The Wakulla Environmental Institute, Tallahassee State College's campus in Wakulla County, is turning local residents into licensed drone pilots. Its courses prepare students to sit for the Federal Aviation Administration's Part 107 remote pilot exam, and graduates are already flying commercially around the region.

The training covers a good deal more than the controls. Students work through Part 107 regulations along with aviation weather, airport operations, load and performance, risk assessment and the national airspace system. Flight operations instructor Gerald Tookes said the gap he sees most often is planning. "I found out that a lot of them need to learn how to plan missions and how those rules and stuff apply," he said.

WEI director Hope Childree said graduates have gone on to start their own drone businesses, take jobs with companies including Verizon, and in one case become a detective with the sheriff's office. The work in the field runs from filmmaking and telecommunications to law enforcement, environmental monitoring and disaster recovery. Brian Vagnini, a current student, said the license opens doors in both directions. "It will allow me to do some commercial applications," he said, and "it's a way of giving back to the community."

Registration is open for the fall slate. The eight-week ground flight school, which is the Part 107 test prep course, runs Oct. 14 through Dec. 9 on Wednesday evenings at WEI, with a Thursday section at the Tallahassee campus, and costs $1,000. A seven-week flight operations course built around more than 15 hours of hands-on flying starts Oct. 7, and a six-week digital media editing course for drone footage starts Oct. 12 at $500. All of the institute's drone courses qualify for the Rebuild Workforce Scholarship, which is meant to put no-cost vocational training within reach of area residents.