Graduating from Colorado State University with a degree in Range Ecology, Jon worked for the U.S. Forest Service, the seed production industry and the Kansas Crop Improvement Association. Seeing the need to increase production of organically grown food, Jon helped form the Organic Crop Improvement Association and in 1985 founded East Coast Compost. As East Coast Compost (ECC), Jon provided consulting services to agricultural operations that were moving toward more sustainable farming practices. Providing technical assistance for commercial compost operations, ECC has worked for a diverse set of clients in both the public and private sectors. These groups have included: The US Environmental Protection Agency, The New York State Dept. of Economic Development, The Massachusetts Dept. of Food and Agriculture, The Chesapeake Bay Trust, The North Carolina Dept. of Pollution Prevention, Penn State University, The Cornell Waste Management Institute, Clemson University, The New England Small Farm Institute, The University of Maryland & The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Program.

Throughout his career, Jon has continued to focus on the use of compost to: suppress plant disease, bioremediate disturbances, and increase the biological quality of soils. Jon has been able to obtain 98% control of Damping Off disease (Rhizoctonia solani) in potting soil applications with compost derived from food waste and has helped golf courses and horticultural operations reduce their fertilizer costs (see Recent Projects). In golf ECC has been able to sustain a 33% reduction in fertilizer and fungicide use in the first 3 years and on vineyard applications, a 75% reduction in fungicide applications was obtained. In it’s most recent work ECC has helped developed bioinoculants that work as well as compost, but can be used at much lower rates per acre.  In the first year trials conducted at Virginia Tech, one product was able to increase corn yield by 15% and reduce nitrogen needs by 30 pounds per acre.  Initial information from first year tomato transplant trials with this product showed plants appeared to be maturing as much as 2 weeks earlier which could provide significant savings for commercial growers. As a natural outgrowth of this work, ECC is now working on bio-inoculation of carbon substrates such as those produced from agri-char which is made from a new generation of biomass plants (see The Future of Biological Inoculants).