7| Navy Intelligence & Blackwater Operative / Hyperlocal AgTech Expert Richard Brion

Richard "Red" Brion is essentially an American ronin: a samurai without a master.

Red has spent years in Navy intelligence, serving in Iraq, and years with Blackwater doing some crazy shit in Japan and Afghanistan. He's done quite a bit in Africa as well. And he's recently made the move over the last couple of years, taking his skills and experience from masterless warrior to hyperlocal, urban agriculture.

As founder and CEO of Revolution Agriculture, Red is tackling the Global Food Security Problem through technology-enabled food production and land optimization. They have patented a system that makes it possible to grow virtually any crop, anywhere.

Show Notes

Revolution Agriculture

Follow Red on LinkedIn

Theme music by: Ruel Morales

Audio Transcript

Brian Schoenborn  0:01  

Hello, Hello, everyone. Welcome friends. Our guest today is like an American ronin, which is essentially a samurai without a master. Red here has spent a lot of time in the Navy serving in Iraq over there. He has spent years with Blackwater, doing some crazy shit in Japan and Afghanistan and stuff like that. He’s done quite a bit in Africa as well. And he’s recently made the move, over the last couple of years, he’s made the move from masterless warrior into hyperlocal, urban agriculture. Give it up for my friend, Richard Brian.

Brian Schoenborn  0:52  

My name is Brian Schoenborn. I am an explorer of people, places, and culture. In my travels, spanning over 20 countries across four continents, I’ve had the pleasure of engaging in authentic conversations with amazingly interesting people. These are their stories, on location and unfiltered. Presented by 8B Media, this is Half the City.

Brian Schoenborn  1:21  

This is fucking low-fi bro. It’s just a couple of microphones in a goddamn recording studio, not even a studio. This is a makeshift this is this is a this is a private couch-filled office in a WeWork. There’s nothing more to it. microphones Adobe Audition. I’m not going to tell you any more about that. But that’s pretty much it.

Richard Brion  1:48  

I mean, it could be worse. We could we could be in a coffee shop trying to do this. It does happen. Yeah.

Brian Schoenborn  1:53  

Let me get that a litte closer.

Richard Brion  1:54  

Oh, getting up close and personal, now are we?

Brian Schoenborn  1:57  

Yeah, I mean, you want to keep it about a fist. You know just just like captures, you want to fist it.

Brian Schoenborn  2:04  

I’m greasing the gears right now.

Richard Brion  2:10  

Yeah. 

Brian Schoenborn  2:13  

So Richard, Red. I’m going to call you Red because we know. 

Richard Brion  2:18  

Yeah make sense. 

Brian Schoenborn  2:19  

We know the siutation. 

Richard Brion  2:19  

I’m a ginger bastard anyway.

Brian Schoenborn  2:21  

This guy’s fucking beard matches his grape.

Richard Brion  2:26  

Yeah pretty much there’s, I was watching this thing the other day where…he’s a YouTube star and he was making fun of the fact that he doesn’t tan and he’s like I just go from white to red and he’s like, is tan the color after red because I never seem to get that far. Well, yeah, that’s about the size of it when it comes to my head so

Brian Schoenborn  2:46  

I don’t