Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-15-26_THURSDAY_7AM

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Contentious meeting last night at the jo county commission. Herman Baertschieger, former commissioner weighs in. Ron Gordon and Simon Wiebel, partners at the Firefront Foundation are working to bring Ukraine drone tech here to fight wildfires.

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Normally I talk with former state senator Herman Berchiger every Tuesday, and I will as we kick around various political activities and things going on, but he's also a former Josephine County Commissioner.

And apparently last night there was interesting talk at the Josephine County Commission. Herman, welcome back. So this is kind of a special conspiracy theory Thursday edition. How you doing today? I'm doing fine. Yeah, I thought we might talk about this, but why it's fresh on everybody's mind. Yeah, sure. So last night, I did not watch it.

I went to bed just like I normally do, and everybody's telling me it was kind of fireworky, is kind of the general feeling. Would you agree? or, you know, one guy, Sam writes me and says that he wasn't happy with the way Chris Barnett handled the meeting. John West writes me and he says he thought Chris Barnett did a fine job of handling it. What was your overall take on what happened? I thought, actually, I thought he ran a pretty good meeting last night. And, of course, at the end, when he gets the focus, maybe it was a, you know, his feelings probably interfered.

That's a big thing to be recalled, you know. It's a big embarrassment. Well, it's also a really big deal to be recalled by a lot fewer people than who elected you in the first place. But that's another story. Yeah, yeah, that's another story. But I did want to point out, you know, we have, you know, Mr. Schofield, who used to work for Josephine County as an HR director, appears at these meetings quite often. Now he works for Jackson County as an HR director.

but he tried to make a point last night to support Mr. Smith or defend Mr. Smith's decision, Commissioner Smith, not to participate in the appointment process. And he said it was no different when the senators denied quorum in the legislature to stop cap and trade. Now, that's kind of an apples to oranges comparison, isn't it? I don't know if it's a fair one. Apples to onions. Apples to onions. Okay.

Even worse. Yeah. How so? Yeah. And the reason why I think your authority on speaking about this is that you led that walkout, okay? Yes. So, you know, I kind of understand how it works. In that situation, the senators had no choice.

You had, if you stayed, the Democrats were going to pass it. You didn't have enough votes for no. That's right. And so the only thing we could do to stop it is to deny quorum. To actually stop the entire process. You can start to stop the entire process, run the clock out of the session, and they cannot pass it. And the situation of Commissioner Smith not participating. Not wanting to choose a replacement for these two outgoing, well, one recalled and one resigned commissioner.

Right? He didn't want to do anything with that. Yeah. So he has lots of choices. The senators didn't have any choice, but Commissioner Smith has 32 choices. So he's, Commissioner Smith is actually in control to do and make the changes, has the control to make changes. And the senators did not have the control, so they had to deny quorum. So you can see the contrast, a big, so I, I, I think Mr. Schofield's analysis, I believe, is not very well presented. And it doesn't make any sense to me.

Okay. Well, I appreciate you setting the record straight, and I would tend to concur with your analysis on it. It really isn't the same thing. And there's a big difference of not wanting to make a choice, which is what, you know, Commissioner Smith ended up being faced with. Now, he has his reasons. and, you know, and I understand probably where he's coming from, doesn't want to have to go on the record, probably wanting to ensure that he is not recalled next. But I don't know if that's going to be necessarily a sound strategy.

I don't know what your opinion is of that. Well, I don't know. That's the remain to be seen. We'll just, you know, we'll see how that all flies. But I just thought that it was not a very, not a very fair comparison. at all, you know, from just to compare the two, you know, in one situation, the senators have no choice. And in his situation, he's in a driver's seat, to be quite frank. And so he could have had one of those 32 people chosen and then could have talked with then,

well, with Commissioner Chris Barnett, they could have come up if they could have decided on someone, there would have been another person coming in then right away, right? No problem. Or at least try. at least try to come up with somebody. They didn't even try. The point that I just wanted to give people a little heads up on Tuesday when you're here in a little while a couple of days or a few days from now, Herman. I'm going to give you a little more time because it's time you have discussed with me off air a number of times that essentially the tail wags the dog in Joe County. Isn't that right?

