Press Release:
EarthOptics Announces New Board Chair, Colin Steen, Expanding Senior Leadership
Board leadership to propel growth and meet goals of delivering soil health insights to growers in real time
ARLINGTON, Va., September 20, 2022 – EarthOptics, a soil data measurement and mapping company, announced today that the company has appointed Colin Steen, industry leader in agribusiness and venture capital investing, to its board of directors.
This board appointment will support the EarthOptics mission to expand use of the company’s proprietary soil mapping technology for increased agricultural yields and soil carbon measurement for carbon market acceleration. It will also provide valuable leadership to propel the company into the next stage of growth.
Colin Steen is the CEO at Legacy Agripartners based in Minneapolis. He has had a life-long career in agriculture and more than 20 years of experience developing go-to-market strategies and successful venture capital investment endeavors.
Steen brings extensive expertise in identifying and strengthening multi-channel marketing partners and resources for global expansion and developing high performance, agile teams able to deliver on aggressive goals.
“The sensor and machine learning technology from EarthOptics to create accurate data maps and measure soil carbon with precision is the first of its kind,” says Steen. “I look forward to bringing these comprehensive insights to more growers, landowners, suppliers and food companies.”
Steen has vast production agriculture experience in Canada and the U.S. Since joining Legacy Agripartners in 2020, Steen helped the sale of the firm to Tillridge Global Agribusiness Partners and recently acquired the assets of TriCal Superior Forage in July 2022. His previous experience includes being the managing director and head of operations for Syngenta Ventures, managing the Golden Harvest business in the Midwest and running the NK Seeds business for Syngenta.
Steen grew up on a grain and cattle farm in Weldon, Saskatchewan, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Saskatchewan and an MBA from the University of Guelph.
“Colin brings vast knowledge and experience to the table as a senior leader,” says EarthOptics CEO, Lars Dyrud. “He’s been engaged with EarthOptics since our founding in December of 2018. I am excited to build upon our strong relationship and work closely together to make intelligent soil data accessible on a large scale.”
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About EarthOptics
At EarthOptics, we see soil. Differently. GroundTruth Ag, Inc., dba EarthOptics, was founded in 2018 and has offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Arlington and Blacksburg, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Fayetteville, Arkansas. EarthOptics is an agricultural technology company developing next-generation soil-sensing technologies that give growers revolutionary insights into the physical characteristics of their soil. EarthOptics beat out three finalists and more than 100 international agtech startup entries to win the AGCO Innovation Challenge Award during the 2021 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit. We believe that below-ground precision and innovation in the soil space is long overdue. Our ultimate goal is to deliver point-of-care soil health insights – related to physical, chemical, and biological attributes of soil – in real time. To achieve this goal, we’ve assembled a team with diverse backgrounds in engineering, software development, geospatial analytics, data science, machine learning, and logistics and operations. To learn more, visit www.earthoptics.com or connect with us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/earthoptics/.
Media Contact
Erika Poppelreiter
(785) 458-2953
media@earthoptics.com