Steve Mantle
CEO & Founder of Innov8.ag
Steve is the founder of innov8.ag, a Walla Walla Washington-based agtech startup and Microsoft-partnered company. Prior to embarking on the startup, Steve spent 12 years at Microsoft where he most recently focused on Microsoft’s fastest growing product line, Azure Cloud. His leadership skills contributed to growing Azure from a $100M to a $10B+/year business over 6 years. After his time spent at the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, Steve decided to relocate his family of four to Walla Walla, Washington, in the summer of 2018. He envisions this location as the perfect base for ag startups given the convergence of progressive farmers and three colleges with strengths in agriculture, engineering, science, established ag manufacturers, strong connectivity providers, and a highly collaborative business climate. An Australian by birth, Steve has his MBA from the University of Washington.
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Caleb Pan
Data Scientist
Caleb Pan is a local Spokane resident that has a B.S. and M.S. in Geology and a PhD in Systems Ecology. With experience and skills in machine learning, remote sensing, and geospatial analysis, Caleb's data skills will help innov8.ag provide growers with a timely analysis of our offerings. As other employees like Brent and Kayla conduct ATV Orchard runs we'll be able to relay the data to Caleb for analysis. Caleb gives innov8.ag the resources and skills to help growers better manage their resources in a timely manner.
CLICK the buttons to see some of Caleb's Publications & Research.
Agricultural Economist
Modhurima Amin
Dr. Modhurima Dey Amin specializes in Applied Econometrics, Statistics, and Data Science. Her research program broadly focuses on food and agricultural markets, precision agriculture, energy, and industrial organization. Dr. Amin's current research investigates food safety in retail outlets, and the access to healthful food in the United States, especially for disadvantaged communities, and the market dynamics of specialty crops, primarily exclusive and open apple varieties. Her research in statistics includes detecting structural change points efficiently in high dimensional data. Dr. Amin's teaching areas are Econometrics, Agribusiness Finance, Corporate Finance, and core courses in Economics.
Ioan Lascoe
Marketing Specialist
This is Ioan Lascoe. He was born and raised in Northern California. Ioan will be working closely with our marketing partner Red Canoe Creative. Due to his upbringing within the foothills of California, he thoroughly enjoys the outdoors where he spends a majority of his free time in nature either snowboarding, mountain biking, or fishing. Ioan graduated from Walla Walla University in 2020 with a Bachelors in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing where he had the opportunity to meet Steve Mantle and the other team members of innov8.ag. He's thrilled to have the opportunity to join a team focused on making an impact in the world of agriculture.
Ioan Lascoe
Marketing Specialist
Kayla Peterson
ATV Driver
This is Kayla, a current student in Walla Walla Community College’s Bachelor of Applied Science in Ag Systems program. She also holds an Associates of Arts in Plant and Soil Sciences from WWCC. Kayla is an intern and ATV driver for innov8.ag as she helps run the day to day data collection and assisting our agricultural advisors. When not in the field, she enjoys snowboarding, backpacking, and anything else that keeps her outdoors. Kayla is excited to join Innov8.ag as they bring data to the farmers and advance the world of precision agriculture.
Ania Webb
Data Intern
Ania Webb is a Masters of Science student at the University of Southern California studying Spatial Data Science. She received her B.S. in Environmental Science and Health in Fall of 2021 from the University of Southern California. Before joining the innov8.ag team as a Data Science Intern, Ania held research positions in a quantitative genetics and development laboratory, a marine biodiversity laboratory at the Natural History Museum of LA, and several field work initiatives. Her passion lies with the environment, conservation, and food sustainability. Aside from academics, Ania is an avid skier and loves drawing and photography.
Our Advisory Board
Bob Rupar
Retired VP • Nelson Irrigation
Bob brings to the table expertise in water and irrigation management from his career with one of the world's foremost irrigation manufacturers.
Dave Brown
PhD, Director • Washington State
University AgWeatherNet
Dave is an Associate Professor of Soil Science and director of WSU's AgWeatherNet, a source of data and support tools for Washington State growers and policy-makers.
Douglas Granitz
CEO-Specialized Strategy Solutions LLC
Doug is bringing a global understanding of the downstream cultivation of the data we are providing. He will provide the needs, the regulations, and resources needed to sustain globally.
Todd Tucker
Tuctronics since 2009 • Computer Science • CWU
Todd is a 4th-generation dryland wheat farmer with 17 years of experience in Eastern Washington. His passion includes working with growers and learning valuable techniques, while furthering research. Mission: newest tech to ag market in shortest amount of time.
About Tuctronics:
Tuctronics has been engineering telemetry products for agricultural control and monitoring for over 20 years. Tuctronics’ AgriNET is a cross-platform application that enables growers & stakeholder at over 1,000 farms to access the data created by 1st & 3rd party hardware.
Andrew Nelson
Farmer & Consultant • Nelson Wheat
Andrew has rich expertise in computer science and hands-on, long-term experience farming 9000 acres of dryland wheat.
Erin Anders
PhD • Crop & Soil Science • Ecological Food & Farming Systems • Michigan State • Walla Walla Community College
Erin is lead instructor for the Agricultural Systems Bachelor's program at Walla Walla Community College.
Jeff Tucker
CEO Tuctronics • Computer Science • Electrical Engineering
College of Agriculture WSU
Jeff grew up working on a wheat farms, and even studied at University of Idaho while working on potato tissue culture. He provided the first commercial tissue culture based potato seed in Northern Idaho.
Hermann G Thoennissen
HTG International, LLC Owner
Hermann has 35+ years of experience in various orchard management positions in WA State, 30+ years as the owner of HTG International LLC., 20+ years of experience in using aerial imagery in permanent crop production and also being an active team member of FarmCloud since 2012.
Andrew Sundquist
President • Sundquist Fruit & Cold Storage
Andrew is the President of Sundquist Fruit & Cold Storage, Inc., a multigenerational grower of apples, pears, and cherries in Yakima, WA.