Isn't that really what you want to talk about? It has been. It's a constant struggle in the Courier article the other day. Commissioner Smith and I agree absolutely on that. He laid it out, and he talked about how the tail wags the dog in Josephine County. And what that does is it constantly puts the commissioner's office in turmoil. So who's supposed to run Josephine County politically, the politically elected officials that are in the commission, or is it the staff, I guess, or other, you know, other people that

are part of Josephine County government. Isn't this essentially where we're going to go on Tuesday show? Yeah, there's always been a certain amount of people that within Josephine County's network of people that want to have a lot of influence on the commissioner's office or maybe even and sometimes try to control the commissioner's office. So that's not what they get paid for, and I've said it before. If you want to be, if you want to have the decisions of the commissioners run for commissioner. But maybe the way that the boards are being run right now is that just run the recall campaigns instead, and you're able to get your way?

I mean, look, it's a former Josephine County, department head who was the lead petitioner. So that's just, there's a good example right there. All right. Well, Herman, we'll talk about that on Tuesday show. I appreciate you joining. We'll have a nice, long, deep discussion and a little bit of history next Tuesday. Yeah.

And you also know this from personal experience having been there. And you made it pretty clear. You know that the people, or I guess I would, you doubt that the people there or the current group is going to select you, right? Because I know that your hats in that ring right now, right? I have a feeling that they don't want me around. Okay. Well, we'll talk about maybe why on Tuesday. How about that?

Okay. That sounds great, Bill. All right. Thanks, Herman. We'll see you then. All right. Former State Senator, former Josephine County Commissioner Herman Berchiger, 19 minutes after seven. That should be interesting. This is the Bill Meyer show. We'll catch up on a few things and then happy to take your call on conspiracy theory Thursday. Coming up at about 10, 15 minutes or so, we're going to have a conversation with a couple of folks, part of a foundation and a group here in Southern Oregon that are really working hard to take drone technology, things that have been learned from drone technology in the Ukraine war.

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Emails of the day coming up. Not right now. But I haven't emailed a couple of stories. I think we're pretty interesting. One I wanted to make sure that I mentioned, though, before we move on to those stories. is that big time of year over at Kelly's Automotive Service because it's the 15th annual wipeout hunger drive.

And all you have to do is pretty easy. 40 ounces or more of peanut butter, just bring that into the shops or 10 or more ounces of jelly to either the Grants Pass or Medford locations of Kellys. And they'll put a brand new pair of windshield wipers on your car valued up to 35 bucks. It's amazing how expensive these windshield wipers have been getting these days, especially for the newer cars.

And by the way, all this week, donations up to a thousand bucks matched by Tom Randall from State Farm Insurance and BBSI. That means your donations will be tripled. So very good. It's Kelly's Automotive Services, Tom Randall from State Farm Insurance, BBSI, and you helping folks here in need in Southern Oregon. Very good job over at Kelly's Automotive. Okay.

Now, some of the stories here locally in play here. We had mentioned last hour that Rays Food Place in Phoenix is closing next month. and I just wanted to correct myself because I was corrected. I thought maybe this had something to do with the corporate activity tax, and then we find out that the grocery stores are exempt from that. So I apologize for that error all this time. I thought that had something to do with it. But the car dealerships, everybody else, yeah, they certainly have that.

