Meet the 2025 CEAg World Impact Award Finalists
October 30, 2025 
Growing produce under cover—and making a living at it—isn’t for the faint of heart. The headlines focus on which big greenhouse concern is expanding where; what breakthrough technology is attracting investments; which celebrity-backed venture is struggling. It’s an industry that’s just getting warmed up, particularly in North America, but its importance to the future of sustainable agriculture and food security is undeniable.
Behind the headlines, good and bad, are many extraordinary people doing everything they can to push CEA forward. So this year, CEAg World has launched the Impact Awards—a program designed to pull some of these trailblazers into the spotlight for much-deserved recognition.
The awards cover four categories: Visionary Grower, Innovator, Educator/Researcher, and Emerging Leader. Over the summer, CEAg World invited its audience to nominate worthy candidates, scoped out the landscape of behind-the-scenes heroes, and compiled this list of 12 finalists (three per category).
Taken together, the finalists paint an incredible portrait of an industry poised for great things. On Nov. 20, 2025, the winners will be announced live on stage at the CEAg World Conference and Expo.
Editor’s note: The finalists with unlinked articles will be updated once their profiles are live on our website.
Visionary Grower Award
The Visionary Grower Award honors an individual who has made a transformative impact on their own CEA operation, leading to remarkable gains in yield, resource efficiency, and/or profitability. The individual’s contributions to land stewardship, resource conservation, environmental preservation, and/or food security were also considered.
Bill Ferguson, Riley Creek Farms
Over the last two years, Bill Ferguson turned his forced departure from the poultry business into a CEA pathway. When Tyson canceled his poultry contract in 2023, Ferguson began the grueling
work of transforming four empty chicken houses into an 80,000-square-foot indoor farm. Defying those who advised against it, Ferguson learned all about hydroponic production and now Riley Creek Farms serves 6,000 schoolchildren across several Alabama districts with locally grown lettuce. At full capacity, the operation expects to earn $500,000 annually. Ferguson passed away at age 72 just as this issue went to press, but his legacy lives on as Riley Creek Farms makes fresh food more accessible to his community.
Read Ferguson’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/vertical-farming/2025-visionary-grower-finalist-bill-ferguson-riley-creek-farms/
Nona Yehia, Vertical Harvest Farms
Nona Yehia asks the question other growers overlook: What if vertical farms could grow opportunity alongside food? As CEO and co-founder of Vertical Harvest Farms, her distinctive “Grow Well” framework actively recruits workers with disabilities and marginalized populations, addressing regional employment gaps while delivering fresh produce locally. Yehia strategically deploys technology to enhance—not replace—worker capabilities. Her vision bridges food access, economic equity, and workforce inclusion, topics that are rarely connected in agricultural innovation. Through radical transparency and adaptability, she’s building resilient systems that aim to prove that profitability and purpose aren’t mutually exclusive.
Read Yehia’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/vertical-farming/2025-visionary-grower-finalist-nona-yehia/
Renato Zardo, Great Lakes Growers
As director of growing for Great Lakes Growers, Renato Zardo exemplifies visionary leadership by seeing technology’s untapped potential where others see risk. He evaluates innovations through an uncompromising ROI lens, distinguishing genuine breakthroughs from trends. His impact lies in articulating what growers truly need, then pushing suppliers to realize it. Zardo bridges what exists and what’s possible, implementing LED lighting, precision climate control, and data-driven management while maintaining operational pragmatism. His innovation, informed decision-making, and ability to transform feedback into industry-advancing solutions demonstrate true visionary leadership.
Read Zardo’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/greenhouse-produce/2025-visionary-grower-finalist-renato-zardo/
Innovator Award
Corey Ellis, Growcer
As founder of the container farming company Growcer, Corey Ellis measures every advancement by a simple standard: Does it tangibly increase revenue, decrease costs, or reduce risk for growers? His systematic methodology translates lab-stage research into market-ready solutions. Ellis challenges the status quo of the CEA industry by openly publishing his research results, arguing that innovation is worthless if it’s not practical or implemented by growers. Following Growcer’s acquisition of Freight Farms’ assets in July 2025, he’s scaling his business model while advocating for industry-wide collaboration.
