About Kurt Carraway
After serving 25 years with the United States Air Force, retired Colonel Kurt J. Carraway is K-State Salina's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Research Executive Director. In this capacity, Carraway provides strategic leadership in advancing Kansas State University’s UAS program goals. He directs the execution of research activities involving UAS through the Applied Aviation Research Center (AARC). Carraway also directs flight operations development and maturation of the UAS training program through direct supervision of the flight operations staff. He manages highly skilled UAS professionals that perform hundreds of UAS flights per year in civil airspace. He sets policies and procedures for unmanned flight operations. He serves as Principal Investigator (PI) on UAS activities through the AARC and is the University PI representative to ASSURE, the FAA’s UAS Center of Excellence. In that role, Carraway also serves as the UAS training focal point lead. He is a professor, an instructor and mentor to students.
Before arriving at K-State Salina, Carraway was stationed at Camp Smith in Oahu, Hawaii, where he served first as Joint Operations Director and then Division Chief of Current Operations, both for the U.S. Pacific Command. Carraway worked with the Global Hawk UAS, as an evaluator and instructor pilot, and later became commander of the Global Hawk squadron. Carraway established standard operating procedures and composed technical manuals for the military’s use of the Global Hawk.
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Carraway received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, prior to entering the Air Force. During his service, Carraway also completed a Master of Science in Systems Engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology on the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and a Master of Arts in Management from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is married to the former Pamela Savage and has two daughters, ages 19 and 15.
