South Carolina Business Review

Vertical farming arrives at SC prison

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We’ve interviewed a few companies over the years in the vertical farming industry, also known as CEA or controlled environment agriculture, which usually involves growing plants (mostly greens) in a controlled indoor environment. We recently learned that our next guest’s company was selected to install a vertical farm at a local prison, the first time this has been done onsite at a correctional institution in the U.S. Mike Switzer interviews Don Taylor, founder and CEO of AmplifiedAG in Charleston, SC.

Mike Switzer

After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.

See stories by Mike Switzer