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Episode 10 – Chris Rawley (USN) – Harvest Returns

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 10 - Chris Rawley (USN) - Harvest Returns
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“The good thing was we didn’t know a lot about this field. The bad thing was we didn’t know a lot about this field.”

This from Chris Rawley, CEO for Harvest Returns, as he describes what it was like to start something as new as an equity crowdfunding company in an industry as disaggregated and specialized as agriculture.

Harvest Returns is an equity crowdfunding investment platform connecting both accredited and non-accredited investors with growers looking to raise capital. To date, they’ve raised over $10M for more than 20 different companies across the world – from livestock, specialty and permanent crops, indoor ag to row crops and artificial intelligence-driven ag technologies.

Chris and I have known each other for a number of years, in fact, we got started about the same time, both AGD Consulting and Harvest Returns, back in 2016. I had just returned from a 6-month, 6-country due diligence trip in Latin America and was keenly interested in what Harvest Returns was pursuing in the specialty crop space in Central America.

As we have supported and watched them grow over the years, I’m continually impressed with Chris’s vision for Harvest Returns – not just what they are doing now, but for the kinds of products they can create. I’ve never seen Chris static; he’s always thinking of new ways to innovate and solve increasingly complex problems within ag finance. The fact that they’ve nearly bootstrapped their entire company’s development, which for me as a veteran entrepreneur who has bootstrapped our own firm, gives me a tremendous sense of pride in what the veteran community is capable of.

Chris has been in the Navy for over 30 years now and in every clime and place he’s served, including the deserts of the Middle East and Afghanistan, he’s managed to see agriculture as an integral part of life, national security, and economic development.

Have a listen as Chris describes the veteran’s unique perspective around risk identification and management, distributed command and control, and remote work and what that means in today’s world.

Episode 9 – Brian Grundthner (USA) – Sentera

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 9 - Brian Grundthner (USA) - Sentera
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In this episode, we chat with Brian Grundthner, Enterprise Relationship Director at Sentera – an ag analytics company aggregating in-field data from proprietary and 3rd party hardware to provide decision insights to growers.

Brian talks about his time in the Army as a psychological operations expert, deploying all over the world to influence target audiences to achieve strategic objectives. The way he describes the translation of these skills into ag is insightful – he describes it as an ardent focus on the customer and their experience. Rather than influence the target audience, Brian utilizes his skills to truly listen to the customer and determine the root cause of their agronomic and market challenges.

The way he describes the future of ag analytics platforms like Sentera is to think of the growing season like a book – we have a strong first chapter where we understand seed genetics, pre-plant applications, planting rates, emergence, etc AND we know how the story will end in terms of yield prediction and monitoring. What’s missing right now is the middle chapters that guide us into that successful and predictable conclusion.

Finally, Brian notes that everyone defines purpose differently. Listen to find out how Brian found his purpose, and healing, through helping vets in ag.

Episode 8 – Ben Martin (USMC) – Dauntless Wine Company

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 8 - Ben Martin (USMC) - Dauntless Wine Company
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“I was white knuckling it down the highway with a 1,000 gallons of wine in my flatbed…”

What you’ll find in this episode with Ben Martin – Founder and Winemaker at Dauntless Wine Co – is a love of education, history, and a spirit of perseverance that often places him in situations like the one described above.

Dauntless is a veteran-owned and operated winery in the Willamette Valley of Oregon whose ultimate mission is to give back to warriors in need by offering them a place to learn about agriculture and an opportunity to heal.

Ben’s story of transition to agriculture is filled with some colorful detours along the way – from driving a truck load of AK-47s and 1,000 gallons of wine down the interstate to a recognition that a first-time job in retail sales following three deployment in a combat arms profession, including the invasion of Iraq in 2003, is probably not a glove fit.

But what always seemed to make sense to Ben was the desire to make his community more resilient through agriculture. This mentality launched Ben into a dauntless journey of problem solving, hand-on education, and the need to continue the veteran’s historical pursuit of agriculture and all the benefits it provides.

I hope you enjoy this episode as Ben describes “wine as bottled history”.

