Mike Gagne

With more than 25 years of experience in the development and operation of wireless networks, Mike Gagne is Chief Network Officer (CNO) for AURA, where he manages deployment of the company’s private, nationwide commercial aviation network, customized for America’s mission-critical infrastructure industries. He is also an aviation enthusiast who completed his pilot training to gain a greater understanding of the community’s needs.

Mike has a unique familiarity with construction of both public and private wireless networks, having deployed thousands of site locations across every state in the nation. In addition to defining AURA’s base-station requirements, he is also developing the company’s flight-testing program, as well as new antenna technologies and air-interface modifications to support AURA’s network. He leads a team of engineers designing the overall architecture to deliver a critical communications system, adhering to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standards allowing safe integration into the National Airspace System (NAS) for crewed, remotely piloted, and uncrewed aircraft missions.

Mike represents the company in numerous standards bodies, including RTCA, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Throughout his career, he has advised numerous companies within the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) industry regarding site deployment, as well as budgeting and employee, vendor, and asset management.

Before his recent experience at Ligado Networks, where he led technology development and validation – including for private networks supporting mission-critical UAS use cases – Mike served in a variety of positions for Sprint and Nextel, leading national engineering support teams and managing network design and deployments related to NASCAR (Nextel Cup Series), disaster recovery, emergency response, and custom network solutions. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Merrimack College.