OUR MISSION

To provide worm powered regenerative solutions that enable companies and communities to filter water, build soil health, and offset their carbon footprint. In doing so, we cultivate a harmonious relationship between people, planet, and profit.


TEAM

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe

President

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Matias Sjögren-Director of Engineering

Matias Sjögren

CEO

As co-founder and CEO, Matias leads the overall direction of BioFiltro and its local offices, focusing particularly on research and development for each market. Before founding BioFiltro, Matias worked in various companies where he oversaw the business development of the production and sales of beef, fruit, and organic fertilizer. His last position was project manager at a large fruit processor where wastewater was a constant concern. Matias is a Civil Engineer and holds a MBA from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and has won numerous awards in recognition of his leadership skills and innovative thinking.
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Eva Diaz-Controller

Eva Diaz

Controller

Eva joined the work force straight out of high school, starting her career as an entry level receptionist. When the chance to add payroll to her responsibilities came up, Eva took it, and did the same when a bookkeeping position opened. After working for large corporations, Eva sought out an egalitarian work culture that fosters advancement, and joined Interactive Resources as a billings specialist in 2000. A natural problem-solver and numbers wizard, Eva continues to embrace new learning opportunities at BioFiltro, and today manages all accounting functions. She loves spending time with her children and walking with her dogs.
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Cheri Harrington

Cheri Harrington

Chief Business Officer

Cheri leads BioFiltro’s core operations, including financial management, HR, and risk management. 

With 20+ years of leadership experience within both private and public sectors, Cheri has a proven track record of successfully leading teams and growing organizations. 

Before BioFitlro, Cheri served as the Chief Operating Officer at non-profit, where she led the organization in achieving sustainable growth. Cheri also spent almost 10 years at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), where she made recommendations to Congress on ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of federal programs.

Cheri holds a BS from the University of California, Davis, and an MPA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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Francisco del Toro-Worm Wrangler

Francisco del Toro

Worm Wrangler

Francisco joined the BioFiltro team in 2016 after working for 15 years in the area of operations in different companies related to agriculture. He is currently in charge of operations for California’s Central Valley where he ensures that all plants in the southern and central areas of California are running properly and water samples are collected and sent for samples following proper chain of custody procedures.
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Paul Santos

Paul Santos

Vice President of Operations

Paul is an industrial engineer who brings more than 20 years of experience in wastewater treatment, waste management, power generation, thermo drying, and desorption to BioFiltro. Originally from Canada, he is passionate about climate change, regenerative practices, and water.

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kurt wagner worm Head Decomposer

Kurt Wagner

Director of Regeneration

Kurt is a 600 millionth generation decomposer who has been with BioFiltro since his birth. Native to California, he lends his aptitude in eating, burrowing, and regenerating waste into beneficial byproducts. He and his colleagues eat twice their weight daily in our systems, and love hanging out with their microbial friends. His hobbies do not include fishing or birdwatching but he loves to kick back with a fine wine or fruit juice. Kurt has had 460 children this year alone and they all love helping out in the family business! Sometimes he’ll get sassy and tell you to call him by his scientific name, Eisenia fetida, or that not all heroes wear capes!.
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Guillermo Tagle

Vice President of Product

Guillermo has a B.S in Agricultural Engineering and an MBA from the Universidad Catolica de Chile. Having recently completed a Sloan Visiting Fellows program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Guillermo is excited to bring nearly a decade of project management and social impact experience to BioFiltro. When not thinking about worms, Guillermo enjoys spending time with his wife and kids.
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Patrick Beckett

Vice President of Product Development & Quality Assurance

Patrick is an environmental engineer and industrial ecology professional passionate about issues at the nexus of water, agriculture, climate change, and environment. He leads BioFiltro’s environmental biotechnology product development and provides technical and quality assurance support to BioFiltro clients. Patrick holds a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Missouri Southern State University, and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis, where he also earned a graduate certificate in Industrial Ecology.

In previous professional roles Patrick has led quality control efforts for complex battery assemblies, conducted research on advanced lithium-ion battery electrodes, and later managed energy and sustainability projects for large corporate clients in the telecommunications industry. In his academic career, Patrick has worked with Astrobiology and Planetary scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories on research concerning methane cycling on Mars and carbon and nitrogen cycling at submarine hydrothermal vent systems. For his thesis research at UC Davis Patrick conducted experimental studies on the application of iron nanoparticles for chemodenitrification and more recently conducted Life Cycle Assessments for water resource recovery technologies that generate co-products such as non-potable water for irrigation, soil amendments, or alternative forms of protein.

