Jim joins the CSU STRATA team as an experienced startup founder and social entrepreneur with a focus on clean technology. Jim was a prestigious World Economic Forum “Technology Pioneer” and one of Business Week Magazine’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs. In 2011-2012, he served the U.S. State Department as a clean technology lecturer to government, academics, civic leaders and students in Australia and Japan.
Jim graduated from Duke University, where he studied Environmental Science and Policy and Geology. At Duke, he received a Pew Research grant to build a wave-powered energy machine. He received his MBA from Babson College, where he later taught entrepreneurship in the MBA, undergraduate and Executive Education programs.
His invention, the BigBelly solar-powered trash compactor was born in Jim’s basement in 2003, in a perfect battle of polluting, expensive problem meets new technology and resourcefulness͘. Jim’s self-compacting, curbside trash compactor, linked to cloud-based scheduling/routing software, made the collection process seven times more efficient. He received dozens of awards, authored four patents, was featured in thousands of media outlets and ultimately eliminated unnecessary travel of the world’s dirtiest and most expensive vehicles – the garbage truck (2.8 mpg, burn over a billion gallons of diesel every year in the U.S.). Well over $200M worth of BigBellies now populate 60 countries. Jim sold the company in 2019 and it continues to grow today.
In 2014, as people bought more and more smartphones, Jim stared down the growing mound of e-waste, wondering if he could recycle/upcycle them. He founded Modifi, turning old smartphones into new software products at low cost and high margin. Today, the Modifi team is helping the American workforce get safely back to their jobs during the Covid-19 crisis. Jim believes that resourcefulness and ingenuity are the pillars of the next Tech Revolution.