Well, think about that, 1% on a car. That's not insignificant, right? When you're talking $30,000, $50,000, but that's okay. Tini Kotech and Odop, they deserve that kind of money. I'm sure you don't mind about that. But, yeah, that is a tough one because people are being pinched. I don't think there's any doubt that, you know, in spite of all the happy talk, and no matter what administration it is, they're always going to talk about that it's

that it's always better and you, you know, shouldn't be, you ungrateful, Roob, for not believing everything that we talk about when we say the economy is just roaring here. And for some people it is. There's absolutely no doubt about that, just my opinion. But Rays, great, great stores. I'd shop at Rays all the time, and I lived in Jacksonville because it was a lot closer than going into Medford over at Shurms. You know, you have to go three, four, or five miles. You know, to do this.

But I think as that business model, the pricing definitely was a bit higher than, let's say, a Sherm's Thunderbird or other places like that. So that business model in a small town may be tough if there is still enough easy access to a competitor, I think. But you know, you're paying for the convenience. You're paying for the convenience of not having to go into Medford or into Ashland, as in the case of talent, of talent grocery people. Kind of sad to see this happen, really is. But that is the challenge I think that Ray's been facing for quite some time. They had a really good deal going out there on the coast because once again, you think about all the travel costs of sending groceries out to the coast. You're heading it down to a few places, $199, right?

Everything had to be trucked in. It's not an easy thing. But now more of the larger chains, rather, are starting to get into these. All right. Another story I find interesting, and I saw this on the Medford City Council agenda for last night. and this is the United Soccer League in talks about bringing professional soccer to Southern Oregon. And they were talking about this last night at a study session. United Soccer League has three men's leagues, two women's leagues,

nationally youth, more than 20,000 players throughout the entire system. And Michael Zarazinsky, Mayor Zarazinsky told KOBI talks are still in the early stages, but up to this point they've been focused on venue location and they're eyeing Spiegelberg Stadium. They're looking at Spiegelberg Stadium because it has a pretty good seating capacity. United States, or United Soccer League rather, in a letter to the City Council says developments for a multi-purpose facility would be in the works. If existing venues such as Spiegelberg are not available for upgrades. Okay, in a letter to the U.S.L says development for a multi-purpose facility would be in the works. I'm just hoping that this is not, you know, this is, you get another ball stadium kind of thing, right?

You know, in which, well, the chamber commerce type folks are always happy to have taxpayers being on the hook for something. I would just always be very careful about this. Now then, we're not being asked, this is the quote here. Zerosensky says, we're not being asked to provide funds, facilities, or provide anything at this point. I would emphasize at this point. Thank you, Mayor, but he continues.

They're still doing their own due diligence in trying to work out how a facility franchise might be located in Medford. We have to make sure the traffic is right. The utilities work. The boring stuff that nobody cares about, including who pays for it, Mayor. Okay. Yeah. You know, it's one of these things where we've kind of been fooled many times in the past.

Even right now with the ball stadium, with the ball stadium situation, which may or may not be built. We don't know. And yes, I know that they invest, but we have to have some seed money, right? We have to have some seed money to have the U.S. Elcome. so we can have soccer hooligans. We need more soccer hooligans for tourism to keep our hotels and motels filled. Yeah, I think a little bit sarcastic, but, you know, you can't be sarcastic enough when it comes to the sports tourism disease that everybody wants to move forward on. I could be wrong, but we'll see.

Just be very, very careful. And this is at the same time that the city of Medford. There was another story. I was talking about this one in which they're talking about an economic, economic development zone, economic development zone in downtown, and they want to treat businesses more nicely. And I would just say, quit being punitive with us on motorists. Can we do that city council and mayor?

I would love that, wouldn't you? I think we could all agree on that. 730 at KMED, 993 KBXG. Saving money has never been easier. At my Oregon-E deals.com, you can purchase gift card. This is Randall with Advanced Air, and I'm on KMED. 735. Joining me right now, we have Ron Gordon, and he's a partner in Firefront, and also Simon Weibel. And we're going to be talking about firefighting, Ukraine, how it's all connected here in southern Oregon.

