While Kale Geiswite spends his days teaching criminal justice to high schoolers, most of his time off is dedicated to the real world of public safety — fighting fires and aiding search and rescue missions.
He’s a volunteer firefighter for the New Berlin Fire Department in Pennsylvania, but recently his work has centered around a tool that might look more like a video game controller his students might use. He’s the department’s chief drone pilot and program coordinator. It's a role that quite literally wouldn’t exist if he wasn’t around.
A couple years ago when he started tinkering with a personal drone, he realized its potential for public safety missions. He wanted to introduce a drone into fire department operations, but encountered a lot of resistance.