SALT LAKE CITY—Inside a brick building near the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains, dozens of technicians sit at workstations and carefully calibrate high-tech gadgetry with a giant American flag as their backdrop.
“‘I’m building a product that’s going to save somebody'—that’s the mantra here,” Jim Cory, senior director of product line management for Teal Drones, told The Epoch Times.
The company specializes in small drones that U.S. military, firefighters, police, and border patrol agents use.
In recent years, Teal and other American drone makers have received major boosts as the U.S. government—along with some state and local agencies—have banned or restricted the use of Chinese-made drones that dominate global markets. Officials cite concerns that the Chinese Communist Party could extract sensitive national security information from the devices.
As sophisticated “eyes in the sky,” the drones’ cameras provide real-time images to help defense and public safety personnel. The drones allow these professionals to assess dangerous situations from a distance.
Although Teal’s drones mainly have been used for defensive purposes, some versions of these unmanned aircraft can be used for targeted strikes against enemies. And they can be recruited for many other purposes, including aerospace research, bridge inspections, construction projects, and ranch management.
A Decade of Innovation
Company founder George Matus, the son of a flight attendant, had always been fascinated with flying. So he started tinkering with drones and started his own company in 2014, when he was just 17.The next year, he won a $100,000 fellowship from entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s foundation. Matus changed his company’s name from iDrone to Teal—a name that sounds like “Thiel” and also evokes images of the green-winged teal, a swift, agile migratory bird sometimes spotted in Utah.
In 2018, Forbes magazine recognized Matus among its “30 Under 30” leaders in technology, and noted that Teal’s drones were among the fastest then available; they could travel up to 70 mph.
But Teal and other U.S. drone companies struggled to compete with drone makers that the Chinese regime heavily subsidized.
Teal touts its made-in-USA pedigree on its website: “We’ve developed the first drones mass-produced entirely in the U.S., featuring DOD-compliant components.” The company also is certified under DOD rules requiring encrypted communications to protect sensitive data.
After Red Cat Holdings acquired Teal in 2021, “interest in the company skyrocketed, and we raised $60 million to continue building,” Matus wrote.
In 2023, the Defense Logistics Agency placed orders totaling $5.2 million for 344 of the company’s Teal 2 systems, plus spare parts and training. The devices are being used to defend U.S. Air Force bases.
Late last year, Matus joined another Thiel-backed drone maker, Vector; in a social media post, Matus stated that he intended to continue partnering with his former colleagues at Teal and Red Cat.
His career move came shortly after Teal secured a milestone contract victory that dwarfed the previous ones.
‘Huge Moment for the Company’
In November 2024, Teal beat 37 competitors to become the Army’s “program of record” for short-range reconnaissance missions, which calls for surveying an area within a few miles of the drone’s operator.
The Army intends to acquire 5,880 drone systems from Teal during a five-year period; each system includes a primary drone, a backup drone, and a controller. So that’s a total of 11,760 drones—the company’s largest order to date.
“It was a huge moment for the company,” Cory said. “The amount of work everyone put into getting to this point was enormous.”
Teal could reap anywhere from $25 million to $65 million per year from that contract, Red Cat CEO Jeff Thompson told investors at a Feb. 27 meeting. Those estimates vary widely because of unknowns: how much the Army will need to spend for additional spare parts, repairs, and requested enhancements to Teal’s Black Widow model.
Company officials believe Teal won the contract partly because its drones stand out as compact, rugged, and uniquely “modular,” meaning that many parts can be easily replaced.
That’s crucial because soldiers may risk their lives to reach the site where they need to launch a drone. And, as drone users of all types know: “Regardless of what you’re doing, it’s going to crash at some point,” Cory said.
Teal’s military-grade drones are constructed to withstand impact. But if the drone is damaged, this poses a special problem for soldiers. “If you’re in the middle of a battlefield environment, you don’t have the ability to take that back and have someone repair it ... so you need to be able to repair it as much as possible in the field,” Cory said.
Spares of the most-often-replaced parts are shipped with the drone.
A Transformable ‘Spider’
Cory demonstrated how components of Teal’s drones fold inward and can be snapped on and off—reminiscent of how a child might manipulate a “transformer” toy.
Teal’s Black Widow, which resembles its namesake spider, is the model designated for the Army’s short-range reconnaissance program. Each weighs 3.6 pounds, and military personnel “literally stuff these in a backpack,” Cory said.
The Black Widow and its control station both are equipped with the same type of battery—a common, easy-to-find variety that provides about 35 minutes of flying time; enhancements to that duration are in the works.
Teal’s goal is to make the devices “as simple to use and as reliable as we can,” Cory said.
On battlefields, enemy combatants invariably jam radio and GPS signals—which would ordinarily cripple a drone. But the Black Widow can overcome those obstacles, company officials said.
Equipped with six different radio bandwidths, the drone will search among those until it finds a usable channel.
If the Black Widow lacks a GPS signal, it can instead rely on visual navigation cameras to guide its path. The drone’s memory is loaded with satellite images of terrain from a given area. By seeking landmarks that appear in those images, the drone can “figure out” its location. To offer this feature, Teal teamed up with Palantir Technologies, of which Peter Thiel is board chairman.
The Black Widow also incorporates technology from Teledyne FLIR, a company specializing in thermal-imaging cameras and sensors. Those capabilities include artificial intelligence that has been “trained” to identify people, vehicles, and aircraft, among other images. The computerized camera system will draw outlines around a potential threat and provide a confidence score for each identification. The camera also can be operated at night or in low-light conditions.
