Arcadia Biosciences Promotes Shultz To Chief Technology Officer
Arcadia Biosciences, working in science-based approaches to enhance the quality and nutritional value of crops and food ingredients, has promoted Randy Shultz, Ph.D. to the role of chief technology officer. Shultz joined Arcadia in 2019 as head of research and development and has played a vital role in the development of cutting-edge breeding technologies, deployed in close partnership with the hemp grower community.
In this new, elevated position, he will oversee the execution of Arcadia’s strategic, multi-year plan to become a market leader in high-value hemp innovations, as well as continue to advance next-generation products through the company’s GoodWheat pipeline.
Since launching its hemp operations in February of 2019, Arcadia has been rapid-prototyping novel non-GM hemp varieties that target quality and performance characteristics highly desired by growers to overcome their greatest challenges – working directly with them in field deployment and monitoring to accelerate their speed to success. This new and proprietary discovery process, ArcaTech, combines Arcadia’s modern breeding science and genomics technology with real-time market intelligence from the field.
Elite growers who enroll in the company’s GoodHemp Innovation Partners program – located in six major hubs including Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Southern California, Northern California, the Desert Southwest and the Mountain West – will provide an invaluable feedback loop to guide Arcadia’s development strategies.
Related: GoodHemp Seed Line Receives $3M In Orders
Shultz has 20 years of experience in plant science and agricultural biotechnology. Before joining Arcadia, he served as director of R&D and senior director of R&D strategy at Inari Agriculture. As the global crop lead, Shultz played an instrumental role building and scaling Inari’s R&D platform and developing a foundational intellectual property estate. Previously, Shultz led numerous scientific production teams at Monsanto (now Bayer Crop Science), including their Genome Editing Platform team.
Shultz received his Ph.D. in functional genomics from North Carolina State University and his B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has authored over a dozen patents and publications.
