About

Thor Kallestad is a Co-Founder and the CEO of the Myno Carbon Corp. He believes sustainable economic activity is predicated on the equitable distribution of growth, job creation, and investor returns. However, Thor believes the world recently moved through an inflection point. Historically, those three items – growth, jobs, and returns – were delivered by spewing GHG emissions into the atmosphere without cost. That must change. Going forward, society’s most profitable economic activities will be those that deliver these three items while removing carbon. The value of businesses over the rest of this century will be heavily tied to the productivity with which they remove carbon. Myno was founded to deliver transformational growth that delivers the good jobs of the future and excess investor returns, all while pulling forward the point at which drawdown begins.

Tom Casten is a Co-Founder and Chairs the Myno Carbon Corp Board. He is one of the true pioneers and innovators of the cogeneration and decentralized power production industries. Over the course of his distinguished career, he has proved the essential value proposition that business and government must embrace to mitigate climate change; that it is profitable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while supporting economic growth. Mr. Casten is the Director of Economic Studies for the International Biochar Initiative. He provides Myno expert advice on all technical and business development aspects of the rapidly growing biochar industry.

Read Tom’s detailed biography here >

Mike Miller has been involved in the global energy business most of his life. He led businesses drilling for energy with a focus on safety and the environment. Most of this work involved the extraction of hydrocarbon resources from the earth. Mr. Miller’s focus is now on renewable energy, specifically, the reuse of waste in a way that captures carbon and keeps it out of the atmosphere. He lives by his values, one of which is helping others. With Myno, Mr. Miller wants to help others use waste productively, grow bigger crops faster, and utilize new technology while also sequestering carbon.

Brian Cooper comes to Myno Carbon with extensive experience as a CFO and strategic business partner covering a wide variety of companies, industries and circumstances. He has built deep expertise in financing, planning, and commercial and economic evaluation. Brian sees profitable biochar-based carbon sequestration as one of the most promising innovations in the urgent battle against global warming, and he is excited to help Myno lead the way.

Andy Mercy is an entrepreneur and investor who uses his experience to bring innovation and inspiration to new markets. Since working with farmers in Senegal, Africa while in college, Andy has had a passion for sustainability and social enterprise. He went on to found AngelPoints in 2000, an enterprise software company that pioneered the corporate social responsibility movement by powering the philanthropy and sustainability programs of the world’s biggest corporations. He later sold AngelPoints to Vista Equity Partners. Today Andy is 100% focused on addressing the challenge of climate change and believes that biochar represents one of the most scalable and effective solutions available. He lives in Mill Valley, CA with his wife, three kids, two dogs, two cats and 40,000 bees, finding inspiration on the trails of Mt. Tamalpais.

Andrea Sanchez-Williams has spent her career diving into the intricacies of business operations in a wide variety of industry sectors, from education and non-profit work to both private and publicly owned for-profit businesses. Spending her career exploring, evaluating, and implementing sustainable business practices, she brings a skill set in accounting, finance, human resources, and business infrastructure planning, with a focus on holistic, forward-looking, transparent, and people-centered business administration. Ms. Sanchez-Williams believes we are only the caretakers of our planet and is committed to protecting and healing our environment for future generations.

Myles Gray is a professional engineer focused on developing and deploying innovative environmental solutions. He has a background in biochar applications, soil science, and stormwater green infrastructure. Mr. Gray led some of the first research on water holding in biochar, then developed biochar-based stormwater treatment media that has been used to remove pollutants from stormwater at dozens of locations along the West Coast of the U.S. With Myno Carbon he is focused on developing value-added biochar products and markets to help solve specific problems while removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Lauren has spent her career dedicated to building the just transition to a climate-resilient future. From the frontlines to the halls of the legislature, Lauren’s focus is building the relationships, strategy, and solutions necessary to build the climate-smart future we need. Throughout her career, Lauren has worn multiple hats – political and advocacy strategist, legislative lobbyist, fundraiser, communicator, and coalition builder. Lauren believes Myno is working to build the green economy at scale to support healthy communities, a resilient environment, and create good jobs in our rural communities. This generation must change the tide and Lauren is determined to ensure Myno is leading the way towards building a clean and prosperous future for generations to come.

Doug Kirkby is a tenacious, technical, problem solver, and a committed team player. Across several industries, and global locations, he has been instrumental in bringing new innovations to market, most notably as an Energy Field Engineer in Arctic Alaska. At times Mr. Kirkby has made non-traditional choices in pursuit of living a well-rounded life which has given him a deep appreciation for the planet and attracted him to Myno’s focus on operations that restore the natural environment. Business as usual is over. New businesses have to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Mr. Kirkby will help make Myno a leader in this field.

Anthony Pennino has worked for energy industry clients in locations such as South America, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Alaska during a 25-year career in environmental consulting. Mr. Pennino utilizes this experience and his industry connections to monetize the carbon Myno avoids, sequesters, and removes from the atmosphere via drawdown. His vast knowledge of the energy, industrial and government sectors of the economy ensures Myno has deep and broad access to the numerous rapidly emerging opportunities to help cities and corporations create value by removing and sequestering carbon.

Matt has spent most of his career commercializing new technologies up and down the energy, materials and waste value chains. Matt has a passion for tackling tough technical challenges in a positive way for both people and planet. In a world that is going to be dominated in coming decades by energy transition and carbon removal, new technology deployments are imperative. Matt has deep-rooted chemical engineering experiences in the development and execution of new process and product launch strategies, from conception and planning and through to deployment – Life Cycle Analyses, intellectual property strategies, program management and operations of large-scale industrial thermochemical conversion facilities. Situated at the nexus of forestry and agriculture, Matt believes Myno is exceptionally well poised to remove massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, expediently.