43: Preston Cave--A Farm Kid Buys a $40,000 Drone And Builds a Business

We sit down with North Carolina farmer and drone applicator Preston Cave to hear how a $40,000 leap turned into PAC Aerial Applications and a new way to help growers get more done with less time. We also talk through the hard parts of getting legal, working safely, serving western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, and staying grounded in faith and purpose. 

• Preston’s background on a tobacco farm and how it builds work ethic 
• Transition from cattle and grass-fed beef to custom drone application 
• Buying the first ag drone and learning to fly with real stakes 
• What these ag drones can carry and why size changes the job 
• FAA requirements and North Carolina pesticide licensing for drone spraying 
• Handling restricted airspace and setting safe operating limits 
• Mapping fields while spraying and planning around obstacles 
• Year-round services from cover crop seeding to frost protection 
• The moment a mountain sunrise reframes purpose and direction 
• Hurricane Helene relief work and delivering supplies with drones 

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Preston

Marisa 0:01

Hi, and welcome back to another episode of Raised on the Farm Podcast, where everything is on the table. So today on the podcast, we have Preston Cave. He is a drone pilot and farmer from Surrey County, North Carolina. After college, he returned to the family farm. However, after several years, he and his wife chose to take a step back and raise their own beef. Fast forward eight years, and the Caves made the hard decision to sell their herd and embark on a new business adventure. PAC Aerial Applications offering custom applications using drones for farmers in North Carolina. Preston has the opportunity to speak nationally on drone usage in agriculture, aid in Hurricane Helene relief efforts, and continue to show up for farmers across the area, helping them become more efficient and profitable. Preston, welcome to Raced on the Farm Podcast.

Chad 0:50

Wow, awesome. Thank you, guys. Yeah, I hate I missed you at Pork Forward last week. Um we were there flying around. Yeah, I hate to miss that. I didn't get outside much. We had our own booth to man, and Marisa and I were working on that. So but it's good to finally be in contact with you. We could have done a we could have done a live podcast right there in the booth.

Marisa 1:11

We talked about it.

Chad 1:12

Yep, we sure did. Sure did. Well,

From NC State To Girl Dad

Chad 1:15

Preston, tell us who you are, man. How would folks describe Preston Cave? I mean, what who do they say you are?

Preston 1:22

I guess they would probably I I I like to cut up and laugh and joke, and I I think to uh find myself a very positive person, so I hope people would say that about me. Um I'm a God fearing man as well, so I hope people would realize that I'm a Christian. And um, you know, we're we're uh I was born and raised on a tobacco farm, so uh hard work just had to uh had to come natural. So uh yeah, hardworking, funny Christian man.

Marisa 1:48

I love it.

Preston 1:49

That's awesome. Me too. Yep, yep. And a girl dad.

Marisa 1:53

Okay, well, tell us a little about your family.

Preston 1:56

Yeah, so me and my wife met at NT State. Um I graduated there in 2014. Uh, me and her got married in 2015, and then our first uh first girl, Sydney, was born in 2021. Um, our second girl, Presley, she was born in 2023, and then uh Raleigh Grace um was our third girl. She's eight months old now. She was born last September. So yeah.

Chad 2:29

Wow. Man, all girls.

Preston 2:31

All girls.

Chad 2:32

Yep. God bless you, Preston.

Preston 2:35

Hey, hey, it's uh I uh everybody asks, are we gonna have another one? And I'm like, I I don't know, we may or may not, but we uh if I knew it was gonna be a girl, I'd probably still want to have another one. So I I love being a girl dad. Um they're uh they're fun. They are uh something else, that's for sure. They're they uh we live right here on the side of a pretty pretty busy highway, but um we got us a big garden this year and a creek in front of the house, and it's not uh they go outside and they immediately go run play in the dirt and play in the creek, and um, so it's it's fun. Yeah.

Chad 3:12

Tell me about their personalities. Are they are they different, vastly different between the two older ones? I guess the younger ones too soon to tell.