Ron, great to hear from you. It's been a long time since we had you on the show. Used to do the stock reports way back when. Welcome back. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for having us back, and thanks for allowing me to bring Simon on with us. We went to Ukraine back in October of this year to meet with some different connections that Simon had, and we ended up being able to get this foundation started. And so Simon's really got a lot of the knowledge when it comes to the fires since he's been in fire space pretty much for the last 20 years. Yeah, I imagine so.

Hey, Ron, so why don't we turn it over then to Simon. Simon Weibel. It's great to have you on. Tell us about your background here, too. Ron's sort of the money guy, kind of a big finance sort of guy, and you have the firefighting experience, right? Tell us about that. Yeah, it's great to be on, great to meet you. So sort of right out of high school, I started with Grayback Forestry out there in Merlin. So kind of right around the corner from the Rogue Valley here. and from there fought fire during the summers, went to school, travel, did the sort of, you know, seasonal firefighter thing. Then sort of after a few years of that, went on to become, like, join the El Dorado hotshots. And then kind of continued on from there until, like, in 2019-ish, I was kind of tasked with looking into drones for wildfires. And this was kind of before we were using any sort of automation or robotics in wildfires. And, like, long story short, sort of ended up working for a company called drone amplified who made a system called the Ignace, which was used to basically start fires with the drone.

And one of the things we found as we were trying to push that out is that it's hard to sell this product because not a lot of agencies had drone programs. So we sort of started drone programs for a lot of agencies, pushed this out across the U.S., parts of Europe. And just through that, I got into what became called FireTech, which is like a sub. system of the tech industry. And so I worked down in the Bay Area advising for a number of companies and eventually ended up working with the founders of BurnBot. And we built that company up. There's a BurnBot based here in Southern Oregon, actually. And then when I left there, I worked for a company called Intera, which is going through a leadership chain. Yeah, so I guess the point being, though, is that you have a lot of background in this,

and you've been intrigued, I guess, by getting a higher tech approach to fighting wildland fires. Is that an appropriate way of kind of getting at this? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so you founded this foundation. It is the Firefront Foundation. And, Ron, if I understand correctly, firefront.org, it's the website where you can find out more about this, right?

Yeah, so actually I believe that the website that for the foundation that we're doing is actually firefront foundation.com. Okay. So it grew out of the firefront agency that Simon had built. He has a couple of drone companies in Israel that he's working with, one down in Chile as well that we're doing some training with. But really the big thing that we were looking at when we got to Ukraine was some of the iteration speed, some of the environments that they're actually having to fight wildfires in is much different than what you might see typically here in the U.S. and so there's an opportunity to partner over there to get SOPs different ways of doing things to really push forward the wildland firefighting industry as a whole. Okay.

All right. So back to you, Simon, on this one. So what is different the way Ukraine would fight fires with with drone? You're talking about burn bots and or various other deals about. You're really talking about starting, for the most part, backfires with drones. Is that really what your main focus in is with the tech that you're working with through your foundation and wanting to move forward on this? I just want to make sure I understand correctly what people are trying to do. Yeah, absolutely.

I think here in the U.S., we were working a lot with how to use fire with robotics. But really, that kind of took me down the path, even at BurnBot with unmanned vehicles and specifically unmanned ground vehicles. So we're looking at, you know, small robotics. Oh, so you're talking about... Okay, so you're talking about going beyond just the aerial to have essentially robots crawling through fire conditions. Is that what you're developing right now? Is that kind of where you're going? Absolutely, yeah.

And, you know, we found that we just didn't have what we need to kind of move the fire sector forward here with robotics. Yeah. Even at Burnbott, we were using systems from FAAE, which actually come out of Italy. Yeah, I'm familiar with that company. I have some radio equipment from them. Yeah, I know them. Yeah, they're great. And what happened was I was sort of working online, and an article came across my desk about a Ukrainian military unit that did an all, like all robotic assault on a Russian position. and it was a coordinated attack between aerial drones and ground drones, and they actually didn't use any infantry at all. And when I saw that, I was like, if they can do that in war, why can't we do that in forestry? Yeah, you're thinking about that, the war on wildfire, you know, doing it without necessarily

having to put humans at risk out there in the field. Is that kind of where you're going? Yeah. Yeah, you know, we kind of look at it as like we can pull humans out, if we can pull humans out of the sort of 3D, like dull, dirty, and dangerous work, and put them more into where they're thinking, strategy, and all that. So that really led us into, you know, how do we approach that? And how do we, you know, go find that technology and then cross it over?

