Teen and his parents don’t let Autism hold him back
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Dane Pritchard is a 16-year-old young man who appears headed for a great future in business, although his road to early success has not come without its share of obstacles to overcome.
The local teen has started Ace Drone Solutions, providing drone services for a variety of business needs, particularly his opening efforts to take pictures for real estate agents who want to give their “for sale” homes an added look.
His main obstacle to become a successful businessman might easily have been the fact he is Autistic. But Dane is not going to let that slow him down and has his parents to thank for being determined their son would not look for excuses in life.
“I don’t want to be known as the kid who has Autism, and then it becomes an excuse for not being able to do certain things,” he said.
But perhaps more important than Dane’s attitude about his challenge in life is the fact his parents decided early on they were not going to let Autism define what their son could or could not do.
“Everyone has challenges, and this just happens to be what Dane will have in his life to overcome,” said his mother Alesha. “We were not going to try to control his environment and be protective of everything around him.”
Instead, Josh and Alesha Pritchard took an approach for Autism that many parents could learn from.
“Once we realized he was Autistic we used micro doses of situations to help him get used to the things that might overwise have held him back,” she said.
Dane’s main problem from Autism, as many Autistic kids experience, is with loud noises, or several different audio sounds going on around him at once. For many Autistic people, that is troubling in their brain and leads to emotional outbursts, or running from the situation.
In the case of Josh and Alesha, they purposely put Dane in those situations, a little at a time.
“We exposed him to things we knew he struggled with,” Alesha said. “A little at first, then slowly built on that. We took him to LSU football games, went to a Mercy Me concert, then a Garth Brooks concert that was louder,” she noted. “He always had an escape button anytime he wanted, but it helped him slowly get used to things.”
The result today is that Dane comes across as a very bright young man who clearly has a mind for business, not to mention excellence in other school courses. The family did have other challenges in the younger days of schooling, but they have helped him overcome those and are now homeschooling him in the 10th grade.
As some parents with Autistic children experience, there were plenty of ups and downs in his early years of school. They started him in public school, then tried a small Christian school, and are now homeschooling him.
“When he was going to different schools we would get called so frequently to come get him since he lost control due to all the noise, or other kids—it was pretty difficult,” she said.
But they also saw that he was very bright, a trait many Autistic kids also display.
“We knew very early on that something was different about him. He was quirky and peculiar, but also very smart,” Alesha said. “We were somewhat amazed at how smart he was, but then the other side of that was trying to take him to Walmart, where he was set off by all the noise.
“We knew he was different,” she added.
Dane is just like other young teens in many ways. He loves video games and enjoys sports, then found a particular interest in drones as they began to get popular in recent years.
“I thought they were pretty cool so I started following the industry,” he said. “We went to DeRidder to do volunteer work after Hurricane Laura and I saw drones all over the place.”
His father works at Shell and Dane started thinking about the usefulness of drones in the oil and gas industry, so he began considering a business with them. In the fall of 2020, he took part in the Southeastern Louisiana University Young Entrepreneurs Academy where he had to create a business model, then pitch it to businessmen who offered cash to the young people to start their business.
Dane was one of the top winners and was awarded $1,200 to help get the business off the ground, which initially was using the drones for the real estate industry. He also works a part-time job and was able to save enough money to purchase his first drone for $2,000, which has a 4K camera, can go up to 22 miles per hour and rise to 400-feet off the ground.
“The tricky part at first was learning how to be good at operating it,” Dane said. “It’s easy to go up and down, but you’ve got to learn how to navigate it many different ways since they have multiple flight features. I probably spent up to 50 hours of practice before I got good.”
The drone comes with an operating system that includes a module hooked to his phone that allows him to see the photos instantly. Additionally, he had to become skilled at Photoshop so he could adjust his photos to be the right look for his clients. His photography skills also needed to improve since clients wanted inside shots of a house.
Dane now has a business flyer he is taking to local real estate offices, with photo packages ranging from $75 to $275. He had his first paying job last September, and is now trying to market the drone for other things, such as construction sites, pipeline monitoring, special events, and roof inspections for after tropical weather.
Dane said he is not sure what other career he might seek once he graduates from high school, but for now, “I’m mostly interested in the drone business.”
If you are interested to know more about hiring Dane with his drones, you can call him at 337-396-3205, e-mail him at danepritchard06@gmailcom, or check out his website at:
Acedronesolutions.mypixieset.com