Jon is a Partner
Some of his happiest and most memorable moments in business have been partnering with early and mid-stage company founders and management teams by helping to guide them through the unrelenting challenges of balancing rapid growth and positive cash flow, while maintaining a focus on refining a competitive advantage. He has a passion of coaching teams in organizational behavior, strategy, execution and in the importance of creating barriers to entry through the creation of crucial intellectual property.
With over 40 years of experience in development and senior management, he is an expert in precision GPS, GNSS, sensor fusion, and wireless industries. In 1982, he started working as an engineer on the world's first commercial geodetic GPS surveying system, The Macrometer™, with Chuck Counselman and his MIT team. He took his first step into the agricultural market in the mid-90’s when his team at Ashtech Inc. fielded the AgNavigator™, a decimeter precision guidance system for Ag platforms. Over the years, he has played key roles in providing precision guidance, auto-steering hardware, and software technology to international agricultural companies like AGCO, CLAAS, and CNH, as well as to farmers through dealer networks and e-commerce.
He has gained extensive experience in startups and large public organizations, serving as president and CEO of private and public companies in the US and Canada, including NovAtel Inc. (NASDAQ: NGPS). He has also enjoyed a variety of strategic advisory and director positions for US, Canadian, European and Asian technology companies, many of which were acquired at impressive multiples. He graduated with distinction in Surveying Engineering from the University of Maine in 1980, is a member of the Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, and holds three US and international patents.
He is looking forward to teaming up with Tall Grass as an Advisor to identify the early stage “diamonds in the rough” and providing advice to help these young companies become high value organizations, notable in their respective markets. At this moment in time, there is no more important work globally than creating and deploying the optimum technological systems and solutions into agriculture.