From the 39 North "Neighborhood News" March 2023 newsletter:
Have you met? Steve Meyer, CEO, RNAissance Ag
Describe your journey to the 39 North
A lifelong plant and AgTech enthusiast, I started as a summer intern at Monsanto in 1999. After exploring a career in ethnopharmacology which took me to many exotic locations such as Peru, Panama, and Hawaii, I returned to Monsanto in 2004 which began a 15+ year career. My experiences included multiple roles in Biotechnology and North America Commercial. In 2020, I left my career to become an entrepreneur, co-founding and later selling one of the largest medical cannabis firms in Missouri and helping take a Canadian pharmaceutical company from private to public on the Nasdaq. Recently, I became CEO of STL-grown RNAissance Ag, returning to my roots in AgTech in St. Louis, which has truly become an epicenter of plant science and AgTech.
What are you most excited to be working on right now?
Growing RNAissance Ag into the premier RNAi BioSolutions company that it is soon to become! RNAi has been around for more than a decade and we are certainly not the first company to try to develop highly selective, safe, and sustainable biopesticides with it. That said, I believe RNAissance Ag has the leading technology to unlock the potential of RNAi BioSolutions through our low-cost and highly scalable dsRNA biomanufacturing platform. This coupled with an incredibly talented team and an innovative RNAi discovery pipeline makes RNAissance Ag a company to watch!
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Setting time aside for myself and holding it sacred is one of my core life principles that help me be the best version of myself and avoid burnout. I take time to invest in my health, spend time with those I love, especially my wife and kids, satisfy my quest to constantly learn, travel, and enjoy several hobbies. I like to garden, cook, and am an avid outdoorsman finding myself most at peace in nature.
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