Author: Jim Pantaleo

One need not look far to understand that in the nascent industry of indoor vertical farming reside both appearance and reality. Between the two often lie hard lessons learned. Such is the case with the new Bay Area start-up, Farm Ecology (www.farmecology.farm). Born from one of the region’s first indoor commercial operations, Ecopia Farms, the […]

It did not take long to realize the founder of Auroras (www.auroras.eu), Paolo Marenghi, was a kindred spirit. He may also be a distant cousin although, admittedly, my roots are distinctly and fiercely southern Italian. Auroras, a four-person start-up established in 2014, provides environmental monitoring systems to agriculture, among other industries, and is headquartered in […]

I recently had the pleasure of virtually meeting the founder of Indoor Organic Gardens of Poughkeepsie, Brud Hodgkins. First, who doesn’t love his name? It’s phonetically pronounced like brother (versus brooder). Brud is no fly-by- night operator either, as he’s logged a respected 40-year career in the financial services industry and has been enticed into […]