Latest news with #C100
Business Wire
02-07-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Liberty Dental Plan CISO Wins Back-to-Back A100 Award, Honored Among Nation's Top Emerging Cybersecurity Leaders
NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Liberty Dental Plan, a leader in dental insurance innovation and data protection, proudly announces that Rushton G. James Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, has once again been named a recipient of the prestigious A100 Award by CISOs Connect™. This marks a second consecutive year of recognition, affirming James's position as one of the most impactful up-and-coming cybersecurity leaders in the country. The A100 Awards build on CISOs Connect's industry-acclaimed Top 100 CISOs (C100) Awards and are designed specifically to highlight rising security executives. Honorees are selected through a 100% transparent, peer-driven process, judged solely on merit by a board composed entirely of veteran CISOs—with no nomination or participation fees. Key criteria include: Executive Leadership: Currently serving as a CISO or equivalent at an end-user enterprise for fewer than five years, demonstrating rapid impact and strategic influence at the executive level. Vision and Innovation: Demonstrated ability to modernize security strategies, foster innovation, and align cybersecurity initiatives with broader business goals. Professional Engagement: Active leadership roles in respected industry groups and professional security organizations, helping to shape the future of cybersecurity policy and practice. Community Impact: Ongoing involvement in security-related volunteer efforts, public advocacy, and initiatives that strengthen the broader cyber ecosystem. Talent Development: A proven commitment to mentoring, educating, and developing the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, including cross-functional training and workforce pipeline programs. 'This recognition means a great deal to me,' said James. 'It not only reflects the strength of our security team and the culture we've built at Liberty Dental Plan, but it's also an acknowledgment of the value we place on mentorship, community engagement, and developing the next generation of cyber leaders.' Winners were announced at CISOs Connect™ Nashville on June 30th, where cybersecurity leaders from across the country gathered to celebrate innovation, resilience, and excellence in the field. For Liberty Dental Plan, this award reinforces its commitment to security leadership, industry collaboration, and continuous improvement in protecting member data and critical infrastructure. For more information about the A100 Awards, visit
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How televised drone racing gave birth to a new company now making cutting-edge tech for the US military
Performance Drone Works is an Alabama-based company that's pushing domestic-made drones forward. PDW leadership spoke with BI about production process, challenges, and what technologies are needed. The company was born out of a televised drone racing league. It now makes military drones. More and more American drone companies are sprouting up as the tech takes over civilian and military sectors in a big way. The Ukraine war has been an eye-opener about what drones can do in battle, and the Pentagon is leaning hard into the technology, as a planned Army overhaul shows. With increased demand comes new companies eager to become suppliers. But Performance Drone Works, or PDW, wasn't born from a sudden interest in uncrewed warfare. Instead, it came from the colorful quadcopters and flight courses of the televised Drone Racing League, where talented pilots would fly drones through complex obstacle courses at speeds up to 90 mph. PDW is an offshoot of the famed international racing league. The company set out six years ago to address the lack of US suppliers developing cutting-edge robotics, Ryan Gury, the company's CEO and co-founder, told Business Insider. All of the drones flown by the league's pilots are the same and made by DRL, and that is where Gury came in: drone design. Now PDW is making drones for the military. The priority is to make drones, like their flagship C100, and other technologies, "that are small and tactical and to be deployed by single units," Gury said. "That's our thesis." The C100 is a lightweight quadcopter that's designed to fit in a rucksack and can fly over 70 minutes, up to 40mph, with a 10-pound payload. The latter can be adjusted based on mission requirements. PDW is also planning to debut a new, smaller, first-person-view drone this summer. The company announced over $15 million in C100 contracts and sales to the US Army in December. For many years, combat drones were large, fixed-wing aircraft costing millions, but there's a growing interest