Issaquah-based rock-clearing startup TerraClear is welcoming a new CEO as co-founder Brent Frei steps down.
Farmers Business Network executive Devin Lammers has taken over as TerraClear's CEO, the company announced Wednesday. Frei, who also co-founded Smartsheet, will remain board chair at the startup.
Lammers spent seven years at the California-based agtech company Farmers Business Network before joining TerraClear. His roles there included chief revenue officer, chief operating officer and interim CEO. Before that, he spent three years at EY-Parthenon as a principal, according to his LinkedIn page.
Trevor Thompson, TerraClear's former president, left the startup in June, according to his LinkedIn page. He now works at the artificial intelligence data company Scale AI.
Frei said that in interviewing for Thompson's replacement, he came across Lammers and realized he was the right person to take the reins at TerraClear.
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TerraClear said in a release Lammers is from a farming and ranching family in South Dakota. He and Frei both went to Dartmouth College, though they didn't attend at the same time.
"I look forward to working with the team to engage farmers, grow recurring revenue, and explore strategic partnerships," Lammers said in a release.
TerraClear, founded in 2017, makes a rock-picking robot and cage that attaches to farm equipment like tractors. It also offers a rock-picking service where a TerraClear contractor removes the rocks during a window that works for the farmer, and it offers a rock-mapping service that shows farmers where the rocks are in their fields, allowing them to more efficiently remove them.
The startup raised a $15 million round in April, adding to a $25 million round in 2021. At the time of the April raise, the company had about 40 employees, including about 30 in the Seattle area, and TerraClear was looking to grow its sales and partnerships after working out mechanical challenges. The company has made sales in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Canada.
Frei co-founded Bellevue-based Smartsheet, a work software company, in 2005. After stepping away from Smartsheet, he spent time working on the farm where he grew up in Grangeville, Idaho. While at home, he and his then-81-year-old father were digging up rocks out of the ground. Frei saw how automated other farming tasks were and knew he was onto something.
"It has been a 5,000-year-old problem that has never been solved," Frei said in April. "I told myself, 'Why would you start another company? That's a giant pain in the ass. Don't do that.' But I just couldn't stop thinking about it."
Frei said TerraClear is still relatively small so "it's all hands on deck on whatever matters," and he's "not going to stop working at TerraClear."
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