But how do we enable that, you know? And that's really what Firefront Foundation is. It's an innate, is a support organization to facilitate the introduction of tech, new methodologies, and really bringing what's being, you know, in Ukraine, they're fighting fire in areas where there's landmines, unexploded ordinance, remnants of war. Yikes. How do we keep humans out of that so they're not, you know, driving over landmines and anti-tank mines with their fire trucks? Let's put these robotics that have been sort of dual-use technologies used on the front in the hands of firefighters there.

and then how does that, those learnings come across here to the U.S.? Okay, now how have the firefighters or how have maybe even the forest managers here in southern Oregon and maybe just a state of Oregon in general, how do they react when you bring, if you bring these ideas to them? It's like, you know, hey, maybe we do this via drones rather than always calling the hotshot crew. Let's say, no there's anything wrong with having a hot shot crew. Sometimes there, you've got to have them, no doubt. Yeah, I mean, and that's a great question. you know, when we first started with drones,

it was like, no, you know, it's never going to work. It's kind of a toy, right? Kind of a toy. And so five years ago, eight years ago, it was a lot harder conversation. Now folks are like,

it's becoming more of a reality as we see them, you know, on the news, you know, we started using them to do fuel reduction. And so really, it's more of like, how do we put this all together

and how do we get over that barrier of adoption and show that, you know, these works. So it's like, really, that's the theme of Firefront is creating projects and enabling, you know, training exchanges and opportunities to prove these robotics and other methodologies and new tactics in real scenarios. Now, Ron, what is your role within this? I know you're a partner in this organization, and I knew you, of course, as, you know, big financial guy.

Is that where you're coming in on this? Or what's your story? Yeah. So really, Simon and I went to college together at SOU and studied economics. And we ran into each other and he was explaining to me what he was doing. And I just jumped aboard knowing that where I can come in and help is on that financial side and fundraising for it. because really what we're doing is we're creating a database with the Ukrainian partnerships of methodologies that are going to be utilized worldwide for this type of new frontier of. A firefighting.

It's almost like, as weird as it sounds, it's like the war in Ukraine is actually going to be repurposed, is what you're saying, what's been learned. there. And it's been quite intense as far as drone warfare for sure. Yeah. And when we were there and we went behind the, so we actually had the opportunity to meet with the Ministry of Fire there. They took us behind the lines to show us some of the places that have been burned. 40% of the country last year in Ukraine had to deal with wildfires. And so those, we know that these type of conflicts are going to in other places. And so Simon was able to just really have this fantastic network built over there. And when I was able to be there, see it, be introduced to some of the coalition at the University of Keeves. And it was incredible to see. And it just really showed me that, you know, that I had a different idea of what was going on over there in Ukraine after being there, meeting the people.

This is something that we can actually be a part of, and it can help in not just the Ukrainian people, but it can help the American citizens as well. The part that I'm kind of curious about here, and by the way, Simon Weibel is with me, Sees and Firefighter. He's a firetech innovator. And, of course, Ron Gordon, of course, you know him well. He was a financial advisor and then reconnected with Simon, and they're doing this project now. and it's firefront.org. Is it Firefront Foundation.com? I want to make sure to get it right, because I have Firefront.org is what I have.

But tell me about it. Someone just tell me what's the right address, though. I want to make sure and give the right address. Okay? Yeah. So firefront.org is our professional advising when so we have to, like, one of the projects that Firefront.org is already engaged. is called a spire dome out of Israel.

