Thought Leadership & Industry Engagement
Amelia Baxter, CEO & Co-Founder
Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.
Media
Speaking Engagements/Honors:
- Co-authored "The Future of Structural Round Timber: The Original Mass Timber" in Structure Magazine, June 2020.
- Structural Round Timber Advisory Committee to Original Mass Timber Maine - Founding Member 2020
- Panelist, Impact Finance Center's Sustainable Forestry: Mass Timber and CLT Investor Club - September, 2020.
- University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Architecture; ARCH 602 - Integrative Design - Spring 2019: Guest Presenter for semester-long study of structural trees in the built environment.
- King County, Washington; Seattle Seminar - Summer 2018: Presenter for Opportunities in Biophilic Design.
- International Living Futures Institute; Unconference 2018: Speaker on panel entitled Restoring our nation's forests and range lands through construction.
- National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED); Pacific Northwest Reservation Economic Summit - Autumn, 2017: Speaker on panel entitled Regenerative Construction Case Studies.
- Architect Magazine; 2017 R&D Awards - Summer, 2017: Principal Investigator for 11th Annual R&D Awards, Round Timber Trusses
- U.S. Department of Agriculture Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grant program; Phase I & II award - Autumn, 2016- Summer 2019: Principal Investigator: Optimized Grading Systems for Round Timber.
- Madison Magazine; The M List - Autumn, 2015: Awarded a position on the M List for Turning Forest Waste into Building Materials.
- Near Future Summit 2019: WholeTrees led an Autodesk-sponsored "Experience": Biophilia on the Lawn. La Jolla, CA May 2019
- AERIAL FUTURES: Newburgh Enclosures "Productive Landscape" Panelist May, 2019 Newburgh, New York
- Badger Startup Summit: Disruptive (r)EVolution Showcase Madison, WI August 2019
- Trek - Innovation Summit, September 2019: Applying Tech to Trees for Better Forestry and Architecture
- Sustainable Forestry: Mass Timber and CLT Investor Club, Social Panel, September 2020
- TimberCon Panelist, October 2021
- USGBC-LA Thought Leadership Series: Wonderful & Renewable Wood, February 2022