Other functions include quiet operation, 3-D mapping, obstacle avoidance, and traveling in “stealth” mode with radios off. And, the company says, the Black Widow can fly in all weather conditions: wind, rain, snow, or dust storms.
Although drones might seem newfangled, the concept of using unmanned aircraft in warfare dates back to 1849, when the Austrians launched 200 hot-air balloons over Venice, armed with bombs. In America, Ohioan Charles Kettering developed a rudimentary drone—an aerial torpedo that never saw combat—from 1917 to 1918.
Drone development accelerated from there, leading to drones being drafted for combat in World War II and beyond.
Inspiration for Their Work
Stan Nowak, vice president of marketing for Red Cat, told The Epoch Times that drones can benefit the military and other users in ways that many people might not consider. Last fall, for example, the National Guard ordered some Teal drones to aid Hurricane Milton disaster-response efforts in Florida. The drones were used to assist with search-and-rescue missions as well as damage assessment.While drones equipped with firepower have been making headlines in the Russia–Ukraine war, Nowak said the unmanned aircraft are often used to reveal potential threats.
Shortly after Nowak got involved in the drone industry more than two decades ago, he had an encounter that continues to inspire his work today.
In 2005, he was representing his then-employer at a military trade show in Quantico, Virginia. During a conversation, a Marine Corps unit commander suddenly pulled a shard of metal out of his rucksack.
While on patrol in Afghanistan, his unit’s tank ran across an improvised explosive device. The explosion “literally flipped the tank over, and some of his unit actually lost their lives that day,” Nowak said. The commander later grabbed remnants of the wreckage. He handed a piece to Nowak, a reminder that lives could have been saved if drone technology had been available that day.
A drone could have been sent to survey the Marine unit’s intended route, and “they most likely would have seen some type of disturbed earth ahead of them, which they could have avoided,” Nowak said. “So he handed me the shrapnel, and I’ve had it ever since.”
Nowak, who joined Red Cat about three years ago, still keeps that piece of metal on his desk.
“It’s the one thing that centers me every single day,” said Nowak, who typically works remotely from his home in Simi Valley, California. “It’s the one thing that tells me what my mission is.”
From Factory Floor to Battlefield
About 120 people, including 32 engineers, currently work for Teal Drones. Military veterans make up a sizable chunk of the workforce; a few of them are engineers but many work in sales. Their expertise—and the feedback they share from customers—helps designers innovate.Lessons learned from the ongoing wars in Israel and Ukraine have strongly influenced Teal’s product offerings, the company said.
As a result, Teal announced last fall that it was ramping up the development of new models for short-, medium-, and long-range operations with precision-strike capabilities. The goal is to reduce stress and increase safety for front-line military.
Teal’s drones are assembled in a 24,000-square-foot production area—nearly double the space it occupied in 2021.
Because of the company’s status as a military contractor, the facility is guarded and secure; very few visitors are allowed into the work zone. Company officials granted access to The Epoch Times under restrictions to protect national security interests and trade secrets.
Everyone who crosses a yellow line marked on the floor must wear a special smock to stop static electricity—a little spark that friction between objects can produce. Any such electrostatic discharge, even one too weak for people to notice, could destroy the circuitry that makes up the drones.
To ensure that employees understand how drones function, workers undergo drone-pilot training; their framed certificates from the Federal Aviation Administration are displayed on a factory wall. Nearby, a poster declares the company’s values: optimism, humility, and a sense of ownership. “We work as Owners, not task-doers. ... We leave our ego at the door and seek to learn, while still being bold and daring,” it says.
The drones are painstakingly built by hand, with 700 to 800 components making up each drone. To reach completion, each drone passes through 15 to 20 different stages of assembly and testing. Along the way, certified soldering technicians attach electronic components and wiring—delicate, specialized work.
Basic parts of a drone include its “arms,” which hold motors and propellers that make the drone fly and are attached to its “body.” That frame houses a battery plus the internal computer or “brains” of the drone. It keeps the aircraft stable and processes commands from its controller, as relayed through a transmitter and receiver.
Another component is the gimbal, a fixture that holds the camera. Workers test to ensure that it changes the camera’s angle as directed.
One of the final steps involves mounting the drone on a stand and aiming its camera at a video screen. The video shows various types of terrain; technicians check time-elapsed data for any undue delay in capturing or transmitting that image.
Devices are also taken out of the factory for test flights.
From start to finish, the birth of a drone can take three to four days. Teal is now “tweaking” its processes, company officials said, as it gears up for greater automation, higher production, and increasing sophistication.
“We’re still in the ‘Model-T phase’ of drone technology,” Nowak said, a nod to the famous Ford motor vehicle that revolutionized mass production in the early 1900s. “We’re still really at the beginning.” He predicted that “years from now, there will be robotic arms developing robotic drones.”
Meanwhile, Teal’s sister company, FlightWave, recently relocated its California production facility from Santa Monica to Long Beach.
FlightWave is focusing on the production of a drone called the Edge 130, which looks more like a miniature airplane because it has two fixed wings, each with a propeller, along with a third propeller on its tail. That design enables a flight duration of more than 65 minutes—a half-hour longer than the Black Widow’s. The Edge 130 can also change from vertical to horizontal flight in less than five seconds. These features make that drone so highly sought-after, it could outpace the Black Widow in sales by next year, company officials said.
Moving further into the future, Teal officials said they expect to continue partnering with other U.S. companies to enhance their drones’ capabilities and improve designs.
