Pat has an M.S. in Watershed Hydrology from the University of Arizona and a B.A. in Psychology from Claremont McKenna College and is founder and CEO of Chapul Farms, building and scaling modular insect farms.

With previous positions as a climate modeler, hydrologist, and agronomist for state and federal agencies, Pat’s diverse career path has a singular focus of ensuring food and water availability for future generations.

He founded Chapul Farms (the first edible cricket protein company in the US) in 2012 as a way to create a pull-through demand for the growth of the insect agriculture industry. This path led him to an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, securing an investment from Mark Cuban, and the creation of a brand that reached national distribution as the first of its kind. Chapul Farms’ is guided by the mission of increasing biodiversity within agriculture, leveraging insects as a gateway to beneficial microbial ecosystems that are keystone additions to most terrestrial ecosystems on the planet. The microbes in insect manure are essential to healthy soils, especially when applied to soil with no-till and other regenerative practices.

Chapul Farms’ mission is to develop commercial insect facilities that advance key environmental impact goals toward sustainable (net-zero) and regenerative (net positive) initiatives, including the health of homo sapiens communities. Chapul develops economic incentives for human actions to expedite the development of insect habitats within agri-systems.