Matthew SteckleMatthew Steckle is the founder of North Ridge Greens, a participants in the 2019 RBC EPIC Founders program.

Start-up founder hoping to teach community about agriculture

With a goal of teaching people how to grow their own food and becoming his own entrepreneur, a UWindsor student is participating in the annual RBC EPIC Founders program.

Matthew Steckle is the founder of North Ridge Greens, a vegetable farm and micro greenery that operates in six counties. His business focuses on teaching his community how to grow their own food and preserve world skills.

Steckle had heard about this opportunity through a previous participant, Dane Fader, and decided to expand his business idea with the program.

He hopes the program will help him gain entrepreneurial logic: “I want to learn how to think like a business person, communicate in the business world and how to communicate and persuade people to be part of my business and to work with me.”

After the program is finished, Steckle hopes to see his new business grow within his community and expand their resources.

“I want more partnerships with local restaurants, the largest presence at the farmers market and maybe even in the future have a small community supported agriculture program where we will deliver food boxes to people in the community,” he says.

This is the second in a series of articles introducing this summer’s participants leading up to a showcase of their prototypes in August at the EPICentre. Learn more on the centre’s website.

—Dana Roe