John is a US Special Operations veteran and experienced defense industry executive.  He served from 2007-2016 in the United States Navy, primarily as a combat technician supporting the West coast SEAL Teams where he completed 4 tours of duty in Afghanistan receiving multiple awards including the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat "V" Valor designator.  After separating from active duty in 2016, he went on to join CTI, a US-based small defense technology company, where he served in a variety of roles including product management, contract strategy, and business development.  In the Fall of 2021, he founded Darkhive with Steve Turner to address the deficiencies in military tactical drones that he experienced first-hand during combat operations.

​Steve Turner brings 15 years of experience in both hands-on innovation and technical leadership. Since 2021, he has been at the helm of Darkhive's engineering efforts including the creation of deep learning mobile voice control for robotics platforms and guiding efforts to design and manufacture affordable, scalable, easy to use, and open drone platforms. Prior to Darkhive, Steven was a hands-on executive and engineer at CTI overseeing a team that grew threefold contributing to proposals, designs, and software implementation of ATAK plugins, solutions for navigation interference, and networked electronic warfare. His experience extends from embedded real-time systems to tactical networks and cloud environments with a focus on US DoD platforms and protocols (including ROS usage on an aircraft in 2011!). He has a passion for providing drones to military and public safety users that developed witnessing the disparities between commercial drones and integrating legacy defense UAS platforms.