Alumni Spotlight: Beth Flippo ‘99

Binghamton University alumna Beth Flippo ‘99 recently returned to campus for the first time since her graduation for a talk about her company, Drone Express, and to seek engineers to join her team.

The delivery service utilizes last-mile drones that can pick up an online order from your local store and drop it off at your location in a matter of minutes. With commercial partnerships like Papa Johns, Kroger and Winsupply, she sees her company’s service as the future of convenience.

Drone Express is currently flying deliveries near its home base of Dayton, Ohio, and Flippo has served as CEO for the past four years. She graduated from the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science with a computer science degree and has 20 years of experience as an embedded software developer.

QUESTION: How does it feel to visit Binghamton after so many years?

ANSWER: It’s so exciting to be back after all this time. It seems like everything has grown so much since I went here. It’s totally different!

Q: What made you want to pursue your computer science degree at Binghamton?

A: It was actually during my senior year of high school, when I had a choice between creative writing and computer programming. None of the girls chose to do computer programming, but the teacher of that class was a man who had four daughters, and he refused to teach without some female representation. He was looking for girls who were good at math, and I was the only one that agreed to switch.

It was odd being the only girl in that class, but I remember learning Pascal at the time and feeling like I had finally found my calling. He saw that I loved programming and told me I should go to engineering school. That was basically how it started. If that teacher hadn’t pulled me in, I might be doing something in creative writing right now! Just one person can change everything.

Q: How did Drone Express start?

A: Drone Express started out as my parents’ company, Telegrid. I left banking and went to work for them. We were a defense contractor at the time, but I always wanted to go commercial. When a drone company reached out to us and we started learning more about the technology, I realized this could be something important that gets us into that commercial realm. It’s really a spinoff of the original; we turned the whole company around. That’s how I got into it, and it’s been four years now.

Q: As a woman in a male-dominated industry, what advice do you have for women here at Binghamton who aspire to careers in engineering and computer science?

A: Originally when I was in technology, I never felt different. I always held my own and I didn’t think that men really treated me differently. Once I moved into management, especially into running this company, unequal treatment is something I see constantly. Men will often talk over me and try to “teach” me about things as if it’s their job to educate me. Once you take the technical side out of it, all of the things that you hear about the disrespect are real.

All I can say is you have to be strong, and you have to push back and use your voice. Having people talk over women in the boardroom is a very real problem. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s happened to me. You have to push back even if it isn’t in your nature and even if you’re afraid people will think you’re “bossy”, which is a terrible word!

I have three daughters, and that’s what I tell them all of the time: You are no different, and if someone is treating you like that, speak up about it. Especially being not only a woman in technology but a woman in aviation, which is even more rare, it can be tough. It’s still great because there is still a lot of respect in the industry.

Q: What does the future of Drone Express look like?

A: I think we’re going to be a real player out there and change the way people think about last-mile delivery. You’re going to see a lot more of these brick-and-mortar stores feeling confident because there is a real, advanced and easy delivery mechanism for them.