Changemaker: Entrepreneurship Takes Flight

Nils Thorjussen’s career journey has been anything but direct. After touring with the Grateful Dead working on concert system technology, he started his own company, Verge Aero, where drones are the entertainment.

“When I graduated from the GSB there was a huge recession and I decided to go the entrepreneurial route,” he says. With a team of robotics engineers, Thorjussen, MBA ’91 develops both the hardware and software to deploy drones that create colorful, choreographed light shows.

Since launching in 2016, Verge Aero has performed at events across the U.S. and, in early 2022, Thorjussen and his team appeared on America’s Got Talent. “There’s no single path and entrepreneurs come from all walks of life. There are opportunities everywhere and I think I have lived that 100%.”