Preston 3:18

Well, the young one is an absolute angel. She is eight months old, and um she's been sleeping through the night since she was probably two or three weeks old. Um, is pretty wild. Um, happy, go lucky, never cries, uh, awesome baby. Uh Presley was a good baby as well. Uh, she's my middle one, and she is wild. Um she is wide open, and uh her personality is starting to shine. And then Sydney, uh, she's our oldest. Um loves to be outside, loves to play in the dirt. Um, we're starting to show pigs, and that's another thing I got to talk to you guys about. I got called Garrett. Um find us a find us a pig for state fair, maybe. Um, but um just full of so many questions and just remembers everything. We drive around and uh around these roads, just like, why are we going to such and such's house? Like, this is the way you go there. And um I I darted a cow for a guy whenever she was two years old, and it's it's not anywhere close to our house, but we drove by the other day and she said, Daddy, how's that white cow you darted darted a while back? And I'm like, that was like four years ago. How do you remember this? Oh wow, but no, they're they're great. Which one's the most like you? Oh uh the wild one. Well, the wild one, they all get it's it's funny how they all got a mix of both of us. And uh Raleigh's pretty pretty laid back and happy all the time, so I like to think that that she's gonna be most like me, but um Raleigh definitely looks like me a lot, and so does Cindy um whenever she was younger. Um, but they're they all got a little bit of each in us, so it's it's fun.

Marisa 5:11

That's awesome.

Chad 5:12

Yes, it's funny how that happens, isn't it? Yep, yep, yep, for sure.

Marisa 5:16

Genetics are wild.

Chad 5:18

Yeah, yeah, they are. Yep. So you

Tobacco Farm Roots And Work Ethic

Chad 5:23

were raised on a farm, um, Preston, right?

Preston 5:26

Yeah, yeah. Born and raised on a tobacco farm. Um, tobacco's what put me through college. Um, and then I graduated in 2014 and uh come back to farm with dad, and uh tobacco was starting to get pretty rough then, um prices not really going up as as high as all the input costs, labor hard to find. Um, but I always loved cattle. Um we had cattle growing up, and then whenever I got back um from NC State, we started expanding our our registered Hereford business, and we sold seed stock, uh, registered bulls and heifers, and uh dad also had uh corn, beans, and and uh and some small grains as well. So we done row crop, but tobacco mostly um is what we is what we grew up on. And so is your dad still farming tobacco and and those row crops, or so our last crop was in 2017.

Marisa 6:29

Okay.

Preston 6:29

Um dad still does row crops. Um he's got uh I he also had we he bought a farm whenever I was six years old that had chicken houses. So I I don't care much for the chicken houses. I've got really bad allergies, so the dust and stuff bothers me, but um he's got breeder uh chicken houses for uh Wayne Sanders, and um so he has four of those, and um I don't I don't much care for that, but uh the litter, the the poultry litter is nice. Uh we we utilize that on all of our row crop land, and uh he still has those chicken houses. He's got four uh 500-foot chicken houses, and then uh he does row crops, probably three, four hundred acres of row crops, and then um about he still has about eighty or ninety mama cows now.

Marisa 7:22

Okay.

Preston 7:23

Wow, that's impressive.

Chad 7:24

Yeah. How do you think pressing um that being raised on a farm shaped you and and into who you are today?

Preston 7:32

Um what do you Yeah, I I would I would say just just getting up and if there's something to do, you gotta get up and get it done. Um I never was a morning person at all. Um I remember whenever we would have our we would have our boys show up at 5.30 uh to start topping tobacco or priming tobacco, and I remember dad uh telling me to wake up, and then most of the mornings I got I got grabbed by the by the feet and jerked out into the hallway uh at 5.15 uh to have everything ready whenever the boys got there. But um as you get older, and especially as I started this business, um there's times where I'm on the road at 2.30 in the mornings um to get to places. Um other day we uh when frost was coming, I I was flying my I started flying my drone at 2 o'clock in the morning and flew till 7.30 in the morning to protect frost over top of green beans. And um we was just flying the drone back and forth to blow hot air down to the ground.

unknown 8:34

Wow.

Preston 8:35

Um and then you know, I had to drive two hours to another job and stayed there and spread six tons of furlies um with five gallons, had the five-gallon bucket, six ton of furlies into my drone and spread in the mountains. Um I got back home at six o'clock that night and and you know started over again the next day. So the the biggest thing is just whenever something needs to be done, we gotta do it. And I think you know, farming, um it doesn't we we don't like to work on Sundays, but sometimes you have to. But the rest of the six days of the week, I mean, if there's something that needs to be done, you gotta do it. Um, and that's that's something that's helped me carry over in the drone business is is a work ethic. So I I would definitely say that work ethic is the is the biggest thing that I've gained from from being raised on a farm.

Chad 9:28

Well, I I really appreciate your entrepreneurial spirit. I think that's um it's impressive to see you uh start a business like that and and and um really go for it. Oh yeah.

