Jim is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Avalon Growth Capital and serves as the Firm’s Chief Financial Officer, is a voting member of the Investment Committee and sits on the Board of Directors.

Jim has worked as a top executive in a diverse range of businesses throughout his career. For over 25 years, he helped build his family’s manufacturing business into a global enterprise, completing his tenure with the company in 2011 as the Executive Vice President responsible for sales and operations of the enterprise. Afterward, he opened his family’s family office, and in 2016, started working on an ag-tech start-up business that he Co-Founded named Tillable based out of Chicago. The company developed a platform to create a marketplace for agricultural land rentals, providing growers expanded access to properties for their operations and allowing landowners to find suitable operators for their properties. The firm now goes by the name of CamoAg and is a leader in agricultural intelligence and operational management solutions primarily focused on real estate and lending.

As an owner of multiple agricultural properties in the Midwest, coupled with his experiences at Tillable, in 2019 he decided to dedicate the rest of his career to building rural financial infrastructure by focusing on mobilizing capital towards opportunities that produce resilient economic and environmental outcomes which ultimately led tohis role at Avalon Growth Capital.

In addition to his role at Avalon Growth Capital, Jim has served on the Board of Directors of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and was an Advisor for the Savanna Institute. He owns three farm properties in the Midwest, which are managed according to conservation principles and regenerative agriculture practices.  Additionally, he is a commercially rated private pilot.

Jim received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin in economics in 1984, and a Master of Accountancy with a minor in finance from the University of South Carolina in1986 and passed the CPA examination in that same year.

Jim is a Registered Representative of BA Securities, LLC and holds FINRA Series 24, 63, 79 and 82 licenses.