Joseph J. James is Founder & President of Agri-Tech Producers LLC and its several Operating Affiliate Companies, which are African American-owned small businesses, involved in developing and utilizing innovative and cost-effective technologies. In October 2018, Mr. James received a patent for his Combined Remediation Biomass and Bio-Product Production (CRBBP) Process, by which one plants and then multi-tasks certain fast and large-growing Bio-Crops to provide a variety of environmental services, including cost-effectively ($35/Ton) capturing CO 2, remediating air, soils and waters, and then making cost-advantaged, Climate-Smart Bio-Products, in which the captured Carbon is sequestered. He has additional CRBBP Process-related patent applications pending. An ongoing application of his CRBBP Process involves Demo Projects, with utilities, helping them put underutilized lands to work to reduce their carbon footprint, by planting Biomass Sorghum on their sites, to capture large amounts of CO 2, then harvesting the crops and converting the resulting Biomass into Climate-Smart Biochar, which is applied back in the soil, to long-term sequester the captured Carbon. As it relates to other Climate-Smart Bio-Products and applications of his CRBBP Process to remediate air soils and waters, he has been involved in several collaborations with universities and other partners. Mr. James has had an impressive, 33-year career as an economic development professional, serving more than 25 of those years in leadership positions for localities and states, where he has been often heavily involved in technology-led development. As a Secretarial appointee, he served 6 years on the federal Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee and is a member of the Clean Energy Business Network. Mr. James received a BS, in science, from Union College, and has studied Law and Business Administration at New York University. He has received several awards, including being named a Purpose Prize winner, in 2008, for his work to uplift poor, rural communities of color in the South, in our nation’s new “Bio-Economy”, and he received a Meta Environmental Justice Award, in 2022.