The American military is “incredibly powerful,” said Andy Yakulis, CEO and co-founder of Vector Defense Inc., but is it the strongest in the world?
“When it comes to unmanned systems, it is very hard to compete with Ukraine,” he told the Deseret News. “They’re incredibly smart at incorporating technology in a war-fighting tactical capacity,” and they also have an edge when they’re “forced to do that because their existence is at stake.”
He believes that Israel is similar, he noted.
That’s why American manufacturers, such as Vector — the defense technology company Yakulis co-founded in 2024 — are working to produce combat machinery domestically in the United States and used by the U.S. military.
Vector develops drones with names such as Dagger, Hammer and Mace. However, they don’t see themselves as a drone company. Instead, they provide what Yakulis described as “warfare as a service,” which includes integration, training and incorporating other technologies within a contract under them. The drone itself is only one component of what they offer.
With approximately 125 full-time employees, Vector maintains teams in locations such as Ukraine and Israel to stay updated on the latest tactics used in active conflicts.
“We maintain that sort of rotational presence, so that when an American military soldier gets a training from a Vector individual, he knows it’s the latest and greatest tactics that have been seen in battle,” he said, but, “You can’t copy and paste what you see in Ukraine and then apply that to the American military. You still have to apply some American way of fighting. We’re going to fight in the American military a little differently from the Ukrainians, but there’s still a lot of lessons to be learned.”
Since the company began, Yakulis said he’s received tremendous support from Congress, specifically his district’s representative, Congressman Mike Kennedy, who toured the Vector facility on Tuesday.
“What we’re looking for is a bigger demand signal from the United States military,” Yakulis said. Since President Donald Trump has taken office, he said there’s been “some fantastic top-down leadership that we haven’t seen in the past that is forcing the military to move out at a faster pace to incorporate unmanned systems.”
Because, he said, warfare has changed.
“The drone has changed warfare forever, and that’s why we’re pushing this initiative where we need to build large points of drones.”
This is an initiative Yakulis said the current administration seems to understand, with Trump’s executive order in June on “unleashing American drone dominance,” followed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signing a drone memo on the front lawn of the Pentagon to modernize the U.S. military’s war-fighting capabilities.
Although progress is occurring at the federal level, lingering red tape continues to hinder advancements.
The appropriate amount of money necessary for drone training in the military is a passion-driven topic for Yakulis, who served as an army officer in the United States military. The army tasked soldiers with integrating drones into their training, but didn’t allocate funds for the equipment, forcing soldiers to use their own money to purchase drones for training.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Hegseth’s drone memo has helped with this issue, and dollars are starting to come, Yakulis said, but with a lag.
Last year, “I talked to one junior enlisted soldier who had spent about $5,000 of his own money. I talked to some who were spending up to $15,000 of their own money just to buy the drone materials so that they could train,” he said. “I think this really added to our passion and conviction for this company when we started to see this and spent a lot more time with Congressman Kennedy and senior officials with the Pentagon to make sure that they understood this is unsatisfactory.”
Kennedy told the Deseret News that Congress’ role is to find “any opportunity to invest the appropriate amount of money to make sure that these industries are empowered to protect us in the future.”
“The other thing is learning how it works, and how can we put various businesses together and share the technology where possible, and compete in the market so that the best rise to the top,” he said. “Those are some things that, as a government official, I should be doing, and that’s why I’m grateful to be here to learn about the technology and help to coordinate and try to find the collaborative opportunities.”
