As a child, Jose LaSalle dreamed of becoming an inventor. When his family hit hard financial times and lost access to gas, his entrepreneurial spirit found its mission: advancing “ecologically harmonious” energy while supporting a just energy transition.
LaSalle went on to study electrical engineering and materials science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His lived experiences and familial history continued to shape both his worldview and the work he hoped to do: coming from an Afro-Indigenous family, some of his relatives with ancestors who were enslaved maintain farms to this day—a trajectory that he says showed him how “regenerative agriculture can seed economic development.”
