Collin Newberry has been with the Northern Plains UAS Test Site as the Vantis flight operations manager and Interim Operations Director since the start of February 2024. Collin was born and raised in the Northern Plains between North Dakota and South Dakota. He left South Dakota in 2001 to enlist in the U.S. Navy, where he served as an aviation electrician from 2002-2006. Stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA, he performed intermediate maintenance on the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet platforms. Collin deployed twice with Carrier Air Wing Two on the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in 2004-2005 and then again in 2006. He returned to North Dakota for college and started at UND in the spring semester of 2007. Collin graduated with a BS in Aeronautics in Flight Education in the summer of 2009, then returned to UND in 2010 and joined the Army ROTC program. Again, he graduated with a BS in Aeronautics, but his time was spent in Commercial Aviation. Collin was commissioned in May of 2012 and returned to active duty the following month to spend the next 11 years as a multi-functional logistics officer; 8 of those 11 years were spent overseas. After being a platoon leader in Korea and a company commander in Europe, along with a myriad of battalion, brigade, and general officer staff jobs, he took the opportunity to return to North Dakota and re-enter the professional aviation industry.