Judges describing their decision-making process for the winner to RJ and his fellow competitors. Kevin Starks, John Azevedo, James Hanson (Deputy Director of MLJT), Mat Galvan, Rose Day (Project Manager at MLJT), Dave Thoeny, Tom Crosby, Mike Jones<\/div>\n
The competition highlighted a growing pipeline of businesses developing creative solutions that address wildfire risk, support forest health, and expand the region\u2019s emerging bioeconomy.<\/p>\n
The winning venture, RJ Skaar of Arnold Green Waste & Forest Products (Calaveras County), was awarded a $2,500 microgrant to support his business. Skaar\u2019s project focuses on converting low-value forest biomass, like slash and green waste, into wood briquettes, creating a marketable fuel product while reducing waste, reducing transportation costs for his business, and supporting local fuels reduction efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis event was about identifying and supporting the entrepreneurs who are building the future of the Central Sierra bioeconomy,\u201d said Sophia Kaufman, Project Coordinator for MLJT and CSEDD who organized the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese entrepreneurs are helping turn biomass into creative, marketable solutions that helps protect our communities. Their ideas and businesses only further the momentum that is building around the bioeconomy in our region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight participants from across the Sierra region and beyond were selected to pitch their business ideas to a panel of industry, workforce, and economic development leaders. Only seven participants made it to the competition to complete their pitch. The competition featured a diverse mix of early-stage concepts and growing businesses, including:
\n\u2022 Greg Stangl, Phoenix Biomass Energy (Calaveras County) \u2014 Expanding biomass energy facilities to include production of biochar-based building materials such as MDF panels and advanced construction products.
\n\u2022 Douglas Ware, Renera, Inc. (Multi-county) \u2014 Developing a salvage lumber warehouse model to reclaim and remanufacture wood waste into materials for local green building markets.
\n\u2022 Kevin Starks (Multi-county) \u2014 Exploring development of a biomass energy facility focused on carbon capture and wildfire risk reduction.
\n\u2022 John Azevedo, Forager Fuels (Multi-county) \u2014 Creating modular, relocatable biomass-to-hydrogen refineries that produce clean fuel and biochar while reducing transportation costs and emissions.
\n\u2022 RJ Skaar, Arnold Green Waste & Forest Products (Calaveras County) \u2014 Producing wood briquettes and mulch products from forest waste to create local circular economy solutions.
\n\u2022 Michael Jones, Jones Land Management (Calaveras & Tuolumne Counties) \u2014 Integrating fuels reduction services with biochar production to improve forest health and carbon sequestration using specialized mobile kilns.
\n\u2022 Corbin Clough<\/p>\n
The judges of the competition include Tom Crosby, President of the Tuolumne County Business Council, Mat Galvan, who owns Sierra Focused Media and Sierra Sourced, but was present on the judges panel as a local Advisor for Valley Sierra Small Business Development Center. The final judge was Dave Thoeny, Executive Director of MLJT and CSEDD.<\/p>\n
The competition is part of a broader regional effort to advance the bioeconomy, which has been identified as a priority sector for the Sierra region under the California Jobs First Economic Blueprint. Through initiatives like this, CSEDD and MLJT are working to support entrepreneurship, strengthen local industries, and attract investment that benefits both the economy and the environment. CSEDD continue their efforts to support entrepreneurs throughout<\/p>\n
the region by publishing a forestry entrepreneurship toolkit in the near future and hosting a youth-entrepreneurship initiative this summer called Sierra Founders Academy.<\/p>\n
Following the competition, participating businesses will continue to be connected with business support services, regional partners, and future funding opportunities as part of ongoing efforts to build a strong bioeconomy ecosystem in the Sierra.<\/p>\n
Funding Acknowledgment
\nThis event is supported through funding provided via the Mariposa County Resource Conservation District from the California Governor\u2019s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) in partnership with California Law Empowering Renewable Energy (CLERE).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sonora, CA…The Central Sierra Economic Development District (CSEDD), in partnership with Mother Lode Job Training (MLJT) as a LEAF (Land, Energy, Agriculture, Forestry) Partnership event, successfully hosted the Central Sierra Biomass Business Competition on Thursday, March 26 from 2:00pm \u2013 5:00pm at Mother Lode Job Training in Sonora, bringing together entrepreneurs and innovators working to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,20,1,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arnold","category-business","category-featured","category-news","category-tuolumne-county","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_8977-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200694,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200690\/revisions\/200694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/200692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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