Ryan Smith spent his early career walking commercial properties as an 18-year-old security officer, then patrolling streets as a police officer for 14 years, all the while asking why the cameras mounted on buildings couldn’t do more than just record. On a recent episode of the Dawn of Autonomy podcast, Smith walked through how that frustration eventually inspired him to create Titan Protection and Consulting in 2008. Today, the company provides “blended security,” a model that fuses drones and remote monitoring with trained officers and consulting on shifting regulations…all working in one holistic system.
The “Bionic Age” of Security
Smith, a single-engine pilot since the age of 14, traced fascination with aviation back to his grandfather, a former deputy director of the FAA who began his career in the 1930s. That aviation instinct collided with his law enforcement experience once he noticed how little technology actually helped security officers on the ground. He recalled how video analytics in the 2000s promised automated threat detection, but consistently underdelivered. So he initially built Titan around what he already understood well: people. Grounding Titan in the security officer business gave the company the personnel to scale as drone technology matured. Today Titan employs over 700 security officers, supported by a remote drone operations center, in missions that span all 50 states.
Smith described the current moment in security, which mixes security professionals with advanced technology, as “the bionic age.” In his assessment, debates over whether machines will replace people misses what is happening on the ground. Titan’s security officer business keeps growing, even as its drone and remote monitoring services expand. The technology still needs a human decision-maker at the point of action. Sensors and drones can detect activity across a property, but someone still has to decide what happens next, whether that means an audio warning through a drone speaker, a locked door or an officer walking over to talk to somebody. Titan’s sweet spot involves building the cadre, technology and training to do just that.
“Blended Security” In a “Netflix World”
Titan’s officers no longer follow the old observe-and-report model that dominated the industry for decades. Smith says the shift accelerated after the pandemic, when clients started demanding an observe-and-respond posture instead.
For the “observe” capability, Titan monitors several thousand cameras nationwide. Its drones extend that reach across outdoor sites that a single guard walking a perimeter could never fully cover. Construction sites, equipment yards, utility properties and vehicle lots make up much of Titan’s client base. Those open, unstructured environments benefit most from aerial coverage paired with a trained human response team.
With regard to “respond,” security officers’ most common task usually involves asking someone to leave a property. This carries real risk if handled poorly. Titan trains its officers using simulators that put them through realistic scenarios. It then pairs that training with drone coverage so technology absorbs cost, while people absorb judgment.
All of this contrasts with the security industry’s traditional “Paul Blart Mall Cop” model where such officers would receive little to no training but whose services were billed by hours on-site. Smith referred to this as “the old blockbuster model,” and Titan’s blended service as the “new Netflix model.”
Titan’s newest offering, which the company calls “Automated Response and Patrol,” illustrates the next phase of its blended service model. A drone paired with radar detection creates a virtual perimeter around a property. Instead of an officer completing an occasional walk that leaves most of the property unwatched for the rest of the hour, the drone investigates every detected intrusion in real time. Smith noted this approach has cut client costs by roughly half while improving coverage across the entire property.
Riding The Regulatory Bull
As Titan continues to grow and evolve, the regulatory landscape for drones and security both continue to change. Smith referred to this as “riding the bull” because operating through the uncertainty of it all makes for “one wild ride.”
Part 108 BVLOS Rule: “Contained” Operations
As one example, the industry still awaits the FAA’s long-awaited Part 108 rule for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations. From his perch, depending on the final outcome of that rule, Smith sees 108 as a potential “double edged sword,” especially if the FAA fails to recognize a distinction he considers fundamental: contained operations versus uncontained operations.
Currently, Titan flies almost exclusively on private, fenced properties under BVLOS waivers, an arrangement Smith described as “shielded” because the drones typically stay below the height of the tallest structure on-site. He contends that this creates a categorically different risk profile than a delivery drone crossing a city or an inspection drone traveling miles along a pipeline. He coined the term “contained,” which does not appear anywhere in the roughly 700-page Part 108 proposal, to describe a fenced commercial property. “I just think there’s a difference in those (contained vs. uncontained), and that should be recognized, because it’s just a different risk pattern and picture that’s out there,” he said.
Smith’s ambivalence about the pending rule stems from Titan’s nationwide Part 107 waiver, which allows it to scale without pursuing a site-by-site approval process. He worries that a finalized Part 108 could inadvertently roll back the flexibility Titan already has. “I’m almost happy for it to take as long as it needs to,” he admitted, “unless we end up with that positive contained operations language or something carved out.” He hopes to keep the waiver system that already works in place, rather than replacing it wholesale.
Section 2209 and SAFER Skies: Coordinating with Law Enforcement
Smith also addressed Section 2209 authority, the long-delayed FAA process meant to let critical infrastructure owners request airspace protections around their facilities, along with the newer SAFER Skies framework that grants some state and local law enforcement agencies with nuanced counter-drone authority.
Smith views corrections facilities as an obvious use case given how frequently drones smuggle contraband into prisons as well as stadium and large scale events. He expects public-private partnerships, like the ones Titan built during World Cup security operations this summer, to become the template other jurisdictions follow. During those events, Titan detected and helped intercept hundreds of unauthorized drones without any catastrophic incident. Smith credits that work largely to close coordination between private security teams and law enforcement liaisons stationed on-site.
Privacy Laws: Safeguarding the Digital Domain
Data privacy, and the laws to protect it, surfaced as another pressure point, particularly amid public backlash over license plate readers and camera networks used by other providers. Smith draws a sharp line around governance.
Smith credits insurance underwriters, who pushed Titan to prove exactly how it stores images, restricts camera zoom and prevents cyber intrusions, with sharpening his own thinking on the issue. “What they’re really worried about is the privacy aspect” and less about drone crashes, he explained.
As a result, Titan keeps footage and detection data within the customer’s own systems rather than funneling it into a shared external database. The company runs internal audits to confirm drone operators stay geofenced to client property. It also has software that can blur out faces and properties.
Tariffs: Throwing the Dart at Shifting Prices
Even executive branch tariff policy has reached into Titan’s daily operations. Because the company buys and integrates commercial drone hardware rather than manufacturing its own, new tariffs on foreign-made components have forced Titan to revisit active customer quotes and warn clients that pricing could shift before contracts close. Smith treats this kind of disruption as simply part of doing business in a sector still finding its footing. “We’ve learned that you can’t really plan beyond a quarter,” he said. “The best thing you can do is kind of ride the bull and see which way the winds are blowing and go that way.”
That mindset, equal parts patience and pragmatism, sums up how Titan Protection provides blended security in an industry where the technology keeps advancing and the rules keep catching up. Smith isn’t waiting for perfect clarity before building. He continues to build anyway, one blended team of officers, drones and sensors at a time…and adjusting to the regulatory winds, as needed.
Photo credit: Titan Protection and Consulting.