Preston 9:39

Yeah, it's it's it's a wild, it's a wild story how we got started. Um I guess we could we could go from that. Uh

The $40K Drone That Started It

Preston 9:46

this kind of shows how how my dad is. Um I was we was doing grass-fed, grass-finished beef, and I had a buddy of mine that had a drone, and I was going to get him to come up and spread um some cover crop seed into or some winter annuals into my summer annuals that I was grazing. And my dad had some row crops, and uh I just asked my dad if we could do some do some cover crops into his rope standing row crops at the time to make it worth my buddies uh while coming up here. And uh dad said, let's just go buy a drone. So I definitely had plenty of help. Uh and that was a fright, that was on a Friday morning, and by Monday morning, we had a $40,000 drone sitting in the parking lot that we knew nothing about. I'd I'd flown a drone maybe 20 minutes in my lifetime. Um so uh so yeah, it kind of fell in my lap, and once we had it, we realized we had to get legal to even run it. Um, and seven months later, uh PAC Aerial Applications was born. So been a wild ride.

Marisa 10:52

Wow. How how terrified were you to fly it for the first time?

Preston 10:58

Um looking back, uh the the per Johnny, the guy that sold it to me, great guy, wonderful guy. He's from South Georgia, so he'd never been in the hills up here, which what were where he came to spray, he'd never been in that kind of terrain before. But now like what we do with this drawing is kind of kind of crazy. But we were the way he told us to fly it, um, it was as much autonomous as possible. So we really didn't fly it that much. So I kind of got comfortable with it um months into it, but um it was it was it was really scary to to start off with not really knowing how to fly it, but as you get comfortable with it, people ask me how long did it take. And honestly, I probably had to get a thousand to fifteen hundred acres in under my belt before I was actually really comfortable with it. And we still do some sketchy stuff uh today. Uh, you know, we're we're 19,000, 20,000 acres in already. Um and uh there's still some stuff that you're like, man, this is this is a little wild. But um, I I was definitely scared to fly it at first, but um, it's really, really hard to wreck it, uh, to be honest with you. You just gotta have all your settings right to make sure that it, if something does go wrong, that it that it comes back to you at the right height, or it it doesn't come back to you, you gotta manually fly it in or or that sort of thing. So um I would I would say that that we have done a really good job um with what with how we set up our fields and and how we do it, just because we haven't wrecked a lot, uh, and maybe it's because that it's it's me, the owner, that's usually flying the drone instead of having a bunch of young guys um that are just out there just trying to cover acres. Um so we we really make sure that we got all the fields set, fields are set right, mapped right, uh, all the obstacles are taken care of, and uh we're constantly watching the drone. We're not we're not just swiping right on the controller and letting it do its thing.

Marisa 13:12

So now for listeners, these drones are not like your typical like cameras, camera drones that you see flying, zipping around. Um these are much heavier pieces of equipment, right?

Preston 13:29

Oh yeah, yep. Yeah, so uh this this latest drone that we got is um holds 26 gallons of liquid, holds uh, and you can take the aircraft off the spray tank and set it on the spreader tank, and the spreader tank holds 220 pounds of of dry product. Um so fully loaded that drone is is right about right around 450, 500 pounds fully loaded.

Marisa 13:59

Wow.

Preston 14:00

Yeah, it's it's it's massive. 12 foot wide, wingtip to wingtip, um, and they're just they're just getting they're just getting bigger. So it's uh who knows. You know, the first drone that I bought um was a 10-gallon drone, and uh we also have a five-gallon drone that we use a lot, but now there's companies out there that's building a 40-gallon drone, um which uh bigger's not always better, but uh each each drone has their has their place. So it just you just gotta gotta figure out what drone you need to use for certain jobs.

Chad 14:40

Okay,

Licenses, Safety, And Airspace Rules

Chad 14:41

I I'm a pilot too, and I gotta geek out a little bit here on you. Um first I want to back up and find out what did you have to do to get qualified? I mean, do you have a pilot's license? Do you have to take some kind of course? What's the what's the qualifications required?

Preston 14:55

Now, just to clear things up, we never flew this drone until we were 100% legal.

Chad 15:00

Absolutely. FAA would certainly want to hear that.

