AgCEL Team Expertise
Drue Brown is the owner of the Company. He is a former state-appointed Agricultural Commissioner who is an accomplished agricultural economist with 30 years of public and private sector experience. Before forming the firm, Drue Brown was appointed by Mr. Willie L. Brown, Jr., former Speaker of the California Assembly, to serve in the Assembly’s Office of Research as a Principal Consultant on policy areas of agriculture, environment, economic development, and international trade. In this position, he consulted state, national, and world heads of states representing the Americas, Africa, China, the Caribbean, and the New Soviet Republics. Furthermore, Mr. Drue Brown served as the Chair of Speaker Brown’s Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Blacks in Agriculture. He holds the distinction of twice being a Governor-appointed member to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture and was selected to sit in the environmental seat of the Board.
As a founding member of the California Capital Financial Development Corporation, he served as Chair of the Board of Directors until November 2019. Mr. Brown holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics; a Master of Science Degree in International Agricultural Development, with emphasis on agricultural economics, from the University of California at Davis; He is a former Fellow of the prestigious California Agriculture Leadership Program, Class XXIII, and served as a member of the Kellogg Foundation’s National Steering Committee on Food, Fibers, and the Future.
Samantha K. Henderson earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics from UC Davis and an MBA from San Francisco State University with a concentration in finance. She has nearly 20 years of experience in commercial lending and portfolio management encompassing commercial real estate, commercial & industrial loans, agribusiness, and AG real estate transactions. Samantha has strong skillsets in financial modeling and financial analysis, developing and maintaining budgets, report writing, understanding and keeping up to date with the law and regulatory guidance as well as developing good working relationships with colleagues, partners, and clients. Samantha enjoys being involved in creative projects like producing independent films and other multimedia work.
Dr. Allen Roberts, a faculty member at Kennesaw State University is the Program Director for the Bachelor of Science Degree in Geospatial Sciences and Associate Professor of Geospatial Sciences and Geography. He has over 20 years of research and applied experience within the engineering; hydrological; geospatial; and environmental fields that span the academic, non-profit, federal government, and private sectors. Dr. Roberts was awarded his Ph.D. in Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland his M.S. in Geography (Hydro climate Focus) from the University of Delaware in 2000 and his B.S. in Earth and Environmental Sciences from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1997.
In October 2018, Dr. Roberts was chosen as an NSF Workshop Fellow for the 1st National Community Geography Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia in January 2019. The workshop focused on bringing together academic researchers and community leaders interested in using geographic/GIS research for community development, social justice, and environmental sustainability within an engineered world.
Felisha Walls, a Ph.D. candidate, is a stream ecologist who works with project teams, which promote the understanding of stream ecosystems, Her core skills include practical modeling applications of water quality, the development of water plans and policies, database management, and research report writing. Ms. Walls’s solid high-level conceptual analytical and research investigation skills offer the team development, management, and evaluation to project plans that are linked to natural resource strategy management, performance objectives, and standards.
Felisha’s Ph.D. candidacy study is on the Integrative Life Sciences at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia to be completed in the Spring of the year 2022. Felisha received a Master’s in Science degree in Ecology and Sustainability from California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, California in 2014 and received her Bachelor in Science, from San Jose State University, San Jose, California, May 2010with a major in Environmental Studies; and minor in Biological Sciences.
James Perkins, Ph.D., for over 30 years, has dedicated his career, to academia and the private sector, building infrastructure to support research and academic programs. After completion of his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, he has led basic research projects in understanding molecular structure with support from NSF, NASA, and NIH.
Subsequently, Dr. Perkins accepted an administrative post serving as the Head and Professor of the Jackson State University (JSU) Chemistry Department; Chairman of the JSU Division of Natural Sciences; Founding Dean of the School of Science and Technology (SST); Associate Dean of Research for the Jackson State University College of Science, Engineering & Technology (CSET); and Director of the RCMI Translational Research Network (RTRN) Data and Coordinating Center (DCC).
Further, served as a member of the RTRN senior management team, which consisted of 18 research institutions across the nation. His private sector experiences include serving as Senior Vice President of Research for The Institute for Technology Development (ITD), a Multi-Institutional Technology Development and Transfer Corporation. While there he led the establishment of several major scientific and technology research centers.
As President and founder of CSY, Inc., a multimedia technology development corporation, he developed a proprietary product and scaled sales nationally and internationally, and served, as a consultant, for a private US-based NGO to procure funding to improve technological infrastructures and human capital capacities at the university, in several sub-Saharan African countries. Throughout his career, he has raised greater than $150 Million in funding to support various programs and projects.
Dr. Solomon T. Garner, Jr’s academic and scholarly combined training and passions were focused on the pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, which led him toward cultivating, serving, and championing efforts that connect aspiring minority high school graduates, attending historically black institutions, to biomedical research.
He frequently leads activities supporting collaboration and sponsorship activities in a wide range of business planning, evaluation consulting; grant development; creating whitepaper frameworks addressing academic institution’s research, and development (R&D) ecosystems. Also, Dr. Garner, enjoys the intimate processes that drive relationship-building, product creation, and marketing from idea to product that supports fundraising and revenue generation projects as one, for example, captured a $32 million commitment.
Dr. Garner received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Jackson State University, a Masters in Science Medicinal Chemistry, and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from The University of Georgia. Raised in the Midwest and deep-South, He a family orientated individual, lives in Jackson, Mississippi. Married to Alicia Gardner, he is the proud father of three girls, and the new birth of boy Maya, Mason, Zyah, and Solomon Gardener III. During his scant free time, he enjoys his budding family and explores varied interests in areas of corporate transactions.