That's something separate. The actual foundation is firefrontfound foundation.com. Okay, good. Now, what I wanted to find out, though, is do you have vehicles or a proof of concept ready to go to market at that? What is the status? I mean, and could we be getting to the point where that's one question? Other question would be, could you talk about being able to deal with reduction in fuels?

do we actually have machines ready or in development that could go out and instead of always burning doing prescribed fire going out and eating up forest floors and small trees and chewing them up and chipping them up without a lot of human intervention? I'm just posing. If you can have a drone in the air and you're already talking about drones on the ground, what are we looking at for proof here? Yeah, that's a good question. And I mean, through our work in Ukraine, I mean, the drone, the ground robotics or unmanned ground vehicles, as they call it, they're a smaller platform than what we're using here for, you know, massification work, fire mitigation and all that.

There is that. What drew me to Ukraine is that the drones and the unmanned ground vehicles that they're using are a smaller scale, economically, a smaller footprint. So like a 10x cost difference. And then what that enables is they become scalable. So each of these small ground vehicles can do its own job and still be cost effective if you have, you know, to the same price as one fire engine, you can have five to eight of these smaller drones.

And those are ready for market. They are ready. How much they cost? What's the average cost on something like that? Five of these replacing one fire engine, because now, of course, replacing fire engines, that strikes me as putting out fire. Is that like carrying water?

I'm just trying to envision this. Sorry about this. So I'm just trying to drill in. I mean, you know, we're in the process of working with our partners in Ukraine. We do support them through another commercial venture. But for the foundation, where we're at is we're looking at in March this year going back to Ukraine, working with about three to four of these ground robotic companies to start looking at use cases and putting on live fire demonstrations to test them.

And really out the gate, I mean, what they're mainly being used for on the Ukrainian front line is logistics. And then casualty evacuation, so removing wounded people from the gray zone where it's hard to get trucks, ambulances in. They'll send these drones, you know, 10 to 15 kilometers in, pick someone up and pull them out. Is that an error? Is that an air? Drone? You're talking about? All ground robotic.

It's all ground. Okay, all right. Yeah. Okay. Now, the air, though, that's mostly about either detecting fire or dropping fire pellets or whatever it is to set things on fire to set backburns, right? That kind of thing? Yeah. And a lot of what we see, you know, we're seeing like a new movement in the U.S.

with companies like Seneca. There's a couple of more out there looking at how to suppress fires with aerial drones. You know, and then we get into, with the small. form factor of a drone. So an aerial drone can carry 10 to 20 gallons of water. Then you're getting into how do you use more drones with one operator? So a big hump here and what we're trying to also help with the foundation by putting on projects and creating opportunities is, you know, the technology and a lot of people call swarming. But really, swarming is just how do you network these together so that you get past one firefighter for one machine to where one firefighter or

you know, one emergency services worker can operate five to ten of these machines. Then suddenly we see an increase in capacity and like an increase in what each firefighter can do on the fire line. Yeah, well, let's say, well, to your point then, let's say if you get to the point where, and you build this and you get and you test this out, and you're able to get one drone operator out of the field to be able to control, well, let's say even 50. Let's say you have 50 of your drones that you're talking about that can carry 20 gallons apiece. and maybe we can build up on that as time goes on, then you have a thousand gallons,

and then you can zoom them in, dip, take them out, and that would have to be less expensive than a lot of helicopter work, wouldn't it? Or plane work. It would have to be less expensive, wouldn't it? It would be. And I think there's a key factor here is that we're getting to the point

where we're beyond the capacity of our resources as they are to respond to wildfires. So, you know, it's one of those conversations is, you know, we're not replacing firefighters. We're not even replacing helicopters. We're just providing another level of resource for a different style of attack on these wildfires. So we're really looking at, like, you know, if you get to that one firefighter can control 50 units that each have, you know, 50 to 70 gallons, to me, that's a revolution in how we approach the wildfire problem. Oh, sure. Suddenly we can look at new tactics.