Episode 7 – Craig Ganssle – FARMWAVE

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 7 - Craig Ganssle - FARMWAVE
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“I wanted to be a lifer in the Marines…but I was medically discharged with a heart problem…automatic disqualifier…what the hell am I going to do now given these skillsets?”

This was an emotional episode for me as Craig Ganssle – Co-Founder and CEO for FARMWAVE – and I talked about his time in the Marine Corps coming to an expected end, his search for purpose in the private sector, and how his faith guided him throughout. Along that journey, Google Glass makes it’s first appearance within ag and starts Craig down the creation path for FARMWAVE – an artificial intelligence company using proprietary and curated data sets to train algorithms to provide predictive analysis around key agricultural considerations, including harvest loss, pest/disease pressure, and application coverage.

The way he describes his early interaction with producers and how he approached solving their problems is, I believe, the ideal way agtech companies should begin to identify and solve problems with tech in agriculture.

It’s a story which truly highlights the transferability of skill sets from the military to agriculture and in depth review of the incredible advances we’ve made within artificial intelligence and agriculture.

Episode 6: Keith Alaniz (USA)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 6: Keith Alaniz (USA)
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Keith Alaniz is the Co-Founder for Rumi Spice, a producer of high-quality, sustainably farmed saffron from Afghanistan. After graduating from Texas A&M, Keith was deployed twice to Iraq in 2007-2008 as a combat engineer– focused on finding and neutralizing IEDs. Keith talks about how his time at A&M helped shaped his leadership style in a theater of war, but also how he began to recognize that he didn’t fully understand the people or the culture he was trying to protect. So, he made the intentional decision to leave the traditional career path for an Army officer and participate in a specialized Afghan training program where he was equipped with economic, language, and cultural skills focused on rural Afghanistan.

It was directly because of these skills and the trust they built within the community that a local farmer approached Keith with the idea of growing and exporting saffron from Afghanistan to the international market. And the idea for Rumi Spice was born.

Listen as Keith describes a story of persistence, trial and error, and ultimately success as three former US Army officers built Rumi Spice into now the world’s largest exporter of saffron from Afghanistan. It involves knocking on countless doors, the creation of an e-commerce platform, an appearance on Shark Tank, and legitimizing a crop like saffron as an economic and sustainable alternative to poppy cultivation for Afghan farmers.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!

Episode 5: Bill Ashton (USN)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 5: Bill Ashton (USN)
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My guest today is Bill Ashton, the USDA’s Military and Veterans Agricultural Liaison Program Manager. Bill was born and raised in New York City where he joined the Navy right after high school and spent the next 10 years as an enlisted sailor. Most of his career was spent either onboard or supporting the submarine community.  Following active duty service, Bill continued to service the Navy, this time as a civil servant where he was the Program Manager for the Navy’s Pay and Personnel Program.  After 14 years in this capacity, he then became the Director of Security for Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington DC before joining the USDA in January 2018.  This position was established by Congress in the 2014 Farm Bill with Mr. Ashton serving as the first full-time government employee to hold this job.

We covered a lot of ground in this interview, from how skills Bill learned in the submarine community were brought forward into the ag sector to an overview of the impressive amount of veteran and career-focused initiatives at USDA. This episode is filled with stories of how Bill was plucked from different professions to turnaround and lead groups in completely different fields; a skill set he attributes to his time in the service.

Be sure to listen through to the end of the interview where Bill describes his thoughts on hydroponics aboard submarines; it’s really fascinating.

Episode 4: Chris Narayanan (USMC)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 4: Chris Narayanan (USMC)
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From ag consulting firms and brokerages to Wall Street investment banks and agribusiness power houses like John Deere and INTL FCSTone, Chris brings such a broad perspective that I think this episode has a little bit of everything for everyone.

We sat down with Chris Narayanan – currently an Extension Farm Management Specialist at the University of Tennessee Institute for Agriculture. After earning his bachelors degree from Texas A&M in Ag Economics, Chris then spent the next ten years as a Marine Corps infantry officer. Following his time in the service, Chris then went back to school to earn Masters in Rangeland Ecology and Management as well as an MBA from the University of Texas. This then ultimately launched Chris into the private ag sector where he has been working in a wide variety of sub-sectors within the ag industry for the past 15+ years.

