About Us

James Gaspard is the CEO of Biochar Now LLC. His career in start-ups, mid-size and Fortune 1000 companies gives him a unique perspective on all aspects of a company’s life-cycle from birth, through growth and harvest. He graduated from the University of Texas with a JD/MBA with honors. His career has been highlighted to date by his ability to close larger dollar volumes of transactions in several diverse industries.

Mr. Hackney has led organizations in biotechnology and investment sectors serving as CEO, President and Director for BRT Laboratories, Inc. & Baltimore Rh Typing Laboratory, Managing Member, Hackney & Company LLC, Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager for U.S. Trust, Partner and Portfolio Manager for Alex Brown and Sons, and Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager for JP Morgan. In addition, he has served board, trustee and membership roles in organizations including: Mayor of Baltimore’s Task Force on Solar Power,The Howard County Equal Business Opportunity Commission, The Maryland Institute of College Art, The Glenelg Country School, The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Foundation of Maryland, The College Savings Plans of Maryland, The Maryland Venture Capital Trust, Gamma Boule, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, The Baltimore Guardsmen, and The National Association of Corporate Directors.

In addition, Mr. Hicks serves as a Trustee of the Clayton State University Foundation and as Chair of the Clayton State College of Arts & Sciences Advisory Board. Prior to founding his firm, Mr. Hicks taught at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University and worked with USAID’s Farmer to Farmer program to provide technical assistance to farmers and agricultural institutions in developing countries.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Florida State University, Mr. Johnson furthered his studies with classes on weather computer analysis at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Certified as both a consulting and broadcast meteorologist, Mr. Johnson provides research and analysis for parties in weather related law cases and provided forecasting services for agriculture, utilities, shipping and pilots. He has authored peer reviewed theses and papers, numerous articles for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and countless peer reviewed forensic meteorological reports and analyses of site-specific of severe weather conditions. He is a sought-after speaker on topics regarding severe weather preparedness.

Additionally, Mr. Miller used the expertise he developed during over two decades marketing and selling information technology products and services to help raise funds for two Tampa Bay Area charities, Back To Work and Miracles’ Network.

He also received an MS in Parks and Recreation from Slippery Rock University and a BA in Journalism from Georgia State University.

Following a successful career in journalism, Dr. Buchanan joined the faculty of Clarion University’s Department of Library Science (now the Department of Information and Library Science) in 1993. Dr. Buchanan was active in the library profession at local, state, national and international levels frequently serving on panels visiting other library schools on behalf the American Library Association’s Committee on Accreditation and as a featured speaker at annual meetings of the national library associations of Taiwan and Malta.

During his tenure at Clarion University, Dr. Buchanan taught an array of courses ranging from children’s literature to bibliography of the sciences. He regularly published book reviews and peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He was active in university governance and APSCUF (the faculty’s collective bargaining organization), serving on Faculty Senate and university-wide committees for tenure and promotion. In 2020, he was designated “professor emeritus” by the university president in recognition of his outstanding service.

A co-founder of Crop Convergence, Dr. Armstrong’s passion is to link science and business to support customers with the right decision tools for enterprise needs. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work globally with several large food and agriculture companies, improving marketable yield, agronomics, and sustainability of many major row, fruit, and vegetable crops. In addition to her role at Crop Convergence, Dr. Armstrong is an instructor for UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy and a consultant with AbacusBio.

A co-founder of Crop Convergence, Dr. Hu focuses on the data-driven decision support system design and supply chain management areas. Dr. Hu is a faculty at Iowa State University, where her research has focused on operations research and data analytics with applications in bioinformatics, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy systems, and sustainable supply chain design. Dr. Hu’s research has been supported by NSF, USDA, DOE, and DOD with over $11M in funding. She received the Mid-Career Research Award and has been recognized as a Plant Sciences Institute Scholar Fellow at Iowa State University. She has published over 90 journal articles and over 45 conference proceedings.

A co-founder of Crop Convergence, Dr. Wang’s goal is to make a positive impact to humanity by providing effective and implementable solutions to the most important problems in agriculture. His data analytics tools have been shown at characterizing genotype by environment interactions, predicting crop growth, and prescribing optimal management practices when integrated with domain knowledge in plant biology and physiology. Dr. Wang is also a professor at Iowa State University where he has received $40M+ research funding, published dozens of new algorithms for crop growth analysis and plant breeding, and won the Syngenta crop challenge, which was about using agriculture data to inform seed breeding research and development.

Ms. Gonzalez served as founding President of the Hispanic Bar Association for the 2nd Judicial Circuit and is a member of the Florida Supreme Court’s Justice Teaching Project, and the Administrative Law, and Labor Law Sections of the Florida Bar.

Ms. Gonzalez has an extensive legislative background having worked on federal legislative issues for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund in Washington D.C., the Florida Association of Counties, and AFSCME Florida. Her state legislative background includes serving as Legislative Director for the Florida Association of Counties, lobbyist for the Florida Association for Women Lawyers, and attorney for the Florida House of Representatives Majority and Democratic office, as well as a consultant to the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators.

Her work as the Executive Director for the Florida Battered Women’s Clemency Project earned her special recognition from the Florida Association for Women Lawyers, and she received the “Most Inspiring Speaker” Award from the Florida State College of Law in recognition for her 10-year contribution to the Annual Summer Law Program for Undergraduate Students.

Mr. Johnson founded Computers 4 Students, a charity that provided home computers to students in Northern Virginia. He served as a director of the 2001 Arlington (VA) Bicentennial and the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization.