you know, that laid the groundwork for this. But it started out of how we could support the air base and sustain our mission of the air base. And one thing just led to another and just broke down those barriers. But the education is a big part. We need to make people aware, talk about the problem of the Midwest. Sometimes we're too humble. We don't want to share our successes with people. We kind of take that aw shock stuff saying, I've heard that consistently. We need to brag about ourselves a little bit more. So this is an opportunity to.
[00:23:41] John Ramstead: Well, we're giving you a megaphone and we want you to brag and we want, you know, we want people to actually understand what's happening here. And you're right. It's not just Grand Forks, it's a cross site. There's what, three or four major air force bases up here. There's a space force base that's now been designated and built just north of here about an hour.
They're doing some really advanced testing that nobody can talk about. So I'm sure it's really, really cool up there.
[00:24:05] Sen. Jeff Barta: But yeah, that and, and so the two major bases, Grand Forks, which is Minot, which you always talk about their part, it's the only base that has two parts of the nuclear triad.
So the joke is, well, we've got the, the, the missiles, so we got those with the warheads. It's home for the B52s. So they have the airborne ones, but it's. The only water we have is Lake Sakakawee and that's a little too small for the submarines with the missiles.
[00:24:37] John Ramstead: Yeah, I was a navy guy. There's no navy bases here, so we.
[00:24:41] Sen. Jeff Barta: Won'T have the third leg here. But talk about the two legs of the triad and we do what we can to support it. And Grand Fortiss community is very proud of how we support our military installations. And that was one of the pieces that I happen to be working put a lot of time and energy in this year which we just got passed was an encroachment bill to protect our.
[00:25:03] John Ramstead: Colonel Monroe was here and one of the things he said was the, he said not. Not only is this has been one of the most welcoming communities he's ever had the pleasure to command as far as, you know, between the base and the city. But he goes everywhere they went. His airmen would hear not only thank you for your service, but thank you for my freedom. Yeah, Think about that. I mean that. Such a great group of, you know, red blooded Americans, patriotic, great work ethic, you know, forward thinking, doing some great things. They're just good people here.
[00:25:34] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah.
[00:25:34] John Ramstead: Yeah.
[00:25:35] Sen. Jeff Barta: Well, I've known nothing else because I haven't ventured too far from here. I've lived here all my life, so I haven't experienced world out the world outside of North Dakota.
[00:25:44] John Ramstead: Oh, I've been all over the world and there's good people here. I'll just leave it at that. How's that?
[00:25:48] Sen. Jeff Barta: Great. We'll take that.
[00:25:49] John Ramstead: All right.
[00:25:49] Sen. Jeff Barta: We'll accept that.
[00:25:50] John Ramstead: Senator, thank you so much for making the time and you are welcome to come on anytime.
[00:25:54] Sen. Jeff Barta: Absolutely.
[00:25:55] John Ramstead: You know, you or your colleagues, if you got something you're working on, you want to get the word out, we want to raise that megaphone or you got some wins, let's go. Let's also talk about some wins.
[00:26:03] Sen. Jeff Barta: This is just the beginning. I want to take bigger, bigger projects.
This project, the world reach started with small drones and, and certainly want to start exploring the bounce there, mobility stuff. Stuff. You know, my vision is for these rural communities. Let's get, let's get an air ambulance going.
[00:26:20] John Ramstead: So I think, well, that, that, that is something we should talk about. And you know, as rural reeds takes off, you know, it'd be fun to come back and have you and some of the guys at eyesight, maybe some of our stakeholders and let's kind of do a, even a panel. Let's just talk about the wind and how the business and the community and the state legislator, how we all came together to actually create service that benefited everybody.
[00:26:42] Sen. Jeff Barta: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:26:43] John Ramstead: You know, and it provides business, profitable business for one company, saves lives, frees up resources like, you know, comps they don't. You want to save one life, but not at the expense of a community. Right. So like you talked about. So awesome. Well, what a great. This has been a great conversation. I look forward to the next one.
[00:26:58] Sen. Jeff Barta: Too bad we have a time limit, so.
[00:27:00] John Ramstead: Yeah, too bad.
All right. Thank you, sir.
[00:27:02] Sen. Jeff Barta: Thank you, John. Appreciate it.