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Sarah Haupt

sales engineer

Before BioFiltro, Sarah started and then lead her own electrical engineering company for 10 years where she specialized in solar and EV charging infrastructure. She lives in Woodland with her husband and son, has two dogs and loves spending her free time in the great outdoors! 

Sarah holds a BS in biological sciences from UC Davis and worked as the dairy herd manager while attending school. 


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Steve Worrell, P.E

Vice President of Engineering

Steve is a registered civil engineer with experience designing and evaluating winery wastewater treatment systems for a wide range of winery production sizes. Before joining BioFiltro, Steve spent seven years working as a civil engineering consultant, specializing in wastewater collection system modeling, water treatment and pumping system design, and onsite wastewater system design, including a number of recycled water reuse projects. Steve is a graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He was drawn to BioFiltro because of the benefits it provides over conventional wastewater treatment and the regenerative power of worms!
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Sina Pram-Business Development Manager

Sina Pram

head of automation

Sina Pram has a B.S. in Chemistry from the California State University, Fresno and a CWEA Lab Analyst I certification. As the Environmental and Operations Manager of BioFiltro, Pram conducts research in the analyzing how factors such as TSS, pH, electrical conductivity, biological loading demands, and hydraulic loading rates impact the vitality of the BIDA® System. He also manages the logistical operations of plant maintenance. Previously, Sina worked as an Environmental Technician for Tomatek processing plant. Sina served as E4 Corporal NCO for the United States Marine Corps where he also served as Class 9 Hazmat NCO in Iraq and Kuwait. Pram is a member of the American Chemical Society.
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Aaron Simonsen

Aaron Simonson

Laboratory & Quality Assurance Specialist

Aaron’s career in the wastewater industry started in 2006 when he joined the San Elijo Joint Powers Authority (North County, San Diego), where he remained for over 16 years, steadily rising through the ranks to the position of Lead Operator and Senior Lab Analyst for their municipal wastewater treatment plant.  He has extensive experience with the State of CA regulatory agencies (SWRCB, ELAP, APCD, etc) and will bring that experience to BioFiltro. Aaron has an industry specific AA from Palomar College in Wastewater Technology, a Grade 3 wastewater operators license from SWRCB, CWEA Lab Analyst certification, and three, membrane operator certifications (UF, MF, & RO) from SWMOA.  Aaron will help build and manage our Davis laboratory for wastewater and vermiproduct analysis, help support R&D activities, and build out our QA capabilities in support of O&M and overall process improvements. He is looking forward to the this new and exciting chapter as BioFiltro continues to grow and innovate.
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Gilbert miito, ph.d.

Engineer Project Manager

Gilbert is a Biological Engineer with a Ph.D. in biological and Agricultural Engineering from Washington State University. His M.Sc. and B.Sc. are both in Agricultural Engineering from Makerere University in Uganda. He possesses over four years of industrial experience in managing wastewater treatment systems and over five years in studying and documenting biological wastewater treatment systems. For his Ph.D. dissertation, he studied biological filters like BioFiltro’s BIDA® System as low-cost and environmentally sustainable technologies for dairy wastewater management. With this background in academic and industrial wastewater treatment situations, Gilbert brings this perspective to the team. Aside from work, Gilbert enjoys sports (Go Cougs !!) and learning about other cultures.

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BOARD MEMBERS

andres-Iacobelli

Andrés Iacobelli

Board Member

Andrés is an Industrial engineer passionate for product and business design. He oversees product innovation and business model design at BioFiltro. He has extensive professional experience in both the private and public sector, both as founder and executive, with focus on infrastructure, urban development, housing policy and logistics. He serves as a board member of various companies focusing on infrastructure and innovation. Andrés has an engineering and master’s degree from Universidad Católica de Chile and a master’s degree from Harvard University.
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Jeff Tweddale

JEFf Tweddale

Board Member

Jeff Tweddale is an advocate and investor in BioFiltro since 2019.  He is also the President and co-founder of BookingCenter, providing hospitality clients and travel destinations with Property Management Systems, Central Reservation Systems, and global distribution opportunities. Prior to founding BookingCenter, Jeff created the The InternetCorps to deliver innovative e-commerce and e-marketing solutions to such market leaders as Sun Microsystems, Visa USA, and LaserLine. In the early days of the Internet, Jeff served as Product Manager for one of the first Internet businesses, America Online’s Global Network Navigator (GNN). While there, he supervised the software development of AOL’s first internet programs (email, chat, publishing, etc) while overseeing the service’s Web community of more than 300,000 users. Jeff also led AOL’s Consulting Services Group, leading the technical research, development, and implementation of a wide variety of new media projects for Fortune 500 clients. 