So it's not just like a one-to-one, oh, we're going to replace helicopters and do what they did or replace fire engines and do what they did. It's like, no, we're going to add to what they're doing. And through that, we can revolutionize the tactics and approach fires in a whole new way. Hey, Ron, what are the BLMs in the U.S. Forest Services and maybe, you know, ODF thinking about these kind of things? Has there been any conversation with them yet? Well, actually, we just, so on the fifth, we went to Dendez. and then we stopped in and had a conversation with the Center of Excellence there in Colorado.

And so they're the agency that is in charge of robotics adoption and different things like that for Colorado and a big influencer throughout the rest of the West. They were extremely excited about what we were talking about and how we were showing them some of the different tactics that we envision taking place in March and what we're going to be practicing. We have been talking with the soil and water community here in Jackson County and Josephine County and others throughout the entire nation about how this could even be something that is a standby unit for, you know, farmers, ranchers, wineries, that they can have these robots here doing other tasks. and then if something was like a wildfire was to take place, perhaps having these come in and they're very excited about looking into those options as well. Well, you know, that does sound interesting if they're scalable and affordable to the point

where a winery or a farmer, you know, out there in the area, could be able to whack something down, you know, with a firefighting drone when it's very small, right, in the very beginning. That's probably what you're talking about, right? And you prevent the big growth into these conflagrations in the first place. I'm kind of intrigued by this one. And I'll tell you what we're going to do. We've got that back another time, and especially, are you ever going to put it on any

demonstrations here in Southern Oregon anytime soon? You're talking about Denver. Hey, it's all great or out in Colorado. Fine. Is there any chance we can see some of these in action at some point? Yeah, we are looking at a partnership right now on how, one of the big challenges here is how do you demilitarize them so they be used by civilians? Yeah, we don't want you arming the police.

state with this. Okay, this is about putting out fires, right? All right. Exactly. So the big challenge is, you know, here in the U.S. dual-use technology is usually civilian technology that can be used by the military. In Ukraine, there's a whole new tech sector that started up because of the war that's dual use, but it's actually military that has civilian application. And so coming into the U.S. and importing it here, we're having to work and facilitate like exactly what needs to be changed on these platforms. In other words, you're taking off the rocket launchers and the bomb launchers and things like that, right? Yeah, exactly.

Okay. But we're looking at probably like late spring to have our first unit here through a partnership with Outlaw Robotics and a company called Tencore in Ukraine. But, you know, once it gets here, we'll be starting here in Southern Oregon and then demoing them across. across Oregon, California, and beyond. All right, very good. Now, Ron Gordon once again and Simon Weibel. I appreciate you calling. I tell you, I keep me in the room.

This is just the initial kind of conversation, because I didn't really know anything about this, and that's why I wanted to have you both on. And I kind of have an idea that this proof of concept, give us a few months, and then we'll see it. I'd love to see this demonstrated. I think a lot of other people would be interested in seeing this demonstrated, too. And you can find out more about the group here.

There's Firefront Foundation.com. Firefront Foundation.com and Firefront.org. And Ron, I appreciate to anything else we should add here before we take off. No, just that it's absolutely fantastic that we're able to be here in Southern Oregon and still have a great impact throughout the world. It's really exciting. Very good. Hey, Simon, great talk. Okay.

Thank you very much for coming on. Be well. Hey, we appreciate you. Thank you, sir. All right. Looking forward to that. And, you know, believe me, given the problems that we've had with, with, lungs and sicknesses of wildfire smoke inducing this, which, by the way, Captain Bill Simpson's

going to be talking about that in about 10, 15 minutes. So we're going to be kind of focused on the wildfire thing. Soon enough, it's going to be wildfire season, so why not? We'll have more on that. Coming up, this is the Bill Meyer show. If you're a business owner, you know time.