Stand up a drone program that survives the people who have to approve it.

Most engagements run 3 to 6 months from kickoff to a stood-up program with adopted policies, trained pilots, and validated operational posture. Larger organizations or programs with significant CUAS scope may extend to 9 months. The assessment phase alone is typically 2 to 4 weeks.

Less than most consulting engagements, but not zero. Expect approximately 4 to 8 hours per week from a designated program lead during active phases — interviews, document review, decision points. Pilot trainees attend the training delivery sessions but otherwise operations continue normally.

Both, equally. Resorts, casinos, hospitals, manufacturers, utilities, distribution centers, and corporate campuses are increasingly building UAS programs for security, inspection, and emergency response — and facing CUAS exposure that didn't exist five years ago. The methodology is identical to public-sector engagements; the stakeholders and approval pathways are different. Private-sector engagements often move faster than public-sector ones because budget cycles are shorter and approval chains are clearer.

No. Fenix EM is vendor-neutral. We provide procurement guidance based on your operational needs, threat environment, and any applicable restrictions (such as FCC Covered List considerations for public-sector buyers, or insurance carrier requirements for private-sector ones), but we don't sell hardware and we don't take referral fees. The platform decision stays yours.

CUAS is included in any full program engagement, scaled to your actual threat environment. For most organizations, CUAS posture means coordination protocols, awareness training, and clear escalation pathways to law enforcement and federal partners — not deploying counter-drone hardware (which is federally restricted to specific federal agencies). For special event venues, casinos, stadiums, and critical infrastructure operators, the CUAS scope deepens significantly and may warrant a focused engagement.

For private-sector clients with established security programs, UAS/CUAS is a new domain layered onto existing infrastructure, not a replacement for it. We work alongside your existing physical security leadership — corporate security, GSOC, EHS, BCP — and design the program to integrate with what you already have. Expect coordination meetings with your security director, risk officer, and (where applicable) your insurance broker as part of the engagement.

Public sector: Often grant-eligible under UASI, SHSP, BRIC, and various state pass-through programs. Grant strategy is part of the assessment phase. Private sector: Typically funded as security or operational capital expense; insurance carriers may offer premium credits for documented programs. We can structure the engagement and deliverables to align with either funding model.

A Part 107 instructor teaches your pilots to fly legally. That's a small slice of a defensible program. A real program needs policy, procurement, training currency systems, mutual aid or vendor agreements, CUAS coordination, executive adoption, audit defensibility, and a sustainment plan. Most program failures we've seen happen because an organization confused certified pilots with a complete program.

Smaller organizations are often the best fit for our work, because they have the most exposure (no in-house program management capacity) and the engagement can be sized appropriately. Engagement scope and pricing scale to organization size — a small special district or single-site corporate program looks very different from a county-wide or multi-site enterprise one, and so does the price.