By Sam Hirt
Have you ever watched college football on ESPN? Did you watch the NBA Finals last year? If you have, you’ve seen footage from Zach’s drone work. His company, Hyvion, has been producing some of the most exciting drone footage in sports.
Take me back to your very first camp experience.
My first real camp memory was actually dropping off my cousin. My mom and my aunt were very close, and my aunt had heard about Camp Tecumseh and decided to send my cousin up. We made the drive with them, helped set up her cabin, got her bunk sorted out ‚ and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to stay.
So you were jealous.
Completely jealous. But the funny part is, a year later, my mom had applied for a campership to get me in. My aunt was taking my cousin again, and my mom and aunt sat me down with this big announcement. They’re like, “Hey, we have really exciting news. You’re going to camp this summer.” And what should have been this huge, exciting moment… I was terrified. I cried all night thinking I was being shipped away.
You’d forgotten what you experienced the Summer before?
Totally forgot. I’d blocked out the cabin, the bunk, all of it. By the time I actually went, I loved it. From that point on, I went every year, all the way through the CILT (Campers in Leadership Training) program and into staffing.
Were you aware of your financial situation growing up? Did you know you were on a campership?
My dad passed away from pancreatic cancer when I was very young, so I grew up with a single mom who ran a daycare out of our house. She quit her job specifically so she could be home with me as much as possible. I knew things were different for us. We didn’t have a two-parent household, we weren’t as well-off as most of the kids at camp. But my mom did a remarkable job of shielding me from the financial stress of it all.
I genuinely didn’t know camperships were a thing until I was much older. I just felt like any other kid at camp. I didn’t walk around thinking, “I’m here because of donors.” I was just there to experience it. And in a way, I think that was a gift. I got to enjoy it fully as a kid, without carrying the weight of those circumstances.
What does it mean to you now, looking back?
I take real pride in being a campership kid. I take pride in the struggles we went through. Because it makes me think about the other kids out there in similar situations. How do we get them into experiences like this? How do we make sure they get what I got?
Let’s talk about your path after camp. You went to Ball State. What were you studying?
Growing up, everyone always told me I had a radio voice. At camp during CILTs, I was the disc jockey. I’d get up on stage and act like I was mixing beats. So in high school I started the radio station at Perry Meridian, and that got me into the media and business side of things. I went to Ball State to study on-air talent, spent four years in Muncie. What I lovingly call the thriving metroplex of Muncie – working in their College of Communication, Information and Media.
But you didn’t stick with on-air?
I got bored. It felt very repetitive. The same format, the same thing over and over. And I started noticing this whole business ecosystem running behind everything I loved about sports and media. That’s what really lit me up. So I transitioned from the on-air side toward the media management and production side.
And you got your pilot’s license (for real airplanes) while you were at Ball State?
A side quest. I’m a master of the side quest. There’s a scholarship through the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, and I applied on a whim. My aunt was helping me write the letter of recommendation, and at some point she asked how many people usually apply. I looked it up and told her, ten to fifteen thousand. She basically said, “Okay, so you’re not getting it. I’m wasting my time on this letter.” Four or five months later, I got a call telling me I’d been selected. I got my pilot’s certificate in 2016, which happened to be right at the moment drones were starting to emerge. It was no man’s land‚ wide open.
How did drones go from a side interest to an actual business?
Honestly, it started as a forgotten class assignment. I was in a master’s program at Central Michigan University – a very specific degree, a Master of Arts in Media Management focused entirely on the media industry. There was an entrepreneurship class taught by Professor Amy Sendak, and an hour before class, a friend tells me we have a presentation due on a business concept that’s going to change the landscape of media.
I had no idea. So I had one hour to come up with something. I thought: drones are becoming a thing, helicopters are incredibly expensive, TV stations are hemorrhaging money. What if we just replaced helicopters with drones for broadcast? I threw the presentation together, walked in, and delivered it.
And?
After class, the professor pulls me aside and says it’s the best presentation she’s ever heard in the class. She wants me to submit it to the National Association of Broadcasters’ pilot innovation challenge. My first thought was: “You have no idea I put this together an hour ago.” But I submitted it. Didn’t think anything would come of it.
Then, around graduation, I get a random call from a number I don’t recognize. This was before spam calls took over‚ and it’s the president of the NAB telling me we’d been selected as a finalist out of two to three thousand applications. We were competing against teams from Harvard and Yale and companies that had already launched. We didn’t win, but making the final eight was the moment I thought: “Okay, maybe this forgotten class project actually has legs.”
So then you started the company?
