PENDLETON — According to Steve Chrisman, Pendleton’s airport manager and economic development director, the world is in the midst of nothing short of a “fourth industrial revolution” thanks to the rise of drone technology.

With drone operations continuing to increase at the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range, Blue Mountain Community College is starting a UAS program with the hope of helping locals get a piece of the pie.

On Wednesday, May 19, about 100 people gathered at the Pendleton airport’s World War II-era hangar for a ribbon cutting to celebrate the grand openings of the expansion of the UAS industrial park and a new flex hanger, more signs of the test range’s growth.

Despite some of the range’s success, Chrisman said he still couldn’t answer some questions about the range’s future, like how many jobs it would ultimately create or when it would attract manufacturing, a feature that could further jumpstart job growth.

He did tout the growing number of UAS companies that were utilizing the range to test their commercial drone products, a trend evidenced by the more than 1,000 operations range staff were projecting for 2021.

With the heightened activity has come jobs. According to Chrisman the range has attracted 75 permanent jobs and many more transient positions.

After local officials simultaneously cut two ribbons, one at the hangar where the ceremony was taking place and another in front of the new flex hangar, interim BMCC President Connie Green went to the podium to make her own announcement: The college was starting its own UAS training program to help local students gain a foothold in the industry.

“It’s starting now so you can be a part of the first 10,” she said. “There’s jobs, there’s opportunities.”

Green went on to describe the basic details of the program. A noncredit certificate program, BMCC’s UAS program would begin with a 10-student cohort on June 21. Spanning 10 weeks, the program would cost students $4,600.

The program is a partnership between the college and Volatus, a UAS training company owned by DelMar Aerospace Corp., of Nevada.

According to people involved in the inception of the program, its establishment has been a longtime coming.

“It’s an evolution of a marriage that we’ve been trying to date for years,” Stanley Springer, the chief operating officer of DelMar, said in an interview.

Drew Leggett, a precision agriculture instructor at Blue Mountain, said the discussions over incorporating UAS into BMCC’s offerings long preceded his arrival at the college in 2018.

It evolved out of talks about UAS’ role in precision agriculture, the use of drones, sensors and other technology to help make farming more efficient and sustainable.

“It’s important that we just don’t train students for today, but also for tomorrow,” Leggett said.

Blue Mountain soon realized that it could help feed the UAS pipeline. Leggett said most of the industry is currently staffed by ex-military, but as it grows, there’s only so many veterans to go around. While there are other community college UAS programs in Oregon, Leggett said Pendleton’s selling point will be its access to the city’s test range.

In Volatus, the college found an associate who could help build the program with its instructors and industry knowledge.

Volatus has been running private classes out of the Pendleton UAS Range since the spring, and Springer said the Blue Mountain classes will be similar to its private offerings, just more spread out due to its 10-week duration.

While students who take BMCC’s UAS course won’t be able to use it toward a degree, Springer said those that complete the course should be able to obtain jobs after completing it. He said a key point of the program is that it will connect students with internship opportunities, and once they’re finished with their coursework, many of those internships will turn into full-time positions.

With the program set to start over the summer, the college is already soliciting donations to help start a scholarship program for students. Springer said Volatus is sponsoring two scholarships for high school students to join the program.

But BMCC’s ambitions for its UAS program lie beyond a noncredit certificate.

Springer and other Blue Mountain staff and UAS officials are a part of an advisory board looking to expand the program to include associate’s degree and even bachelor’s degree options.