Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app that helps people learn how to have a positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to Ward Hendon, and our topic today is building a community of climate entrepreneurs right here in New Mexico where we both live.

Ward is an investor, a teacher, and an entrepreneur. His career has included a legal practice, starting and exiting a legal tech company, teaching MBA, legal, and incarcerated individuals, and impact investing. He is currently a general partner in

Dangerous Ventures, a VC firm that backs

companies building a more sustainable and resilient future. Ward, welcome to the show. Hey, Paul. It's great to

be here. Thanks for having me.

You've done quite a few things that I'm excited about. I just had a conversation with an awesome New Mexico entrepreneur who is doing a recruitment firm, helping people coming out of prison find job. Like, we got some awesome stuff going on in New Mexico. But today, we're gonna specifically talking about the climate ecosystem that's growing here. Before we do that, Ward, what would somebody wanna know about you and your career trajectory that you're bringing to the climate conversation that wasn't in that little 3 sentence intro that I just read?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that offer. You know, I haven't I haven't followed a traditional career path. And as I as I look back and I think as one look back, one looks back on his or her career, it's kind of fun to try to make sense of it. And I think I'm still I'm still trying to make sense of my of my career. But one thing I'll say that I'm most proud of is just the diversity of experiences I've had, which has given me, you know, a real diversity of viewpoint, and I think it helps me make better decisions. And it's just led to a fun life.

It wasn't sort of meant to be that way when I started out, but as I look back, I just I can't believe I've been able to live in these amazing cities and and work with such a diversity of people. You mentioned, you know, my prison work, my work teaching in MBA schools, living in in some pretty amazing places. So I just I look back on that very proudly. And not that I would recommend it to everybody because it's not the it definitely has its share of stresses and and questions along the way. But I really couldn't be happier being where I am now in New Mexico, doing what I'm doing and trying to build a climate tech ecosystem here.

Well, let's focus in a little more on the climate aspect of your work, Ward. When did you start really saying, oh, I I wanna put some time and concentrated attention into climate and in particular, funding great climate and sustainability focused companies? When when did that become, you know, top of mind for you?

Yeah. I'll answer that in a couple of ways. I think there was a there was a very specific point in time where I made the career decision to move into climate, and that was a couple years ago. But and and starting my firm, Dangerous Ventures, with my partners, Mike Lynn and Gabby Derbyshire. But it's it's so I think it's a lot longer story. And, again, the benefit of hindsight really helps piece it together. But I was raised in the Great Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina, And I always loved backpacking and and drinking out of streams and just taking in the beauty of of those mountains. And so I've always had a soft spot for preserving wild spaces, being in wild spaces, engaging, you know, with nature.