in small, inexpensive uncrewed aerial systems that can be employed down to the squad level, that warfighters could carry on their person, even in their pockets. The Ukraine war has shown that small UAS platforms can do battlefield surveillance, strike missions, bombing runs, and more. Key to advancing that aim and fielding drones en masse are affordable systems at scale, close and flexible relationships with the Department of Defense, and a reliable domestic supply chain that is not dependent on foreign components. PDW is based in Huntsville, Alabama, where the rate of production on C100s has exceeded expectations. They've outgrown the factory they thought would last a few years in just eight or nine months. "A year ago, at our board, we were mulling, 'Can we produce 30 a month?'" retired Gen. Tony Thomas of US Special Operations Command, now chairman of the PDW Board, said. Now the company is making 70 a month, and soon, it'll double that. For their upcoming FPV product, Gury said he expects numbers exceeding the present production figures. Testing occurs throughout PDW's drone-making process, Dylan Hamm, PDW's chief technology officer who built small drones while serving as a Navy SEAL, told BI. Testing involves everything from making sure the drone has the desired payload capacity to evaluating weather, temperature, altitude, terrain, and countermeasure conditions. "We test our drones every day," he said. "Whether it's at the flight test facility qualifying that they meet our design targets or actually taking them out to field events." Drone-making requires flexibility given the rapidly evolving battlespace. There's much being learned from the electronic warfare countermeasure systems and the quick pace of innovation occurring in Ukraine. "When you have these systems in these complex operating environments that are constantly changing, we have to be ready to adapt," Hamm said. PDW has US veterans across its workforce and leadership — 20% and 63%, respectively. In conversations with BI, PDW staff who had served talked about the role of the drone in combat, the need to work closely with individual warfighters on these systems, and the quickened pace of adaptation and evolution. Veterans bring a unique perspective to defense companies, but on cutting-edge systems, they have to look beyond their own experiences. "If we're designing the system for the wars that Dylan and I fought a couple of years ago, we're behind," PDW's Chief Revenue Officer Chuck McGraw, another former SEAL, told BI. The kind of fighting that has been seen in Ukraine has shown that the future of war is going to be very different from past conflicts. Matt Higgins, one of PDW's co-founders, said that "the fact that you can take a $1,000 drone and take out an $8 million tank is an asymmetrical advantage that the world will never unsee." Drones and other UAS like loitering munitions have changed the game. The question now isn't what can these systems do but whether the US has the industrial capacity to keep up. PDW's C100 is engineered and manufactured entirely in the US and doesn't contain any Chinese-made parts; the majority of the drone's parts come from American companies. The US military can't just grab DJI drones off the shelf, and that complicates procurement. Military leadership is eager to strengthen domestic industry for drones but also for other weapons, ammunition, and assets. Gury and Thomas highlighted the growing number of new companies in the defense industry, specifically ones that are working on drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities, and other future warfare elements. Thomas said it's a really frenzied environment, a time when there's "a real animus" to move away from legacy systems that may not win the next war and really "get onto transformational capabilities." Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
03-05-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
How televised drone racing gave birth to a new company now making cutting-edge tech for the US military
More and more American drone companies are sprouting up as the tech takes over civilian and military sectors in a big way. The Ukraine war has been an eye-opener about what drones can do in battle, and the Pentagon is leaning hard into the technology, as a planned Army overhaul shows. With increased demand comes new companies eager to become suppliers. But Performance Drone Works, or PDW, wasn't born from a sudden interest in uncrewed warfare. Instead, it came from the colorful quadcopters and flight courses of the televised Drone Racing League, where talented pilots would fly drones through complex obstacle courses at speeds up to 90 mph. From drone racing to battlefield tech PDW is an offshoot of the famed international racing league. The company set out six years ago to address