© 2024 South Carolina Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Upstate University Expanding Drone Industry?

It seems like drones are in the news on a regular basis these days, but how many of you know that South Carolina is home to an award-winning drone team that has found some innovative uses for drone technology?

Mike Switzer interviews John Conrad, a physics professor at Furman University in Greenville, SC whose drone team is winning awards from the Upstate (Innovision) to Virginia to Oregon.

Stay Connected
After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.