On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Colton Becker - Founder | Optimist | Veteran | Improver

 We talk about the following

 Hunting

 Becoming an U.S. Army Ranger and his Army career

 Meliorem Inc.

 His core values

 Making the world a better place

 Bunker Labs and Veterans in Residence

 Colton’s Bio

 Colton E. Becker was born in Vail, Colorado in October 1991. The youngest of three children, he spent most of his time as a kid playing hockey, hunting, fly-fishing, skiing, camping, golfing, rock-climbing, and enjoying the Colorado outdoors. Colton went to college at Colorado School of Mines, where he studied environmental engineering, joined the Army ROTC program, and played club hockey.

Following his graduation, in December 2014, Colton was commissioned into the active-duty Army Infantry. At the same time, Colton began his entrepreneurial career by forming Global Water Farms, Inc. with his

parents and their mutual business associate. The company’s product was based on Colton’s eighth grade science project, which is a novel and environmentally sustainable approach to water desalination that

Colton and his father invented together. While in the Army, Colton spent his down time seeking investment for GWF in Seattle for over two years, during which time he helped raise $4 million in capital.

After graduation from college, Colton went to the US Army’s Infantry Basic Officer Leadership School at Ft. Benning, GA where he graduated first in his class. After IBOLC, he attended US Army Ranger School, but was ultimately dropped from the course after failing the final phase twice. At this point Colton confronted the same question as countless others, “should I just quit, or should I learn from my past experience and keep on going until I accomplish my goal?” Colton ultimately decided to go back to Ranger School and ended up completing to course after going straight through all phases.

This accomplishment showed him the importance and value of determination, grit, and a no quit mindset when seeking to achieve large goals. When Colton separated from service in May of 2020, he moved down to California with his girlfriend, Jess, and began to work at Global Water Farms, Inc. as a full-time employee. During that time, Colton designed a 1.5 mega watt renewable power generation facility for the company’s demonstration pilot.

While Colton was living his lifelong dream of making his childhood science project reality, he noticed that the working relationship with his parents was becoming increasingly strained, and trending toward intolerable. Let’s just say he thought Ranger School would be the hardest thing he would ever do until he spent a year working with his parents. Ultimately, Colton separated from GWF to pursue his own company and brought forth the lessons he learned from his time working at GWF.

Through that experience, he learned firsthand the importance of having those “hard founder conversations” early or before the company’s formation. This experience solidified in Colton the importance of valuing and supporting your team, cultivating a positive and creative working environment, recognizing team members’ contributions, and holding one another accountable for meeting goals and deadlines. It also affirmed one of Colton’s core values: that candor and purpose are paramount, and you should always give more than you seek to get.

Ultimately, Colton left GWF in hopes of preserving the personal relationship with his family, moved back up to Washington with Jess, and formed Meliorem, Inc. with the goal of creating a company focused on bettering the world by providing climate conscious solutions to humanity’s basic needs of food, water, and energy.

 Colton’s Social Media

Colton’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colton-becker/

Colton’s Email: colton.e.becker@gmail

Colton’s Advice

 Focus on giving more than you get. When I was facing my hard times at Ranger School. That was the one thing that I kept seeing that would actually bear some form of fruit. If you focus your energy and your efforts on the person to your left and your right and you help them out when and where you can, however you can.

Then this weird thing happens where you might be thinking that you are devoting your resources to somebody else. But really, what you're doing is you're creating a positive community. A community that wants to support you, because you're willing to support them. If you focus on that, then, you know, crazy things happen.

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