A high-flying Traverse City startup with a strong Northwestern Michigan College connection just got permission to takeoff.

Aetos Group, founded in 2010 by colleagues in the NMC aviation department, was built around the promise of commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) -- or drones.

That promise is arriving now. The field is still new, and final FAA regulations governing unmanned flights are not expected until late 2016 or early 2017. But while hundreds of other, mostly larger companies still await an exemption to use drones on a commercial basis, Aetos just received its FAA Section 333 exemption a few weeks back. The company is now allowed to use UAVs to conduct inspections of petrochemical facilities like oil rigs or pipelines. In a very short time, the local company's client list already includes the likes of Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, Exxon Mobil and Phillips 66.

Aetos’ focus on the petrochemical industry helped the company get early FAA approval. “It made no sense to try to serve all these various markets, so we decided early on to focus on the massive petrochemical industry, which is a field I know from my 30 years with Dow,” says Aetos CEO Bill Donberg.

“We are still one of only five or so companies doing UAV inspections for the petrochemical industry,” he adds.

Unmanned aircraft – in this case remotely-controlled, helicopter-like vehicles weighing about five pounds – provide a safe and cost effective way to monitor above-ground equipment.

Early on, an agreement between Dow and NMC provided valuable practical experience for the Aetos team while on the college’s aviation faculty -- and opportunities for NMC students.

“We’ve just hired five NMC students on a part-time basis,” Donberg says. “They’re gaining real-world experience that could evolve into full time employment as we expand.”

“I’ll be satisfied if someday we provide 100 jobs to new graduates,” adds Donberg, who now sits on the board of the NMC Foundation.

For her part, NMC Vice President, Maguerite Cotto, who oversees the aviation curriculum, is excited by the “incredible story” of three faculty members building a cutting edge company from scratch. “We’re a bit of the proud parent,” she says of her former staff members. “We look forward to having a close relationship with their firm.”

Aetos – the company is named for the Greek word for “eagle” -- provides integrated services that include the aircraft (which it buys from manufacturer Aeryon for $75,000 each), payloads (cameras or sensors) and the skills of highly qualified operators.

Company headquarters remain in Traverse City, but Aetos has opened an office in Freeport, Texas -- the heart of the Gulf oil and gas-producing region – and will soon open a Baton Rouge, Louisiana office. Long range plans call for offices in the Midwest – possibly the Chicago area – and a chemical producing area in the Mid-Atlantic region.