Why would the average Wichitan care about AgEagle moving here? Let’s count the ways

AgEagle, the Neodesha drone company moving to Wichita, is having a much-anticipated shareholders meeting on Wednesday.

Some are hopeful for big news out of the meeting, though it sounds like that’s not likely.

What is likely is that AgEagle will have an announcement soon that will pinpoint where in Wichita it is locating.

The company, which started as a farm drone business (its Twitter handle is @FarmDrones) but is expanding into commercial deliveries, has been looking for an approximately 5,000-square-foot property at or near the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport.

In fact, one of the properties it looked at is a couple of bays at the cargo terminal building where FedEx and UPS operate.

All of this is happening while theories swirl that AgEagle may have possible ties with Amazon, which is bringing two warehouses to the Wichita area, to help with its future drone deliveries.

Unbeknownst to a lot of Wichitans, those potential ties have all kinds of people nationally and beyond eyeing what happens here with AgEagle.

The company’s stock rose last week after CEO Michael Drozd discussed the move, which will include state incentives.

On Monday, the InvestorPlace website reported that the stock “moved more than 59 million shares during normal trading hours. For comparison, the company’s average daily volume is only about 15 million shares.”

‘To take our expertise and apply it’

So people outside of Wichita clearly are interested in what’s happening with the company here, but is there a reason the average Wichitan should care about a small manufacturing lease?

Absolutely, said assistant city manager Scot Rigby.

“Wherever they land in west Wichita, we’re excited because of the workforce they’re going to be hiring and developing.”

According to an application with the state, that could be about 60 people in the first few years, but it’s not clear how many of them are already with the company.

At a time when the city is already struggling with jobs, particularly in aviation — Textron Aviation on Tuesday announced it is laying off almost 800 workers, most of whom are in Wichita — any additional jobs are a help.

Also, Rigby said AgEagle may need more room as it grows.

More significantly, though, he said this is an opportunity for Wichita’s aerospace ecosystem.

“That’s an opportunity for us to grow.”

He said the built-in knowledge that Wichita already has gives the city a way to diversify within the aviation sector.

“This is an opportunity to take our expertise and apply it.”

An Amazon connection?

Rigby said his understanding of the Wichita move is “we need a home base for AgEagle independent of anything else.”

At or near the airport also makes sense because “they want to get in and out of Wichita to their clients.”

There are top AgEagle executives who live in the greater Denver area — where the company considered moving, which is what made it eligible for state incentives — so easy access from the airport was important for them as well.

Rigby said he knows AgEagle is branching into commercial drone deliveries, but he does not know of any connection to Amazon.

“If I’m like any other delivery business, I’d love to have a connection with Amazon.”

The question of a link between the companies has been fueled in part by the recent announcement that Amazon is opening at a warehouse near 37th North and Rock in northeast Wichita in a few months and plans a massive one in Park City.

Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple confirmed the Wichita warehouse, but no Park City or Amazon officials have confirmed plans for the 1.3 million-square-foot building at the northeast corner of 69th North and Broadway. Multiple sources tell The Wichita Eagle that it will be ready to go by next August.

Regardless of the new warehouses, there already was rampant speculation nationally about a partnership between Amazon and AgEagle.

As The Eagle previously reported, in an April 15 news release, AgEagle announced “the expansion of scope for its contracted commercial drone work through the receipt of follow-on purchase orders from a major ecommerce company.”

“Representing significant new revenue, the new purchase orders relate to the continued manufacturing and assembly of drones used for the testing and refining of the client’s commercial drone small package delivery vehicles, systems and operations currently in development.”

AgEagle hasn’t yet named the “major ecommerce company.”

Around the time of that announcement, though, there was a video online reportedly showing AgEagle founder Bret Chilcott demonstrating how to unload an Amazon drone from its crate.

The video is no longer available, which is furthering speculation.

AgEagle applied for the trademark “The Drone Age” in May.

According to Amazon, Prime Air “is a service that will deliver packages up to five pounds in 30 minutes or less using small drones.”

Some wonder if Wichita could become some sort of epicenter for Prime Air.

While that would seem to be a dream for the Wichita-area economic development community, it doesn’t appear that any Wichita officials think that’s what’s in the works here.

As Rigby said, at this point, it’s all about a company choosing Wichita, bringing jobs and potentially expanding.

He said the city is “happy they chose to locate here.”

This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 2:28 PM.