Preston 15:04

Yes, yeah. But that I mean that that does anybody anybody listening to this podcast right now could go and buy one. Um I'd be more than happy to sell you one. And and all the dealers are the same way, they want to sell you a drone. But the one thing that you got to find as a dealer that knows what it takes to get fully legal, um, and we were lucky enough to find that, and now we've partnered up with even more people to get the job done right. So we had to have a uh 107, which is an unmarried uh unmanned aircraft pilot's license. We had to have a 137, which allows you to fly chemical out of a drone. You had to have a 44807, which allows you to fly a drone that's over 55 pounds. You got to have the drone registered and have an end number. You also have to have a in North Carolina, you gotta have a North Carolina core pesticide license, commercial pesticide license, aerial pesticide license, and a Pacific pesticide license.

unknown 16:13

Wow.

Preston 16:14

Um, and you gotta have a you gotta have 125 hours of apprenticeship time um from in North Carolina as well.

Marisa 16:23

So you just had to go back to school.

Preston 16:25

Yeah, it was we we bought the drone in September, and um I we we did do stuff for my dad. I didn't do any custom work until I got fully legal, but um it took me seven months to get fully legal. Um, and that that process is a little bit quicker now. Um one of the things that's a little bit backwards about it is so you've got to buy the drone. Well, the way it was set up is you had to buy the drone, and then you've got to get your end number, and then you can uh file for your 44807 and your 137. So we're working with an American main company. We got selected of one of 15 applicators in the United States to test products for XD. And one cool thing that they're doing is whenever you buy their drone, it already has an end number. So they're they're taking the serial numbers, the plates, and getting these drones pre-registered. And so whenever you buy that drone, it'll already have an end number with it. So uh that's something that's gonna be it's gonna be uh uh a big help because that'll that'll save you about three months. Yeah.

Chad 17:37

Now does uh and I'm sorry, this is probably some wondering now, but does the um is the GPS on the drone keep you from flying in restricted airspace like class Charlie? Do you ever come across like fields next to airports where you can't fly?

Preston 17:52

Yeah, so DJI has you uh geo-locked in certain areas. Okay. Um I think that's the right term. So if we get close to airspace, it'll be highlighted on our controller. Well, yellow is like a caution. We can fly in it like a you know, it'll be yellow uh outside of a uh or in the runway path of an airport, and we can fly in that airspace. Um but then whenever it's blue on our controller, it's locked. So we have to go in um through DJI, fly safe, and unlock the drone and just tell them, hey, we're gonna be at at 45 feet high, is as high as we're gonna be. Um and that's you know, most of the time we're less than than 20 feet off the ground. Um so then it won't, once you once you unlock that airspace, it will only let your drone fly to however high you've set it in in the unlocking process. So um, but there's no reason for us to be anywhere over 50, 50 feet in the air.

Chad 18:54

Right, right. Unless you're in the mountains going up a uh Christmas tree field.

Preston 18:59

Yeah, so that we we do a lot of people uh spread at at like 15 to 20 feet high, but that we do we do a lot of stuff at 50 feet high and higher, um, like frost seeding clover or even spreading fertilize. Um some of these mountains we'll just fly uh straight off the top of, and instead of trying to stay 50 feet off the ground and it and it you know descend down the mountain and then try to climb back up, we'll just fly it straight off the top of the mountain. Um and uh we'll be like 30 feet high at the top of the mountain and and 200 feet high at the bottom. So it's it's pretty pretty rugged terrain.

How Field Mapping Works Mid-Flight

Chad 19:41

Um do you just fly around the perimeter and then the drone nose? Do you fly to specific points? Obviously, in the mountains you probably have to set altitudes and stuff like that. Give me a little bit of a kind of a overlook of how you start the uh application process as far as flying the drone.

Preston 20:00

Yeah, so that that's one thing that kind of sets us apart from a lot of people. Um you know, one thing with this industry, a lot a lot of people that come in are just drone nerds that want to make money. Um and you know, we're we're we got an ag background and we just happen to fall into it and and we've started a business, right? But people laugh at me, but I absolutely suck at technology. I I I didn't own a computer till this till last fall. Um so I've made it two years in business and didn't even own a computer. Um but anyways, uh so a lot of people pre-map their fields using other drones. Uh that drone's gonna cost you about $7,000 that you're gonna map with, and then the the um Pix4D that you use to stitch that imagery together is gonna cost you another four grand a year. Um so what we've done, and it's worked for us great, is DJI has a um mode, I guess you would say, called M Plus, which is manual plus. So what that allows you to do is you put your parameters in, say we're spraying a field at three gallons to the acre, we're going to fly at 12 feet above the crop, and we're going to spray a 25-foot swath. So we start off, we hit the start button, and we're flying around the edge of the field. As we're flying around the edge of the field, we're spraying and mapping at the same time. So once we get back, no matter how many tanks it takes, once we get back to our starting point, uh, or we make a full circle around the field and the obstacles, uh, we hit save as field and it and it saves that as a field. We have to go in there and play with the settings some, but we will shrink that field down and um and then just be flying straight runs back and forth. Um so we fly around each obstacle in the field, um, create obstacles inside of their inside of that field. on our on our remote control and just send it from there. Wow.

