AgEagle CEO Letter to Shareholders

WICHITA, Kan., March 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc. (NYSE American: UAVS) (“AgEagle” or the “Company”), an industry-leading provider of full-stack drone, sensor and software solutions, today announced that the Company’s Chairman and newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Barrett Mooney, has published a formal letter to shareholders, providing his perspective on the Company’s prevailing business operations and future growth strategies. Mooney stated:

“It’s a pleasure to be rejoining AgEagle as CEO at this pivotal stage of our Company. For those of you that are newer to AgEagle or who may be unfamiliar with my background, I originally had the privilege of assuming the helm of AgEagle as CEO in 2018. During my first tenure as CEO, my team and I were able to transform a small drone manufacturer based in Neodesha, Kansas into a NYSE-listed company that manufactured drones, built ground support equipment, and developed and implemented software that could deliver actionable insight to our UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) customers. We also innovated our core software product to lead the way into the newly legal hemp markets by offering regulatory agencies the most advanced software for monitoring, registering and enforcing federal and state hemp production laws. In June 2020, I moved into the role of Chairman of the Board and oversaw the strategic direction of AgEagle from the Board level.

“During my time as Chairman, AgEagle successfully acquired three companies to build additional expertise, expanded our line of best-in-class products and brought together teams to produce a world class full-stack drone solution. The sensors, software and airframes that we acquired, along with an immense pool of talented engineers and data scientists who now comprise 70% of our global workforce, are critical to our growth plans. From the Board’s perspective, there is a clear need to unlock and catalyze more value from these acquisitions to drive profit and growth. With the prior CEO’s recent departure and given my background, the Board asked me to lead as AgEagle’s CEO once again, and I eagerly accepted.

“Through the lens as Chairman, I can tell you that the leadership team understands the optics that come with having three different CEOs in less than two years. While I’m grateful for the contributions the prior CEOs made in getting us to where we are today, I’m excited to be re-engaging from an operations and engineering perspective to drive us forward and realize the immense potential of our Company.

“Before I dive into our vision and future plans, I would like to emphasize that all of our shareholders, including our valued long-term shareholders who are very active online, to please only rely on information sourced directly from AgEagle and avoid the rumors and misinformation regarding AgEagle that comes from outside sources, which cannot be relied upon. As a NYSE listed and SEC reporting company, we will continue to keep you updated on a regular basis through news releases, SEC filings and social media posts that can be found on our website or through our social media channels on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

“I feel compelled to point out that I am the type of executive leader who understands and appreciates the distinction between something being ‘well said’ and something being ‘well done.’ I also firmly believe that good fundamentals reflect good businesses, and that good businesses command premium valuations in the market. It will be my focus to ensure that our entire organization is dedicated to accomplishing growth objectives that will be consistently viewed as ‘well done,’ along with improving fundamentals across our enterprise with a goal of becoming cash flow positive as quickly as possible. I am confident in our ability to successfully achieve these goals in a timely and responsible fashion and prove value to the market – and most importantly, to you.

“Now, let’s dive into the vision for AgEagle, which begins with bringing three core values to life in our day-to-day operations and aligning them with our efforts to earn the trust and continued business of our customers. These core values will help guide all of our decision-making processes from this point forward:

1. Curiosity – this pushes us to find value where others aren’t looking. It inspires us to see around corners for our customers, understanding the problems they currently face or will be facing in the future, and delivering them solutions best suited for their unique needs.
2. Passion – this fuels our obsession with excellence, our desire to try the difficult things and tackle big problems, and our intent to meet our customers’ needs and then surpass them.
3. Integrity – this is not optional or situational at AgEagle. Integrity is the foundation for everything we do, even when no one is watching.
   

“I want to be clear that we are not four separate companies operating in silos under a corporate umbrella. We are one company which operates as a global UAV company offering a valuable portfolio of high performance, industry trusted sensors, software and airframes. Our products have earned and continue to earn distinction as invaluable aerial-enabled data capturing and analytics tools for a broad range of commercial enterprise and government users. We are very proud of the long list of customers, business partners and resellers which comprise the AgEagle ecosystem and have come to rely on our products.

“In the next several months, we plan to create three centers of excellence with respective expertise in software, sensors and airframes. Our centers of excellence will cross-pollinate ideas, industry insights and skillsets to generate intelligent autonomous solutions that fully leverage our expertise in robotics, automation and manufacturing. We will also be evaluating and making necessary changes to the roles and responsibilities of our leadership team to ensure we are properly matching individual strengths and areas of expertise to the management of our daily operations.     

“While 2021 was a year in which AgEagle focused on building a strong foundation for future growth through successful execution of our acquisition strategy, 2022 will be the year in which our results will be defined by organic growth through meaningful sales performance. In fact, this year is off to a very strong start. We have begun optimizing our global reseller network and direct-to-customer channels serving multiple verticals; there is robust global demand for our new panchromatic sensors introduced to market in late 2021; and we’re making material headway with our push into the U.S. government sector.

“Overall, I firmly believe AgEagle is in a strong position to succeed. We are going to be more than just customer- and product-centric, we will be obsessed with innovation and knowing the needs of our customers before they do. We have exceptionally talented engineering and customer success teams with an eager and experienced leadership team ready to propel them through this next growth phase. We have the building blocks of a great company in place, and the future of AgEagle is bright and promising.

“I look forward to hosting a quarterly update webcast and further addressing you all when we report our fourth quarter and full year 2021 results later this month. Thank you all for your continued support and I look forward to achieving measurable success in 2022 and beyond.”

About AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc.
AgEagle and its wholly owned subsidiaries are actively engaged in designing and delivering best-in-class drones, sensors and software that solve important problems for our customers. Founded in 2010, AgEagle was originally formed to pioneer proprietary, professional-grade, fixed-winged drones and aerial imagery-based data collection and analytics solutions for the agriculture industry.  Today, AgEagle is a leading provider of full stack drone solutions for customers worldwide in the energy, construction, agriculture, and government verticals. For additional information, please visit our websites at www.ageagle.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that could negatively affect our business, operating results, financial condition, and stock price. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from management’s current expectations include those risks and uncertainties relating to our competitive position, the industry environment, potential growth opportunities, and the effects of regulation and events outside of our control, such as natural disasters, wars, or health epidemics. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in our expectations or any changes in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law.

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