Empowering Walla Walla’s entrepreneurs

Phil Neumann’s dream of opening a craft malthouse in the center of a grain paradise has been more than a decade in the making. Conceptualized in 2014, the project has been slated for multiple locations over the years but set back by financing challenges. In pursuit of funding and a location, Neumann has succeeded in building a grain-to-glass supply chain that connects the malted grains of area farmers with craft brewers and distillers, all while fueling his vision.

By most accounts, Walla Walla’s gourmet mushroom business is the picture of sustainable growth. Sundown Hazen launched Chesed Farms with founding business partner Johnathan Garrett on a shoestring of $5,000. “We took what we had: a couple thousand bucks and my garage,” Hazen says. With research and YouTube videos, they created a climate-controlled space to grow mushrooms both year-round and vertically for the biggest yields they could get outside the cost of a building — all while still being able to park two vehicles inside the remaining space.

Walla Walla ag software firm Harvust may be known today as a successful human resources management conduit for American farms. In the beginning, though, its co-owners set out with a slightly different mission. “Harvust 1.0 was this recruitment tool,” co-owner Riley Clubb says. “You might think of it like Uber for farm jobs. People looking for jobs would open the app and could look for work on a map. You could see such-and-such a place hiring people Friday to pick apples for $42 a bin.”