the lack of US suppliers developing cutting-edge robotics, Ryan Gury, the company's CEO and co-founder, told Business Insider. All of the drones flown by the league's pilots are the same and made by DRL, and that is where Gury came in: drone design. Now PDW is making drones for the military. The priority is to make drones, like their flagship C100, and other technologies, "that are small and tactical and to be deployed by single units," Gury said. "That's our thesis." The C100 is a lightweight quadcopter that's designed to fit in a rucksack and can fly over 70 minutes, up to 40mph, with a 10-pound payload. The latter can be adjusted based on mission requirements. PDW is also planning to debut a new, smaller, first-person-view drone this summer. The company announced over $15 million in C100 contracts and sales to the US Army in December. For many years, combat drones were large, fixed-wing aircraft costing millions, but there's a growing interest in small, inexpensive uncrewed aerial systems that can be employed down to the squad level, that warfighters could carry on their person, even in their pockets. The Ukraine war has shown that small UAS platforms can do battlefield surveillance, strike missions, bombing runs, and more. Key to advancing that aim and fielding drones en masse are affordable systems at scale, close and flexible relationships with the Department of Defense, and a reliable domestic supply chain that is not dependent on foreign components. A booming business PDW is based in Huntsville, Alabama, where the rate of production on C100s has exceeded expectations. They've outgrown the factory they thought would last a few years in just eight or nine months. "A year ago, at our board, we were mulling, 'Can we produce 30 a month?'" retired Gen. Tony Thomas of US Special Operations Command, now chairman of the PDW Board, said. Now the company is making 70 a month, and soon, it'll double that. For their upcoming FPV product, Gury said he expects numbers exceeding the present production figures. Testing occurs throughout PDW's drone-making process, Dylan Hamm, PDW's chief technology officer who built small drones while serving as a Navy SEAL, told BI. Testing involves everything from making sure the drone has the desired payload capacity to evaluating weather, temperature, altitude, terrain, and countermeasure conditions. "We test our drones every day," he said. "Whether it's at the flight test facility qualifying that they meet our design targets or actually taking them out to field events." Drone-making requires flexibility given the rapidly evolving battlespace. There's much being learned from the electronic warfare countermeasure systems and the quick pace of innovation occurring in Ukraine. "When you have these systems in these complex operating environments that are constantly changing, we have to be ready to adapt," Hamm said. Designing systems for new fights PDW has US veterans across its workforce and leadership — 20% and 63%, respectively. In conversations with BI, PDW staff who had served talked about the role of the drone in combat, the need to work closely with individual warfighters on these systems, and the quickened pace of adaptation and evolution. Veterans bring a unique perspective to defense companies, but on cutting-edge systems, they have to look beyond their own experiences. "If we're designing the system for the wars that Dylan and I fought a couple of years ago, we're behind," PDW's Chief Revenue Officer Chuck McGraw, another former SEAL, told BI. The kind of fighting that has been seen in Ukraine has shown that the future of war is going to be very different from past conflicts. Matt Higgins, one of PDW's co-founders, said that "the fact that you can take a $1,000 drone and take out an $8 million tank is an asymmetrical advantage that the world will never unsee." Drones and other UAS like loitering munitions have changed the game. The question now isn't what can these systems do but whether the US has the industrial capacity to keep up. PDW's C100 is engineered and manufactured entirely in the US and doesn't contain any Chinese-made parts; the majority of the drone's parts come from American companies. The US military can't just grab DJI drones off the shelf, and that complicates procurement. Military leadership is eager to strengthen domestic industry for drones but also for other weapons, ammunition, and assets. Gury and Thomas highlighted the growing number of new companies in the defense industry, specifically ones that are working on drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities, and other future warfare elements. Thomas said it's a really frenzied environment, a time when there's "a real animus" to move away from legacy systems that may not win the next war and really "get onto transformational capabilities."
