Charles Werner

Chief Charles L. Werner (Ret.) has served 50 years in public safety. Charles served 37 years with the Charlottesville VA Fire Dept., serving the last ten years as fire chief. Charles has served in numerous leadership roles at the local, state, national and international level. Presently serves as Founder/Director, DRONERESPONDERS.

Chief Werner serves on the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC) Unmanned Systems Board of Advisors, the Airborne International Response Team Board of Directors, the VIPC Public Safety Innovation Center Advisory Board, the NestGen Advisory Board, a SME on UAS and AAM for MITRE, has a 3 year NASA Space Act Agreement (through DRONERESPONDERS) to work on safety issues in the areas of UAS, UTM, AAM. DRONERESPONDERS also has a 3 year NIST grant to further the expanded use of the NIST Standard Test Lanes to teach and measure public safety maneuvering skills.

Chief Werner was the only public safety representative invited to the White House AAM Summit in 2022. Charles attended the August 2023 AUVSI AAM Summit and was a co-presenter in October 2023 with Mark Bathrick, “How Public Safety will lead the way to UAM” for the AUVSI Business of Automated Mobility Forum. Charles also presented on Drone as a First Responder for NextGen24 Virtual International Conference.

Chief Werner serves on the International Fire Chiefs Technology Council, the NFPA 2400 Technical Committee on Public Safety UAS, the IACP Aviation Committee, the XELEVATE Center of Excellence Advisory Board, F38 and E54 ASTM Committees, and facilitated the DRONERESPONDERS Drone as a First Responder National Working Group.

Chief Werner is an internationally respected presenter and author on public safety aspects of UAS, CUAS, UTM, AAM, UAM, DFR, BVLOS, DAA, automation and artificial intelligence. Chief Werner received the 2023 ANSI Meritorious Award for his work on standards development in the field of unmanned systems.