Alan L. Boyce

Bob is a former Intel Automation Design Engineer revolutionizing how semiconductor manufacturing is performed in “lights out” manufacturing.  Bob was also influential in the creation and production of television shows such as BattleBots and RobotWars through his production company, BotBash.  Later, Bob created 4FX Design working with the USFIRST competition to create technology for the largest STEM education robot competitions in the world.  Recently, Bob has been working with the farming community to develop automation.

Harvest CROO Robotics is a highly collaborative enterprise that was founded by strawberry grower, Gary Wishnatzki, and robotic engineer, Robert Pitzer.  It has brought together growers, investors, and suppliers to achieve their initial goal of development of an autonomous robotic strawberry picker.  Nearly $1 billion is spent annually, in the U.S. to harvest strawberries. That is the initial target market. The company is currently completing their Alpha unit. Harvest CROO’s business model is Robotics as a Service (RaaS) and their financial model is founded on saving growers money. Harvest CROO Robotics expects to be a leader in agricultural robotics.

Materra was formed in 2011 by Alan Boyce, Ejnar Knudsen and Brent Grizzle with several key goals for the company. They wanted to identify special situations and mispriced agricultural assets, and acquire and operate land, farming businesses, water rights and leases. They focused on converting farmland to its highest and best use while implementing sustainable farming practices to conserve natural resources. They sought to expand operations through both acquisitions and organic growth with a long-term outlook to build a sizeable and sustainable operating company. The company focuses on assets that yield attractive returns and use debt financing conservatively, and owns real assets that appreciate over time as protection against inflation.