Doug Hanna, a native Albertan, was raised on a farm near the “jewel” of the prairies, Diamond City, AB. He graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brigham Young University in 1981. Since that time, he has enjoyed more than 35 years working with uncrewed air/ground systems as a researcher, project manager, and program manager.

At Defence R&D Canada – Suffield (1982 – 2012), he and the research team conducted mobile robotics research across a broad range of TRLs with a focus on next generation uncrewed air/ground threat detection systems for detecting landmines (ILDP, 1996), weapons of mass destruction (MATS, 2005), and improvised explosive devices (ARMS, 2012).

Upon retiring from DRDC until the present time, he has been consulting with drone companies to assist in meeting Transport Canada regulatory requirements, he helped launch the Foremost UAS Test Range (2016 – Class F restricted airspace for Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight R&D and T&E), and he has been its General Manager since that time.