Chad 22:05

That's really interesting.

Preston 22:06

Yep. Yep. So it follows terrain by itself and um and it's it's flying completely by itself back and forth on those straight A B lines. And really cool.

What Drone Application Looks Like

Marisa 22:18

This the the jobs that y'all are doing you're applying fertilizer, applying pesticide, you're moving hot air for frost, what else what else falls under what y'all do?

Preston 22:32

If you've got enough money, we'll come out and do it. It don't matter to us. If it involves a drone we'll we'll do it. Kids' birthday parties and uh thread and ashes uh ginger reveals uh literally literally anything um it's it's amazing what people will call you about um whenever you have one of these things um but no we we do we do a lot of different things um spraying insecticide um fertilizer spreading fertilizer foliar fertilizers um you know pre-harvest aid you know stuff like morning glories or burr cucumber um I mean that's that's one thing that the drones were everybody wants to wants to spray uh fungicide I mean that's that's what everybody wants to do uh in row crops everybody's kind of waiting for July August to get here um but that's one thing we've kind of done to set ourselves apart from everybody else we we spray 12 months out of the year you know if our if our drones aren't in the air uh we're not making money um so our our year kind of starts in January um well I guess we'd we'll say October and we are spraying uh actually spraying deer repellent on Christmas trees in the fall um so we we spray them um in December January February March will be spraying deer repellent and we also in that time frame we're frost seeding clover and then we will frost seeding clover is something that we really enjoy doing it's it's five to ten pounds to the acre we can really cover a lot of a lot of land quickly uh we do that on pasture and also Christmas tree farms too uh we'll frost seed clover in them uh and then we start in on pasture herbicide so we'll start the southern part of North Carolina eastern part of North Carolina with herbicide work and work our way west um and it kind of keeps going from east to west every season so um we'll we'll have a uh March May run March April run of like butter trying to kill buttercups and and those sort of things and then summertime hits and we start doing row crop work and doing more mountain herbicide pasture work and then uh July comes and that's whenever we hope the fall really starts ringing off the hook and we can cover some acres then um if we get stretched out we can do this T100 could easily do 500 acres a day in some big big ground um so that's whenever the fungicide season is so we'll do fungicide season and then uh we'll start back um August September we'll start spreading cover crop over top of row crops so corn beets those sort of things to get a cover crop established before harvest um and I really enjoy doing that that's something that I've you know with my grazing and and grass fed beef background um that's something I think is really going to be really profitable for the farmer if if he can if he can get it going um and has cattle and row crops is kind of a no-brainer um and carbon credits too we have a lot of farmers that that get a lot of carbon credits for establishing that cover crop early so I don't know how well that answered your question but we uh we do a lot of different things through the year I mean it's um it's crazy honestly we've been blessed so was there a moment in in your journey of you know doing this drone work that you said yeah this this was the right choice to make that pivot and to go from cattle to to drone work yeah we we tried doing both for uh that first season and I knew it was just too much um so we ended up selling our cattle in the spring of 25 but uh we had I had a we were I bought this drone or dad bought this drone and I was thinking that I could do my first my goal for the first year was 5,000 acres and I thought I could do two farmers here in my county and I haven't done a single acre for either one of those farmers yet but we had it was super dry that first year and um we we didn't get but about a hundred acres of fungicide work. But I done a I done a I got a call from the mountain research station up in Waynesville um which is west of west of uh asheville and we went up there and done a field day and that kind of opened up my business more than I ever thought it would.