One of my favorite parts of this episode was listening to Chris describe what he called “kitchen table” moments with farmers. I think this is something many transitioning vets seek but struggle to find after they leave active duty service; a way to connect with their profession in a way that is meaningful and service-based.

Have a listen to find out how Chris finally found this balance.

Episode 3: John “Glad” Castellaw (USMC)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 3: John "Glad" Castellaw (USMC)
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From driving mules to mechanization, from stuffing fresh-picked cotton in his shirt to keep him warm at night to enclosed, climate-controlled tractor cabins, it was impressive to see how far agriculture had come over the years through John’s stories.

My guest for this episode was John Castellaw – Co-Founder and CEO for Farm Space Systems and retired Marine Corps 3-Star General. For 36 years, John led Marines around the world from a unit of 40 young men and women to a Marine Aircraft Wing of over 7,000. He flew over two dozen different aircraft during his tenure, served on the UN staff during the Siege of Sarajevo, executed humanitarian operations in Asia, Africa, and Europe, and commanded the American forces in stability and security operations in East Timor. John also served as the Chief of Staff for the U.S. Central Command during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even more impressive than reliving the evolution of agtech through the stories of a single man was to see John’s realization that we can’t keep beating the dirt into submission. He fundamentally understands that we need to adopt more regenerative and sustainable practices, a sentiment not always shared by multi-generational farmers.

John takes me through his upbringing on the same cotton farm in W. Tenn where we reside now and how these experiences drove him into service and ultimately led him back to the farm after nearly 40 years. This interview is filled with words of wisdom about life and business tied up in stories such as ag as a component of national security, the importance of servant leadership, and the military’s advances in technology which are being more widely adopted within ag.

My favorite story involved a well drilling unit and a veterinarian in East Africa.

Have a listen to find out how it ends!

Episode 2: Jason Burley (USMC, USAF, USANG)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 2: Jason Burley (USMC, USAF, USANG)
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Jason Burley is the Vice President and Director of Cargill Food Ingredient Sales for North America. Jason’s background is incredibly unique, one that spans three different branches (US Marine Corps, Air Force, and Army National Guard) as well as both the officer and enlisted communities.

In this episode, we dive into Jason’s story and how it’s shaped the approach he’s taken today in driving veteran employment within Cargill. Jason shares a similar sentiment facing many veterans today after they transition; a disconnect from the type of bonds formed in a service and in a profession that serves a greater purpose. Jason explains how he found that purpose in agriculture. We also tackle some of the mistakes vets make when applying their leadership skills in the private sector.

Episode 1: Dr. Alex Thomasson Ph.D (USN)

Episode 1
Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 1: Dr. Alex Thomasson Ph.D (USN)
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Welcome to the Veterans in Ag podcast, brought to you by AGD Consulting.

My guest for this first episode is Dr. Alex Thomasson – currently serving as the Department Head of Ag and Biological Engineering at Mississippi State. Dr. Thomasson retired from the Navy in 2014 after 22 years of service. He began his career as an Ag Engineer and Research Scientist for the USDA Ag Research Service, specializing in electronics and machines for cotton ginning. Dr. Thomasson then spent the next 15 years at Texas A&M University as a Professor and ultimately the Endowed Chairholder in Cotton Engineering, Ginning and Mechanization. It’s here where I first met Dr. Thomasson as one of my professors during my undergraduate studies in Ag Engineering. He is also an active member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Precision Ag Task Force, Rural Broadband Development Working Group, helping bring connectivity to rural farmers.

In this episode, Dr. Thomasson delivers one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-understand overviews of what’s happening within agtech that I’ve ever heard. If you’re even remotely interested in what agtech is and what’s happening right now, this episode is a must.

His approach to servant leadership within his department is something he extracted directly from his time in Afghanistan as an engineer and should be an example for us all. I am humbled to have had the opportunity to dig into Dr. Thomasson’s story; you’ll be surprised by what I find. 

Enjoy!