Dusty McKinnon
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Director, President & CEO
Dusty believes business is about relationships, listening, and honesty.
He specializes in connecting people and ideas through brand development.
Dusty has always had a passion for sustainability, and has dedicated the last seven years of his career to growing environmentally minded companies.
A s partner in Easwara Origins he helped develop and fund novel technologies for the reuse of wastewater in resource extraction industries.
Easwara started in 2012 with under $100,000 and was recently valued in 2016 at $6.1M. Dusty's role as CEO was to leverage venture capital against federal and provincial grants and engage research institutions to develop new technologies. During that time, he also became a resource for government agencies and NGOs in regards to policy development and funding programs.
Easwara focussed on water technologies, but also developed a new technology to turn heavy metals—found in wastewater—into value added construction materials through carbonization. This technology was developed with Dr. Ian Gates, Department Head, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary.
Dusty sits on several committees, participates in roundtable events, and has had a number of speaking engagements. Dusty feels he brings something new to this technical environment - the ability to communicate with all types of people from CEOs to scientists to roughnecks to politicians.
Dusty's background is in brand development, which is essentially the communication of a value proposition. It’s allowed him to help technical people package and present their creations in a way that is understandable to bureaucrats and exciting to investors.