Read Ellis’ full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/vertical-farming/2025-innovator-finalist-corey-ellis-growcer/
Moein Moosavi-Nezhad, North Carolina State University
The N.C. State Ph.D. student achieved what many deemed impossible: growing more than 1,200 daughter plants per square meter in an indoor vertical system. Through the systematic study of photoperiod, light quality, and strategic intercanopy lighting, Moosavi-Nezhad addresses field strawberry growers’ critical pain points like low propagation efficiency and disease management. With his breakthrough research, Moosavi-Nezhad bridges scientific rigor with practical application, actively sharing findings through publications, conferences, and grower engagement.
Read Moosavi-Nezhad’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/vertical-farming/2025-innovator-finalist-moein-moosavi-nezhad/
Sam Bertram, OnePointOne
After spending eight years navigating vertical farming’s challenges, Sam Bertram, OnePointOne’s CEO, made a pivotal shift: strategic partnership over reinvention. Rather than developing costly proprietary technology, he reimagined AutoStore’s proven warehouse cube-storage system for CEA, creating Opollo Farm—where robotic shuttles move plant-filled bins to automated workstations. His pragmatic philosophy–“innovate only where you need to”–focuses on improvements delivering 5-10% cost reductions.
Read Bertram’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/vertical-farming/2025-innovator-finalist-sam-bertram-onepointone/
Emerging Leader Award
The Emerging Leader is a rising talent in CEA who demonstrates exceptional promise and leadership with new solutions, strategic thinking, or leadership within their community or industry. This award honors an innovator driving change through the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and ideas that enhance productivity, sustainability, and efficiency, shaping the future of agriculture.
Danielle Rose, Ceragen
Aiming to revolutionize plant health in CEA through microbial innovation, Danielle Rose connects cutting-edge science to practical grower solutions as founder and CEO of Ceragen. By translating complex microbiology into actionable guidance, she helps close the communication gap between scientists and growers. Her business has recently taken on the important challenge of disease testing in addition to its line of microbial products. In a testament to her promise for the industry, last year, Rose raised $2 million to expand Ceragen, including funding from American venture capitalists and backing from the Canadian government.
Read Rose’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/greenhouse-produce/2025-emerging-leader-finalist-danielle-rose/
Gretchen Schimelpfenig, GLASE
Gretchen Schimelpfenig has improved the CEA industry by prioritizing energy efficiency and inclusive leadership. As executive director of Cornell’s GLASE consortium and senior energy engineer at Energy Resource Integration, she accelerates the adoption of advanced lighting and environmental systems while reducing CEA’s energy footprint. Schimelpfenig champions workforce development through her Vivid Canopy initiative as well as CEA Works training and E-GROW youth education programs, forging new career pathways in ag tech. She leads by demonstrating how energy efficiency and a diverse workforce benefit the entire CEA industry, creating a global network of allies.
Read Gretchen Schimelpfenig’s full profile here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/greenhouse-produce/2025-emerging-leader-finalist-gretchen-schimelpfenig/
Trevor Terry, Kentucky Horticulture Council
Trevor Terry has become a significant CEA “connector” as the executive director of the Kentucky Horticulture Council. Throughout his career, he has forged partnerships between Dutch greenhouse innovators and Kentucky producers that catalyzed 832% growth in protected agriculture, positioning Kentucky as the second-largest CEA state in the U.S.. Terry’s leadership transcends traditional advocacy—he facilitates innovation, builds collaborative infrastructure, and connects local growers to global knowledge networks, translating international expertise into actionable opportunities that accelerate Kentucky’s CEA momentum.
The winners of the 2025 CEAg World Impact Awards will be announced at the opening ceremony of the CEAg World Conference and Expo on Nov. 20.