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
These Are Your Worst Car Insurance Stories
Good customer experiences with car insurance companies are becoming rarer and rarer, even as drivers are paying through the nose for coverage. We asked our readers earlier this week for their worst car insurance stories, and I have to admit a few of the responses left my jaw on the floor. There were brokers who viewed themselves as petty tyrants and an insurer who told a mom that her son was killed in a car crash despite him still being alive at the hospital. Without further ado, here are the most frustrating tales shared: Read more: Judge Takes Away Man's Dodge Charger Hellcat After He Acted Like A Hellcat Owner My insurance company story actually involves getting insurance on my motorcycle. When I turned 16 in 1969, I bought and insured a 50 CC Honda. When I retired I decided that I would relive the dream. I bought and restored a 1965 C 100 (50 CC) and approached the same company with whom I had conducted business for over 50 years. No way would they insure such an old bike. Flat out - no way. I had to go to an "insurance broker." The charge: $350/year, but only public liability & public damage coverage. No collision, no fire + theft, no nothing! Thanks. The following year after having no contact with the broker, no claims, nothing, they raised my premium to $500 / year, take it or leave it. I left it and sold the bike. To top it off, I then restored a 1982 Honda Passport, essentially the exact same bike as the 1965 C100 and my regular insurance company was quite ready to insure this much newer (40-year-old) for $280 / year with PL, PD, fire, theft, collision, asteroid impact, continental drift upset, etc, etc, etc. Go figure. Submitted by: justtoombs I had a rental car. Ran over some debris. No injuries. Just $1,400 property damage with $1,000 deductible. I paid my deductible. USAA REFUSED to pay the balance of $400. USAA claims adjuster told the car repair facility that they knew they owed the money, but they refused to pay " . . . because they could." Rather than sue, I change insurers and never miss a chance to badmouth USAA. Submitted by: Patrick Hannon I'm from one EU country and now temporarily working/living in another EU country (let's say, the equivalent of being from Florida and now working/living in Ohio). I've had a valid driver's license for over 25 years, and my wife has too. We both had car insurance back home on several cars for a long time with no claims or penalties. But now that we're here, even though it's still in the EU, they totally ignore our driving experience and treat us like we're fresh 18-year-olds who just got our licenses with 0 experience! We have to jump through hoops just to get our licenses recognized here, and we don't want to deal with the hassle, costs, and time it would take to replace them with this country's ones (because - why?). So, our first annual insurance premium ended up being like 6 or 7 times more expensive than it should've been if they actually recognized our experience. It's just frustrating having to deal with this type of discrimination, and a confirmation insurance is just one big scam anywhere you go! Submitted by: GentleGiant I got hit by a car riding a bike in Chicago and I was deemed not at fault (in bike line and car turned right, cutting me off). Concussion, broken bike etc. State Farm insurance completely ignored me for 3 months. I called 100 times, every number possible etc. they finally pick up so I hosed them for 6k on property damage, maybe not so bad after all, but 3 months of no contact was criminal. I used my bike to make money too. Submitted by: NoPractice Currently going through it. Was hit after making a left in California, I was 80 percent into the other street and around the blind corner came a speeding BMW 7 series with blacked out windshield. Hits me all the way in back on the rear fender/wheel. Not even my door. Causes $7,500 damage to me and $32,000 to himself. But since I'm making the left through his lane, I get stuck with the at fault. His car wasn't badly damaged, it was some broken plastic, but it's BMW 7, brand new. He wasn't remotely injured. No airbags. Originally my insurance said we all settled at me 70 percent, him 30 percent. My coverage would have covered that, didn't have high coverage at the time. Then, 6 months later, he claims he's injured, but not pursuing money for that, but I get another point. Another 6 months later, I find out they lowered him to 20 percent at fault. Now I am $750 short. I have no money. Can't pay rent/food. But for the past two years keep upping the amount I owe them. Now they're claiming I owe them $7,500. My insurance has told them a dozen times there's no more money. But they call me and my family and send letters consistently. My insurance went from $149 a month to $550, now it's down to $440 and I have much higher coverages. But I'm pretty scared of this. I work 9-10 hours a day, 6 days a week and am struggling to support my fam. I hope they stop. Submitted by: ItWorkedIFinallyLoggedIn I've been pretty lucky. My worst experience, or at least the strangest, was going to the insurance agent to swap from my AMC Eagle to my 98 CVPI, an objectively safer car. My insurance rate went up because of the weight of the Crown Victoria. Submitted by: Drg84 I persuaded my parents to leave the emu outfit when I first started driving because the premium for my car went from $181/yr when it was just an additional car to $593/yr after I was added to the policy to $823/yr the year after that. I had no tickets and no claims, but hey, teenage driver, let's squeeze 'em, right? To put it in perspective, that's 1979/80/81. At age 21, I thought I'd look into getting my own