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Sandro Solari

Sandro Solari

Board Member

Mr. Solari is Chief Executive Officer of Falabella S.A.C.I. The Falabella Group is one of the largest retail companies in Latin America, with operations in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, measured by market capitalization (approximately US$18 billion). The Group operates five business divisions: department stores, home improvement, supermarkets, shopping centers and financial services.

After the merger of Falabella with Sodimac S.A. in 2003, Mr. Solari became Operations Manager of Sodimac Chile before being promoted to General Manager of the home improvement operation in Chile in 2005. In 2006 Mr. Solari was named Chief Executive Officer of Sodimac S.A., position which he held until 2012, when he left to assume his current role.

Mr. Solari earned a degree in Industrial Civil Chemical Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a Master’s in Business Administration from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. 

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ADVISORS

David Warner

David Warner

Advisor

David Warner is the founder and owner of Redhorse Constructors where for the past four decades he has been working on new urban formations around sustainable and resilient infrastructure and construction systems.

He is also the co-founder of Human Needs Project which addresses the lack of basic services common in underserved urban populations.  

With a focus on green building, David has turned Redhorse into one of the nation’s premier custom home builders, receiving a number of awards including Builder of the Year by the NAHB (USA), AIA, projects published in Scientific American and Architectural Digest, including achievement awards from local and industry organizations. 

David received his undergraduate degree from the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley and his teaching credential in Biology from San Francisco State. He is an advisory board member at UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Advisory.

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John de Jonge

John de jonge

advisors

John’s passion for the dairy industry began on a dairy farm in Pitt Meadows, BC, Canada. From an early age, he had hands-on experience with daily management of a 150-cow dairy farm and farming of 500 acres of land. In 1990, he graduated from Olds College in Alberta, Canada with a degree in Agricultural Mechanics, Agricultural Engineering and Business. In 1995, John bought Artex Fabricators based in Langley, BC, Canada, a company that manufactured and distributed manure spreaders, silage equipment, and stabling for dairy barns to customers across North America.

Part of John’s passion is feeding the world and in diversifying away from dairy farming he has recently invested and partnered in the starting of Cubic Farms, a leader in the local chain Ag-tech which crates agricultural technologies to feed a changing world. John was the leading force in the Cubic Farm’s acquisition of Hydrogreen, an on-site automated indoor vertical hydroponic growing system for animal feed. Both companies have grown to become industry leaders in technology and equipment manufacturing.

In 2021 John sold Artex to an investment company and has been focusing on building technological solutions for various industries. John’s passion lies in the creation of technologies that span multiple market sectors to provide unique solutions to the challenges these industries experience.

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Stephen McCord

Stephen Mccord

Investor advocate

Stephen is a Davis-based water expert (and RPCV!) who runs McCord Environmental, a consultancy for municipalities, non-profit organizations, utilities, tribes, corporations and government agencies managing water quality. 

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Fred Turkovich

Fred Turkovich

Investor Advocate

Fred has worked for decades in California-based fruit, nut, and vegetable processing companies, currently executive leadership at: BCFoods .  Fred also works at non-profits and other agricultural producers in the Sacramento Valley area.
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Guillermo Carey

Guillermo Carey

Advisor

Mr. Carey is partner and head of the intellectual property practice at Carey.

His practice specializes in licensing and IP litigation. He is also currently general counsel and on the board of Crystal Lagoons, one of the most acclaimed Chilean start-ups exporting its technology to over 50 countries. This company was valued at US$1.8 billion by the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Carey has had a prominent role in its growth from its creation.

In Mr. Carey’s day to day practice, he interacts with many new ventures and helps Chilean companies license their technology worldwide. 

He has received numerous awards from specialized publications as a leading lawyer in Chile and Latin America. He has also advised the Chilean government on IP & innovation policies. He has held leading positions in many global intellectual property and internet organizations and currently is on the board of the American Chamber of Commerce in Chile (Amcham).

Mr. Carey obtained his law degree from Universidad Católica. 

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