Purpose Found In The Mountains

Preston 27:33

We do a lot of mountain pasture herbicide work but uh we went back up there and one morning it was about 645 we were the farmer was taking me up to the top of the mountain and there was a sunrise coming up that if I had if I was doing a slideshow it would maybe I can send you the picture just the most beautiful sunrise you've ever seen and I struggled um a lot whenever I come out of college and we me and my dad struggled farming together and uh ended up getting different jobs and having to leave the farm and I I struggled with that because I knew I wanted to do something with farming but that morning I realized that God had a purpose for me and now I get to go around and and help out literally hundreds of farmers all across the state and even uh farmers across the country or world um with using drones. We talked to a lot of different people I'm on a a planning committee for one of if not the world's largest drone conference and get to talk and talk in it as well. So um uh God always has a plan and uh this drone this drone deal has has been exciting and it's a way for me to get in front of a lot of people that's awesome yeah he sure does he uh he'll he'll um he'll put you in the right place at the right time if you'll just listen to him oh for sure for sure so are you a are you a drone pilot or a farmer or are you both uh I would like to say I'm both uh we I think so we we we got a big garden uh um but but I I don't I mean I'm I am gone from the house we don't do any farming anymore we don't have any cattle I mean I helped my dad very little I I yeah I guess I yeah I would definitely be a drone pilot than I am a farmer now but um but still I think the the farming background kind of kind of what what sets me apart from most from most applicators in the state or even in the country um you can always tell those guys that got a farming background they they they know the chemistry they know what they're doing and and they know what it takes to get the job done so um definitely it has helped me um with my farming background but I would I would definitely say I'm a drone pilot these days yeah I bet because you know as you got into it I'm sure some of the things that you do like um I don't know different like blowing hot air down on I mean you didn't even probably think about that as an option for flying a drone whenever you first started.

Chad 30:11

No.

Preston 30:12

So it's just been kind of learn as you go it sounds like yeah and I guess I would I guess I would say I'm probably more of an app I'm an applicator more than I am a drone pilot. Because I the drones fly themselves for the most part but anybody can can wiggle the sticks on one but um if you don't know what you're doing as far as applying the the the pesticide or herbicide or whatever you're doing uh you're going to end up doing a bad job so I guess I would correct that I'm an applicator so a drone pilot but um but yeah I mean we um we've sprayed this whole winter we sprayed milk on Christmas trees for deer repellent milk yeah wow milk yeah milk yeah yep but I but I've I don't like milk but I've got to say it's a calcium booster uh because I I uh if you consider it a repellent then um I got called out uh last year whenever I made a video about it um because milk doesn't have an EPA number so so we spray a lot of calcium on trees yeah well what does um what does uh your business look like five years from now

Scaling PAC With A Two-Truck Team

Preston 31:30

or or where's what's the future look like for you in the drone application uh world I have I have no idea um yeah if you would have told me the fall of 23 that that I would be I mean even on a podcast talking about flying drones for one but two literally traveling the country talking to people um my phone will ring two or three times a day from different different applicators all across the country um asking about stuff um this this American made drone deal is going to be pretty cool I'm I'm uh I'm excited about it um so I I I really hope that that drone is competitive to the Chinese drones that we're flying now somewhat competitive and um and we can be you know dealers for that we can be helping farmers buy their own drones um own American made drones um it's something that I want to grow slowly uh but it also I mean there's there I was listening to a podcast the other day where the guy um he has 27 interns and 12 full-time guys and he sprayed 1700 acres last year with drones so which uh that's not gonna happen here I I don't think I don't think it's gonna happen here but um I mean you get I who knows I don't I don't know whatever the Lord wants me to do I guess but yeah um it could it could be expanded fastly uh if we had enough contract work you know if we had enough big farmers that we that we know that the work's there um we're doing a lot of work for some nursery some tree nurseries and some Christmas tree guys um and that stuff's not going away you know that a lot of people in the drone world are competing with airplanes and helicopters at eight ten dollars and um that work we're competing against a backpack um so we're we're charging anywhere from 40 to 70 dollars on some of that work um just because it's so steep so rugged and then like the fertilized work uh we're we're charging anywhere from eighty to 120 dollars an acre uh I got a job uh first week in June we got to put two tons of lime out to the acre on 17 acres um I ain't even figured up the math on how much that is but that's a lot um so I mean that's the stuff that we're doing that that uh that sets us apart from everybody else so I don't know are we going to be selling drones to all these farmers and helping them run their drones or we gonna expand the business uh have multiple employees I don't know but the the options are endless now is it currently just you running the drones or is are there employees? So I I have one full-time employee um he's a good friend of mine um he's kind of it's kind of been cool because he the first job that I done he's always thought drones were cool and I I mean we we've always been buddies but um he I sent him a Snapchat and he's like man I'm gonna come over and check you out and he helped me on the first job um two years ago three years ago and yeah two years ago and um June of last year he started working for us full time now um so he's been kind of part-time uh training whatever you want to say for two years and then um he's almost been been with me for a year now and uh he's fully legal got all the license all the PESI license just like I got uh got his drone license so we have two trucks now so we uh we can split up if we get busy enough um but last year he was going with me the whole time and it's basically him helping me um but also kind of training you know we get to the every job's different so we get up to to a job and we kind of talk it over about how he would do it or how I would do it and that's a way for him to learn um I wouldn't be scared for him to go out and do any job that that that got caught in. So he does a great job and he is great with technology. He handles all of my billing um all of my computer work uh that's one thing that that uh we've got a we gotta uh send FAA our flight logs every month so every flight that we do has to be recorded and sent to the FAA FAA so um that's something that that he keeps everything he does all that work um so I handle all the work with the customers and getting jobs and and um and he handles the back end of things so it it it we are a good team uh we work well together and uh he's he's been a blessing because he takes care of everything that that I'm not very good at so it works out great.