policy. A rep at a local Allstate office quoted me a premium that was more than I made in a year, and when I protested that that was ridiculous, he smirked and said, "You need to get another job, then." Then, when I bought my first new car in 1986, our then-insurance company waited until after I'd made the purchase to inform me that they were declining coverage because one of my sisters had backed Mom's Dart into a parked car the year before. I was the only driver in the house who could drive stick (my new car was a 5-speed). They only agreed to insure my car if I signed and returned a 30th-generation copy of a typewritten form releasing them from liability if anyone else in the house drove my car. Submitted by: Paul Balze Last month, my wife got side-swiped in her 2018 Mazda3 by a 4WD Landcruiser. He was changing lanes from the right-hand lane and simply didn't see her in his lifted truck. Anyway, we reported it to our insurer (RAC in Western Australia) and they took all our details etc. and said from our story he's at fault and that our excess won't be payable as a result. He then tried to claim that my wife was also changing lanes and that it's a 50/50 fault. Luckily my wife took a photo of the position that the cars ended up in even before she got out of the car and then took a bunch more so that shot his story down straight away. RAC still sent us a 10-page &*$#% NON-WRITABLE .PDF file to fill in. I had to open it in MS Word to be able to fill it in because not everyone has a printer/scanner. It took me over an %$#$@% hour because of course Word mucked up all the formatting. When I returned it by email, I added a very cross comment about this... Biggest hassle overall was that car repairers here are still picking up the backlog from all the summer crashes over Christmas/New Year so it took 3 weeks to get it booked in. Luckily, apart from a deep, long dent along the right-hand side, the car was drivable. We got it back last Friday looking as shiny new as ever. :) Yeah ok... Not exactly overwhelmingly bad. In fact the RAC are pretty great at Insurance and I have my House & Contents Insurance with them as well. Premiums are ok-ish (could always be cheaper...) but their service is top level actually. Submitted by: Sean Ellery When I first started driving, I went with the insurance broker my family had used for years - a little mom-and-pop organization where most transactions were handled either in person or over the phone followed up with a letter in the mail a few days later. And if your payment was due and they hadn't received a check, then a woman named Charlotte would call you with a polite reminder. Maybe I was naive, but that's how I thought insurance companies worked. Then I moved out of state to Delaware in 1990. I kept the same insurance company, but obviously, I had to choose a new broker; I selected a broker only a few miles from my apartment so I could easily drop off a payment. Everything was fine for the first few months, then for some reason, I forgot to drop off my payment. One day, I get a cancellation letter in the mail, with angry red letters on the outside of the envelope. I called the broker the next morning and told them I would stop by with a check later that morning. I got to the insurance broker's office and asked to speak to the person handling my account, guy was named Robb, IIRC. I apologized to Robb and pulled out my checkbook; Robb reminded me to include the $12 late fee with my payment. Grrrrr. Fine, whatever. After our business was concluded, I casually mentioned to Robb, "I'm used to my old insurance company; they would call me when a payment was due." Robb sighed and snarkily replied, "Do you really need a babysitter?" I hada new broker before the next payment was due. Submitted by: Earthbound Misfit I I have two, both from Geico. 1) March 2016 TLDR: I get hit by a car when trying to render aid to a previous accident caused by a drunk driver, but it then becomes a chain-reaction accident involving six cars (mine included) and my body. As I'm in college and very lucky, I was still on my mom's car insurance policy - The next day, Geico calls my Mom, the main policyholder, while I am on the operating table and ... APOLOGIZES FOR THE LOSS OF HER SON. (While we hate Geico for other reasons in this instance, that was a big one - and it became a 4 year legal process) 2) Dec 2016 I've graduated from college, moved back home, and am recovering from my injuries from getting hit by a car (See above) 9 months earlier. I turn left on a green arrow and I am t boned by a work truck pulling a trailer. which runs a stale red light Turns out both I and the red light runner are insured by Geico. Because of my previous accident, the foreshadowing of how long the legal process of proving blame, I had made the decision to buy a dashcam - BUT Geico's online system wasn't capable of uploading videos and won't accept a link to a video on YouTube/Google Drive. It's also 2016 and I no longer have a CD Burner to mail it in to them. I end up having to buy a new USB drive to mail it into them. They finally place blame on the redlight runner ... Then the real craziness begins. After moving home, i was gifted my mom's hand-me-down 2014 Ford Edge with only 4000 miles on it. At the time of the accident, it had nearly 10K miles on it. While I was t boned, the side airbags did not deploy, and Geico decided to repair the vehicle. It, of course, ended up having frame/structural damage and in order to repair it, they had to remove the entirety of the corner of the car. From wheel well all the way to D pillar. The repairs took 4 months, and the day we got it back, I traded it in for something else. Submitted by: Andrew Jimenez Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
