VESTIGE DEFENSE
Subterranean warfare · leadership

Operators
and engineers

Vestige Defense is built by a founder-engineer and advised by the people who define the modern doctrine of subterranean and urban warfare.

Cade Dalton, Founder and CEO of Vestige Defense, professional headshot
Founder & CEO
Cade Dalton
Designer and engineer of the V-Suite.
Founder of Vestige Defense. Designs and builds the V-Suite end to end: firmware, hardware, autonomy stack, and operator software.

Dual bachelor's degrees in Finance and Economics with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Miami. Career has spanned independent game development, investment banking, and asset management.

Made the jump to defense after recognizing the persistent gap in subterranean autonomy, the domain where modern urban warfare lives and where no one has solved unmanned ISR. Self-taught the full stack, from embedded systems, SLAM, and sensor network design to ROS-level robotic integration, and built Vestige's hardware and autonomy software from first principles. Based in New York.
MAJ (Ret.) John Spencer
Strategic Advisor
MAJ (Ret.) John Spencer
Chair of War Studies, Madison Policy Forum
One of the foremost authorities on urban and underground warfare. More than 25 years of US Army service as an infantry soldier, holding ranks from Private through Major. Served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, 173rd Airborne, and 4th Infantry Division, with two combat deployments to Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander. Chair of War Studies at the Madison Policy Forum, co-director of the Urban Warfare Project, and a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare. Author of Connected Soldiers (Potomac Books, 2022) and Understanding Urban Warfare (Howgate Publishing, 2022). Host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast. Holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University.
CSM (Ret.) Joe Vega
Operational Advisor
CSM (Ret.) Joe Vega
Deputy Director, National Center for Urban Operations
Spent more than thirty years as a warfighter, serving at every rank of enlisted Soldier: first as a Ranger, then a Green Beret, and finally as an Operator in the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), where he served as a Master Breacher and a Heavy Breacher. Former Senior Operational Advisor to the Asymmetric Warfare Group. Deployed multiple times worldwide, including to Grenada, Panama, Colombia, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. One of the principal authors of the Army's Training Publication 3-21.51 Subterranean Operations (2019). Currently Deputy Director at the National Center for Urban Operations at Fort Hamilton, New York, and Vice President at US Armor Group.
LTC (Ret.) Justin Bosanko
Defense Strategy Advisor
LTC (Ret.) Justin Bosanko
Operational Advisor, National Center for Urban Operations
More than two decades as a U.S. Army officer at the intersection of special operations, irregular warfare, and emerging technology. Served primarily as an Infantry officer, with multiple combat deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and numerous other theaters worldwide. Spent more than a decade within the Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, specializing in focused targeting, adaptive leader development, and subterranean operations. Following his military service, served as a science, engineering, and technical advisor to the Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate before leading Department of Defense operations for Robotic Research. Currently serves as an operational advisor to the National Center for Urban Operations and holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Alfred University.