Ireland to talk at October meeting!

The October speaker will be Don Ireland, whose long-time curiosity about drones led him to purchasing his first and obtaining his FAA Part 107 certification during the Covid shutdown in the spring of 2020. His drone photos have become used regularly by the Denver Business Journal, Colorado WaterWise Magazine and the Weekly Register-Call newspaper, helping those media outlets rank among the first in the state to incorporate aerial photography.

For a good deal of the past five decades, Don has worked full-time and as a freelancer writer for such newspapers as The Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the 1980s and 90s after earning several Pennsylvania statewide writing awards for a chain of Pittsburgh suburban weeklies during the early 1980s.

Don Ireland sporting his latest journalism awards

He moved to Denver in 2000 to marry his wife Lynn. Although he was helping to run the old CompUSA computer stores at the regional level, he began writing newsletters and assisting other organizations by penning some stories in the years that followed. Eventually, he became a regular contributor for business-sponsored content for the Denver Business Journal and the Colorado WaterWise Magazine, a quarterly publication that's distributed to utilities, industry-specific firms and those involved in monitoring Colorado's water supply.

After he purchased his first drone, Don contacted an old newspaper buddy and began offering him local aerial shots he felt the newspaper readers might be interested in seeing. His drone photos and writing efforts soon led him to become the senior reporter and drone photographer for the Weekly Register-Call, which celebrated its 162nd anniversary this year as the primary news source for Gilpin County and the gaming cities of Black Hawk and Central City.

This year and last, he was honored with a total of eight awards from the Colorado Press Association, including two for his regular "Age of Drones" columns. Don tries to use his words and drone photos to inform the average non-drone reader about the possible uses of this ever-evolving technology.

Please join us to hear Don on Saturday, October 5, 2024 starting at 9:00am. We’ll meet in person at the Central Colorado Regional Airport in Buena Vista, and online via Zoom meeting.