We won a little startup capital and a summer accelerator program through CMU‚ a scaled-down version of a Y Combinator type of thing. I spent that summer actually building it. We initially called it something very focused on TV news, which turned out to be limiting. Eventually I rebranded to Hyvion. It came from the idea of a beehive, where the hive is the nucleus and the bees go out, gather pollen, and always come back. We liked that metaphor. The ending was meant to give it a more tech feel, and importantly, the name didn’t box us in.
After a period of ups and downs and trial and error (plus, a little time driving for Uber), Zach helped launch a drone program at Central Michigan University. It was there that he eventually made the connection that would lead him to a gig with ESPN.
Every person you meet is a potential connection, a potential relationship, a potential opportunity. Whether it becomes a friendship, an acquaintance, or a business partner, it matters. The key is making each of those interactions feel real, not transactional. That’s something camp taught me. You meet hundreds of kids from all different backgrounds, and you learn pretty quickly that showing up genuinely for people is how you build something that lasts.
What does a typical fall look like for you now?
Last football season we did 73 events in sixteen weeks. On a typical week, we find out on Sunday where we’re traveling to the following Saturday. That gives us about six days. Monday is operations calls, coordinating with venue owners, property managers, working out logistics for where everything is going to park and land. For College Game Day alone, you’re talking close to twelve semi-trucks and buses traveling in. It’s a full set being assembled.
Tuesday is production meetings, working with the internal producers on story lines, angles, what makes that specific location special. Wednesday we build the flight plan: every takeoff and landing point mapped out in detail. That gets sent to risk management teams and property owners for sign-off. Thursday we travel. Friday we fly scenic shots for the show. Saturday is the game.
What’s the biggest lesson of the past year?
Honestly, I’ve learned more in the last twelve months than in any class from high school through my master’s degree. It became truly about managing people, managing logistics, managing a team at scale. Drones are getting harder to purchase in the U.S. because of the political climate around certain manufacturers. We’re ordering things from Canada, dealing with tariff increases on equipment. A lot of things outside our control.
But then I think about what Joel always says about camp. You run up to the summer not sure if everything’s going to work out, and then at the end you look back and think,
“that went really well.” It’s the same thing. You prepare strategically, you trust the people you’ve built around you, and you execute.
What do you like most about your work?
It’s adventurous — that’s the best word for it. But it’s also the people. Every production brings a different group together, and being able to meet all of those folks, to work with the directors, all of that is a lot of fun.
The travel is something I have to remind myself to appreciate, especially this past year during my third college football season. I’ll be standing in the locker room at the University of Alabama, or on the field at the College Football Playoff, or at the Rose Bowl, and I have to stop and think — people spend a lot of money to be at these events. The NBA All-Star Game, the Western Conference Finals with the Pacers — people want to be there. I’m fortunate enough to do this for a living. It’s about trying to live in that moment and say, hey, this is really cool. Let’s just embrace it.
Are there challenges in the job that remind you of your time working at camp?
That’s a good question. Naturally, when you bring any group of people together, the challenge — and the reward — is learning what makes each person tick. Their little quirks. The things that will either really frustrate them or make them light up. That’s true whether you’re ten, fifteen, or eighty.
Learning how to work within a group, to make things run cohesively — that’s one of the most difficult things you can do, and one of the most rewarding when it comes together. Even as a camp counselor, making sure every kid in your cabin felt seen and heard wasn’t easy. But that’s the task when you’re in a leadership role. You have to try to make it happen.
What advice would you give someone looking for a summer job in college?
Don’t grow up too fast. I think that’s the biggest thing. I’m 32 now, and everyone around me is having kids and reaching all these milestones, and sometimes I think — wait, is that what I’m supposed to be doing? But I look back and I don’t regret any of it.
We’re living in a world right now where everyone — and I’m guilty of this too — is always looking at what’s next. What’s the next step in the career, the next milestone to hit. And so my advice is: live in the moment. Embrace the unexpected things that come along the way. If you still want to go jump off the blob or go down the water slide, do it. Embrace that lifelong desire to have fun and to be in an environment where you can.
Is there anything you’d want people to know about the lasting impact of camp?
I think the biggest thing camp does is give kids the ability to think independently. Usually, those choices are made for them — by parents, by schools. But at camp, you get to decide: what clinics (Newdls) am I going to sign up for this week? Those are small things, but they’re intangibles that build up over a lifetime. They give you the courage to walk into a room and hold a conversation with anybody.
I’m fortunate to be in rooms with a lot of executives, people from Fortune 500 companies, and there has never been a time where I felt intimidated by someone’s title. I think a lot of that comes from growing up with the freedom to make my own decisions, to be self-sustaining, to go out and have fun without fear.
Camp does a great job of instilling that. It teaches you that you belong in the room.
…
Camperships exist because of people like you. Check out ways you can support Camp! Learn more
