Dayton drone delivery company Dexa names Darin Archer chief strategy officer
After four years spent building and certifying its own aircraft, the company is turning to a network where delivery drones and robots from any operator can share jobs, rooftops and charging, and is adding a 25-year tech veteran from IBM, Intel and Adobe to shape that strategy.
Dexa, a Dayton-based drone delivery company, has named Darin Archer chief strategy officer. The company announced the hire on LinkedIn in October.
Archer has spent 25 years working where physical operations meet digital intelligence, according to the announcement, with roles at IBM, Intel, Adobe, Elastic Path and Yottaa. He joins as Dexa shifts its focus from building and certifying its own aircraft to developing a network that lets delivery machines work together.
From certified aircraft to commercial deliveries
Dexa said it set out four years ago to design and build an American-made aircraft in Dayton, earn Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification to fly it as an airline and put real deliveries in the air. "That part is done and flying today in Ohio," the company said.
Dexa holds an FAA Part 135 air carrier certificate, FAA airworthiness certification and a national beyond visual line of sight waiver. That combination places it among four U.S. companies holding all three, alongside Amazon, Google's Wing and Zipline. Its customers include Kroger, Papa John's and Winsupply.
In June, Dexa completed what Ohio Tech News reported as the state's first drone food delivery. The company also pitched at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco Oct. 13-15 as one of 200 startups selected for the Startup Battlefield 200.
Teaching delivery machines to work together
Dexa's next goal targets what it described as a gap across the industry. Hundreds of thousands of delivery drones and robots already operate around the world, the company noted, and each one works alone, with one company, one hub and one trip out and back.
"Nobody has taught them to work together," Dexa said.
Dexa described what it is building as physical AI for the last mile: a network where any machine can share any job, rest on any rooftop, charge at any streetlight and know where it's needed before anyone asks.
As chief strategy officer, Archer will help shape that next phase, according to the announcement. The company pointed to his experience bringing physical operations and digital intelligence together, adding that "he knows what it looks like when a standard takes hold."
"The industry proved drones can fly. Dexa is teaching them to think," the company stated.