Hurricane Helene Supply Missions

Chad 36:44

That's awesome. Yeah I want to I want to talk about Hurricane Helene a little bit. I know you did some work over there. Let's jump over and and and let's just um venture into Hurricane Helene I know that was a a tough time for our western North Carolina folks and um tell us what happened well um I was doing a job the hurricane hit Friday and we actually I had a demo Friday at a tractor dealership and we actually drove through the rain.

Preston 37:14

It wasn't that bad where we were at um we got up to Wilkesboro and people were talking about down trees and that sort of thing and you know people don't realize how bad it is but Saturday because nobody had any kind of cell phone service in the mountains so Saturday we start getting some pictures and some people asking for helicopters and um I was spraying a field in Walkertown and it's a pretty easy pasture so it was one of those fields that I could just you know send the drone out and I was actually scrolling Facebook and I and I seen those Facebook posts needing helicopters and I I just made a post on Facebook with our drones and said you know I'm not going to be useful for in every situation but there are situations out there where I know these drones can be used. And I some of those memories come up last fall and I think that that Facebook post got shared like 1200 times or something and I mean it was it was wild and everybody started sending me like locations of people that they had heard from and I probably had 400 messages in two or three days and you couldn't you couldn't just go to each place it'd be super inefficient. You couldn't do that whenever you get up there's helicopters and planes flying everywhere it wasn't safe for us to be flying. So I ended up working closely with uh Russell Hedrick and the uh the best way team um they brought in uh fly carts which are basically souped up ag drones um that don't have any kind of spray tank or spreader tank they have a winch on the bottom of them it that I got up there on Monday um we rigged up my T-40 and some shopping carts um we ended up cutting down some shopping carts uh three of them so that we'd have three to rotate through got gas uh a bunch of people put a bunch of stuff together got gas ended up raising like $1500 in in 48 hours and had a 20-foot gooseneck trailer full of supplies and gas um and we made a trip up there Monday morning me and my cousin and a few other people um he drove his little his dodge dually in that 20 foot gooseneck and we got up there and it was just hectic uh chaos we were in uh McDowell County and uh they Russell and them had done started working closely with them and and the emergency department and um we were able to work with with um the air chiefs there in the county and uh the first job we were getting we were going to be flying supplies off of 2026 I think it was um right there in McDowell County up to the parkway and um we ended up Chandler my cousin took that Dodge and that uh gooseneck and put it in four high and raised Kane up a ditch and got around a washout so we ended up not having to fly the drones but we got that gooseneck load up to the parkway that was probably two or three hundred people up there that were needing stuff so we emptied out that gooseneck and then I got a phone call uh down in Old Fort they wanted they wanted a community took care of and flown supplies to we get there and people had done uh got side by sides through the river uh the bridge had washed out but they were side by siding you know taking side by sides and and um getting people out of that community and uh ended up up the road we was able to actually fly our T40 and um we flew three uh shopping cart fulls of water supplies um and gas across a river um to uh to an elderly couple that that needed those supplies so I did get to fly my drone one time but then Tuesday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday it was hectic um but we ended up going all around like two or three different counties right there um Fairview community uh old Fort um man I can't remember some of this stuff now but uh we ended up delivering or I ended up helping them deliver uh two and a half tons of supplies with drones uh we got up there in the in the Fairview community and um this was on Tuesday or Wednesday Wednesday this was on Wednesday the hurricane happened Friday and nobody had been up to these these people in the mountain but we was able to get at the bottom of the mountain and we were flying these drones um 40 to 80 pound bags at a time flying them up uh 3,000 feet up up into the mountain and setting uh black trash bags down in these people's yards um so I can only imagine what what people were thinking sitting in the living room and looking outside and here's a trash bag starting to pile up in their yard. Truly um wow yeah yeah so um it was definitely a a blessing to be a part of and um people people don't really know what what western North Carolina is going through still to this day. We were just in Marshall uh two days ago and there's still there's still builds in downtown Marshall um that are that are blocked up or boarded up with still the original spray paint on the doors um I I know hurricanes happen all the time down east and I don't I don't want to take away from that I know they're I know they're serious but the way these communities are laid out and the way these roads are laid out it's a it's a completely different completely different thing.

