Rear Admiral Stuart Munsch has served our country from a variety of positions, both in the Pentagon and at sea. So, when he took the stage at Drone Focus 2016, it only seemed fitting that he move the audience with a piece of nautical wisdom:

“A rising tide raises all ships,” he said. “If you have a good entrepreneurial ecosystem, all companies benefit—and the community will rise together.”

According to Munsch, there are a few keys to spurring innovation outside of Silicon Valley: research universities, human capital, intellectual property law, legal and tax elements friendly to innovation, finance for high risk high reward companies, and culture. North Dakota, he said, is excelling at some of these and falling behind in others.

He applauded North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota for their commitment to research; however, he also pointed out a “big gap”in the state’s achievement in the lack of courses devoted to drone law and regulations.

A strong sense of culture, in Munsch’s eyes, is one of the most important factors in building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem; it is also the factor the North Dakota appears to be strongest in.

“You need an environment where people can share ideas… where you can fail and recover from it,” he said. “You need a culture of collaboration.”

Munsch stressed the importance of supporting events like hack-a-thons, and conferences like Drone Focus, where ideas can be shared and progress made. In the future, when we look back at North Dakota and ask ourselves, “what was the engine here in growing the culture of entrepreneurship?” he believes that the answer will be Emerging Prairie.

All things considered, Munsch said he is “very bullish on the drone industry here in North Dakota.”