Our founder Christian Sorflaten grew up in idyllic Fairfield, lowa, playing on urban beaver dams with his brother, Emu. After graduating college with an engineering degree in 2000, he was all set to continue indoctrination and get a job in a city. Fate had other things in mind, as his brother had become catatonic and spoke for the first time in years “Get me out of the psych ward.”

So, Chris asked himself “What is the best possible thing I can do right now?” and replied “No problem.” Emu was brought home and Chris became a full-time care-giver. Naturally, he assembled a team of friends to hangout and make a party out of it, serving organic food and virgin-prairie raised bison. After 17 years, the catatonia ended and it was time for the next project.

So, Chris wrapped up his waste vegi-oil fuel business and ran a sustainable logging and lumber business for ten years, until fate intervened again and he noticed beaver dams in downtown Minneapolis. The question lingered “Why have beaver dams disappeared from Fairfield and what is their purpose?”

In 2018, this was perfect timing because Ben Goldfarb’s book Eager, the Secret Lives of Beavers just came out, and Chris became the lowa rep for the Beaver Corps.

After six years of following the Beaver Corps business model, he became broke and disillusioned with the challenges of beavers in lowa. Intelligencia did not want beavers because they ate trees. Farmers didn’t want them because they planted trees. It took hours, over months, to sell a small beaver job. So, Chris poised the question again, “What is the best possible thing I can do right now?”