When Rut Patel first came to the United States in 2015, it was the culmination of his family’s 18-year effort to leave their native India. But for Rut, founder and CEO of the professional drone services startup Voyager Industries, it was only the beginning.

Growing up, he had two dreams: One was to move to America. The other was to launch his own business once he got there. It took his family almost two decades to wait for their visa, but once they got it, Rut wasted little time in launching phase two of his dream.

He quickly learned English by listening to podcasts and working at a Dairy Queen near his adopted home of Lakeland, Florida. While he saved money for his business venture, Rut realized he needed to figure out just what kind of business he wanted to start.

At that point, he knew only that he wanted to work with drones. He’d had an interest in engineering but found he lacked the aptitude to study it formally. He had always been fascinated with aircraft, but he didn’t have a pilot’s license. So drones it was. But there were still a few obstacles: He didn’t own a drone. He’d never flown a drone. And he had no idea what he would do with one if he could.

“I knew I was interested in problem-solving,” Rut told me. “I cared about solving problems more than I cared about the flying itself. So I used my savings to buy my first drone, and I tried to figure out what kinds of problems I could solve with it.”

The used DGI drone cost him $5,000. And not long after he bought it, a natural disaster gave him the opportunity he’d been looking for to use his drone to solve problems.

“I had this flying machine, and it had a camera and GPS that could collect data,” he said. “So I started thinking about how I could use all that information to create 3D models. Then Hurricane Irma hit.”

Rut began contracting with roofing businesses that would use his drone to conduct inspections. Soon he expanded to even larger construction companies and started monitoring the progress on their job sites.

“I started contacting all kinds of different companies asking them the kinds of problems they were facing and came up with ways my drone could help solve it,” he said. “Everyone at first would say, ‘no, we don’t need it.’ The first thing they’d hear was the word ‘drone,’ and they were confused or they were intimidated. But I’d start asking them about the problems they needed to have solved, and they started to understand how I could help them.”

Rut launched Voyager Industries in 2017. Today, his company is one of the largest providers of drone inspections in the country. Voyager’s fleet of drones now inspects more than just construction sites. Rut’s company is active in the agriculture, energy, and engineering industries, and he continues to look for ways to expand.

“We’re still in the early days of drone technology,” he says. “Eventually, drones will be like cellphones. They’ll be part of our everyday lives. We’ll use drones for emergency rescues, food delivery — we’ll even deploy drones into space. This technology is evolving all the time and we’re going to be there every step of the way.”