Chad 43:34

I mean these these whole communities were completely washed away yeah yeah sure and you know I think what's um important to remember about Hurricane Aline is that I you know everybody across the state uh wanted to help and supplies just came rolling in. I know even in the east you know we had a lot of supplies back up um and we actually flew some supplies to the mountains but after our you know useful load I think we were able to make like 250 pounds per trip, which is about what your drone will haul. Yeah. So um I it's how much how many pounds did you have in your drone when you hauled um those loads across the river? So elderly folks.

Preston 44:12

That was my T40, um, and it can only handle 100 pounds at a time. Okay. Uh yeah. But we were still, I mean, we were we were every bit of a hundred pounds.

Chad 44:21

Um it's but but just the spirit of the people of people in North Carolina and across the the the nation really, just wanting to help uh folks in eastern or western North Carolina was it was good to see. I mean, it was wholesome.

Preston 44:35

Yeah, and that's that's the thing. You you'd roll into a community. We we run up on one guy and he was sitting on a five-gallon bucket where his house once set, and we asked him if he needed anything, and he said, No, I'm okay. I got enough food to help me go to the next person. His his literally his whole house was washed away. That's incredible. And these people are wanting to take care of their neighbors. And that's if it would have happened, I I truly believe if it would have happened to any other community, any other part of the world, I don't I don't think people would have survived it. But Western North Carolina is tough, good people, and uh and they they they handled it. Yeah, that's awesome, man.

Chad 45:18

Oh wow. Man, you got a lot going on, Preston.

Preston 45:22

Yeah, it's uh it's been a wild, uh, wild few years. Um it's it's uh it's been a journey for sure.

Faith, Family, And Final Thoughts

Marisa 45:30

Yeah. Do you have do you have time to do anything fun these days?

Preston 45:36

Uh not really. I mentioned uh my wife's quitting her job in uh June 30th. Okay. And uh I was talking to I was talking to a buddy of mine in Missouri, and um their whole crop got planted in like 10 days. So he was he's stressing out a little bit about being able to cover all the acres he needs to cover. And uh he said, he said, I said, well, if you need any help, you know, you can just call me. So uh I told told Emily we may go to Missouri and and spray some spray some fungicide this summer. And she said, Well, we'll just go with you. So uh we're probably gonna be pulling the camp. We got a camper that we that we pull around our our drone rig. We uh we roll into a place if it's two or three hours away and we know it's gonna take more than a day. We'll take the camper with us and just stay in the camper until we get done, me and Robbie. Um so I guess for fun we're just gonna travel and spray, and uh the kids and mama can hang out at the campground and we're just gonna we're just gonna go out and spray. But um that's cool. No, I I I I enjoy sports. Um I enjoy uh so I'm I'm a big NC State wrestling fan, and that's in the winter time, so I'm usually slow. So I do like to enjoy enjoy going to some wrestling matches, and then um my girls love to be outside. Um, so uh I love I love whenever I get to be home, I I enjoy being outside with them and playing in the creek and that sort of stuff.

Marisa 47:04

Very cool.

Chad 47:06

Yeah, that's really cool. It's been awesome uh spending some time with you today, Pris. And uh I appreciate you coming on uh our podcast, Rais on the Farm. Um perfect candidate. Raise on the farm, doing some agricultural stuff. I mean, thank you so much.

Preston 47:22

Yeah, man. Anytime I love to share a story and and what God's done for me, and and uh if there's anybody out there that's listened to it that don't know what their purpose is in life, uh God's got a purpose for you. Um he always does. And um one thing that I that I like to do, no matter everywhere, everywhere we go, my slideshows or anything, I like to I like to tell people about Jesus and and what he's done for me, and it's all it's all for him. So um really I appreciate the opportunity to get on here and tell some more people about our journey. Amen to that, Marissa. What do you think?

Marisa 47:55

Absolutely. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Preston.

Chad 47:58

Yes, thank you guys. Thanks for joining us on another episode of Raise on the Farm Podcast. Remember to subscribe and follow us on Instagram. Have a question or a topic idea, let us know and join the conversation. We'll see you next time.