Red Cat Holdings, Inc., a hardware-enabled software provider to the drone industry, announced the appointment of Geoffrey Hitchcock as its Senior Vice President of Global Defense Solutions. In this role, Mr. Hitchcock will research and identify all military opportunities for the Teal Golden Eagle drone, given Congress’s ban of federal funds for Chinese-sourced drones and drone components, and seek to expand the Golden Eagle’s use into public safety applications.
“Geoff brings a tremendous amount of relevant experience to the Red Cat team. His wealth of global business development and operational and tactical experience will prove to be extremely valuable to the Company, especially given our recent acquisition closing of Teal Drones that allows us to pursue military applications for our drone technology. We look forward to Geoff’s leadership and managerial contributions,” said Jeffrey Thompson, Red Cat’s Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. Hitchcock brings 35 years of relevant operational leadership and management experience in support of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) business development, training, services, and airfield operations, including 22 years as an Air Force Special Operations veteran with extensive experience in tactical ground operations and air integration and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR).
“I am eager to have joined the burgeoning team at Red Cat, especially now on the cusp of our entry into military applications thanks to the Teal acquisition. Being one of just a handful of companies approved by the Department of Defense is a significant advantage for us, and I look forward to helping us push aggressively to capture as many of these military contracts as possible going forward,” commented Geoffrey Hitchcock.
Most recently, Mr. Hitchcock served as V.P. of Sales and Business Development at Vantage Robotics and was responsible for establishing and maintaining U.S. government and international business relationships with a focus on penetrating new market segments to support sales growth.
Prior, he spent over 16 years at AeroVironment, initially as Director of Flight Operations, where he was responsible for training and equipping flight operations personnel to conduct system training and flight tests for both domestic and international customers, and later as Director of International Business Development, where he was responsible for major international market segments/regions with full responsibility for sales.
