Wilson de Groot

Background

About Wilson de Groot

I am the son of a dairy-farm owner in central California (De Groot Dairies). I have worked part time/full time on the dairy since I was 13 years old, allowing me a flexible schedule while in school and a full-time schedule for summer and winter breaks. What piqued my interest above all else during my time working was renewable energy and the full circle capabilities of a dairy-farm (specifically how we are not taking advantage of it in such a high potential industry). While there were many projects that I was interested in developing (such as an anaerobic digester), we simply did not have the capital to see those to fruition. However, my brother and I did venture into composting and solar energy! We implemented composting into our operations and it is now its own, very profitable, side business. Also our dairy is now completely run on solar energy. I have done almost everything you can speak of in the business operations (IE: feeding, milking, farming, pushing, accounting, composting, hauling etc.). My interest in renewable and natural cycles led to me taking interest in our dairy farm’s financial management and our efforts in maximizing profitability. All of these cumulative interests (and an interest in computer science) led me to pursue a bachelors in Agri-Business and an associates in Comp-Sci (it would have taken 6 years for me to graduate due to severely impacted classes, I decided to pursue this interest in my own time rather than it being a financial burden). I planned to start my professional career whilst in college, but COVID-19 made margins tight back home and I decided to stay fully online for the rest of my college career in order to ease our mandatory, on-site, employee situation. When I graduated I pursued many different avenues relating to AG Finance and got an internship with Yosemite Farm Credit in Merced, CA. During my time at YFC I learned and excelled in every financial task they threw my way. I have worked on complexes upwards of a half a billion and small individual operations as well. During the stressful times of COVID-19 and My internship I had no idea that a small company by the name of Calgren was making huge developments in my home area. During a year period they had implemented about 20+ anaerobic digesters into local dairies and I decided to pursue a career with them. During my time there I have learned about credit generation, gas production/sales and the intricacy of networks involving developing and maintaining large scale renewable energy systems.