Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:44 — 36.7MB)
At the historic grounds of Vermilionville, beneath the oaks and along the bayou that so vividly reflect our region’s living history, this special episode of Discover Lafayette was recorded during the second annual LFT Fiber Powered by Connectivity Summit on March 19th, 2026.
The summit’s theme, Growth Powered by Fiber, Where Technology Meets Community, comes to life in a conversation with Whitney Savoie, Chief Marketing Officer of FlyGuys, a Lafayette-based technology company operating at the intersection of innovation, safety, and cultural preservation.
This LFT summit showcased local leaders and gathered their thoughts on the power of connectivity in shaping our community, businesses and the economy.
Whitney brings more than 15 years of experience in marketing, brand development, and customer acquisition, much of it rooted in high-growth tech startups. Her journey includes early work with Waitr, where she says she was “in the first 1% of employees,” helping scale what was then a groundbreaking on-demand food delivery platform. Reflecting on those years traveling across the country launching markets, she shared a perspective that would later shape her appreciation for home: “What that taught me then, and I have an appreciation for now, is in every small to medium community that I went into, you couldn’t feel the culture like you can feel in Acadiana.”
That deep connection to place is central to Whitney’s story. Raised along the bayous near Morgan City, she recalls a childhood that feels quintessentially South Louisiana. “In high school, my dad would take me crawfishing to make extra money, in the marsh in a pirogue lifting traps.” Today, as she reflects on culture through the lens of technology, she sees opportunity in preserving those moments. “I need to go back out with my dad and take pictures, even maybe put a drone up because I want to preserve that memory.”
That idea, technology as a tool to preserve, not replace, human experience, runs throughout this conversation.
FlyGuys itself is a powerful example of how innovation can serve real-world needs. Headquartered in downtown Lafayette and operating nationwide, the company provides drone-based data capture services across industries ranging from infrastructure and construction to agriculture. As Whitney explains, “FlyGuys is a reality data capture platform. We match data seekers with data providers.” Those providers include a network of approximately 20,000 FAA Part 107 certified drone pilots across the country.
The concept is deceptively simple but highly impactful. When a company needs critical visual or analytical data, whether inspecting a cell tower, surveying farmland, or assessing storm damage, FlyGuys deploys a pilot to capture that data safely and efficiently. “Instead of having a human climb that cell tower, a drone can do it safer, faster, more efficiently.” The data is then processed and analyzed through FlyGuys’ platform, delivering actionable insights to clients.
The applications are vast. In agriculture, drones can identify disease at the level of a single plant, reducing the need for widespread pesticide use. In infrastructure, they allow for safer inspections of bridges, roofs, and aging structures. In cultural settings like Vermilionville, FlyGuys has even created “digital twins,” highly detailed 3D models, using advanced ground scanning technology to document and preserve historic spaces.
Underlying all of this is an immense reliance on connectivity. FlyGuys processes thousands of missions each month, each generating massive amounts of data. “One mission could produce 10,000 files,” Whitney explains. “We do about 8,000 missions a month.” The ability to upload, process, and analyze that data in real time depends entirely on robust, high-speed internet infrastructure, making events like the LFT Fiber Connectivity Summit especially relevant.
But for Whitney, the conversation ultimately comes back to people.
In one of the most memorable moments of the interview, she reflects on hosting FlyGuys team members from Colombia in Lafayette. A crawfish boil at Moncus Park turned into an impromptu cultural exchange, blending zydeco dancing with salsa. “It was like this beautiful marriage of both cultures coming together… It was the picture of what we’re trying to preserve.”
That spirit, connection across cultures, generations, and technologies, is exactly what she hopes people take away from the summit.
“My hope is that people really understand what the LFT fiber team is trying to do here. They’re trying to bring us together. It’s really not about the technology. It’s about the fact that we’re all connecting and human. The beauty of the whole conference to me is it’s that tech isn’t the hero, it’s the people that are the heroes and the things that we’re doing with the tech. In this age of technology, with AI, where there is some fear and trepidation, I believe that humans are going to really start leaning into that human connection.”
In a time when artificial intelligence and automation are rapidly reshaping how we live and work, Whitney offers a grounded reminder of what matters most. “We need to preserve the human connection through all of it because that is what matters at the end of the day.”
From the bayous of her childhood to the cutting edge of drone technology, Whitney Savoie’s story is one of honoring where we come from while building thoughtfully toward the future. And in Acadiana, where culture runs as deep as the waters that shape it, that balance may be our greatest strength.
