Alicia Marseille with RISN Incubator David McNeil with BlueBridge and Ryan Smith with Recyclops
The RISN Incubator is an innovation and early stage incubator within the Resource Innovation and Solutions Network (RISN) –– a partnership between Arizona State University and the City of Phoenix.
RISN supports new-to-market ventures that focus on improvements in processing or utilization of waste as a raw material for new products or energy. Selected enterprises receive unique access to resources and support from ASU and Phoenix to develop their solutions that contribute to the regional and national development of a vibrant circular economy.
Alicia Marseille is the Director of the RISN Incubator at Arizona State University. She has more than five years of experience in economic development, and previously founded and operated an international small business working with a cooperative group of farmers in Haiti to export/import raw green coffee and distributed to wholesalers across the U.S.
Prior to ASU, Alicia was the director of Arizona Women’s Education and Entrepreneur Center, a new U.S. Small Business Administration’s Women’s Business Center, to build, develop and manage the program. Alicia currently is on the Metro Phoenix Export Alliance Advisory Board and Arizona State University’s Technology and Entrepreneurship Management Advisory Board.
Connect with Alicia on LinkedIn and follow ASU Sustainability Services on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
BlueBridge is the wastewater industry’s only provider of cooperative resource recovery solutions for the management of fats, oils and grease (FOG), which are the number one cause of sewer overflows in the U.S.
BlueBridge is developing and implementing collaborative business models between municipalities, restaurants, and organics recovery companies to reliably collect waste products and turn them into renewable energy, saving money for all parties.
David McNeil is the Founder and CEO of BlueBridge and has more than 25 years’ experience in the water and sewer industry overseeing water quality and other environmental programs .
While working for the City of Tempe, he identified an opportunity to build collaborative partnership structures in the public sector to support sustainability initiatives.
While testing the theory, he discovered how faulty the current FOG (fats, oils, grease) management system was, which led him to create the nation’s first compliance and resource recovery cooperative in which municipal utilities partnered with restaurants to establish a purchasing cooperative and repurpose the FOG as a feedstock for the city’s future renewable energy.
Connect with David on LinkedIn.
Recyclops is a Utah-based startup that brings recycling to areas in the U.S. where it has been reduced or isn’t traditionally available, like rural communities or apartment complexes. Currently, Recyclops serves 3,500 U.S. homes and plans to add 4,000 customers across 40 cities in 2019.
Ryan Smith is the Founder and CEO of Recyclops, which he launched in 2013 after uncovering the severe lack of recycling solutions available to residents of multi-family housing and rural communities.
Recognizing the demand for recycling and the challenges property managers and municipalities faced in implementing recycling programs, he set out to develop a solution, which he did while a student at Brigham Young University.