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Douglas Dietrich and the business of small improvements
At Minerals Technologies, Douglas Dietrich works on a scale most people never see: mineral particles, factory routines and thousands of employee ideas. His route from mechanical engineering to the corner office helps explain why the details keep his attention.
Mark Ranalli
Mark Ranalli is the founder, president and CEO of BioSqueeze Inc., a Butte, Montana company that uses biomineralization - natural soil bacteria that grow limestone - to seal microscopic leaks in oil and gas wells and stop fugitive methane. A serial entrepreneur who previously built and led companies in publishing and telecommunications with workforces topping 700, he holds an electrical engineering and computer science degree from Stanford and an MBA from Dartmouth's Tuck School, and has served as a business-school dean. After scaling consumer-internet ventures, he turned to the unglamorous, high-stakes problem of leaky wellbores, backing a decade of Department of Energy and Montana State University research with a $7.4 million Series A.