James Godsil, Co-Founder, Sweet Water Organics

A true entrepreneur is a visionary who can see beyond the conventional wisdom and turn a vision into a reality. Jim Godsil is such a person, a man who has been one of the pioneers in urban agriculture in Milwaukee. He had the vision to see that in a city that was proudly built on beer and heavy, gritty industry, there was also a future for urban agriculture and fish farming, so he helped to found Sweet Water Organics. Utilizing local resources, Sweet Water developed a major vegetable- and fish-farming operation in an abandoned industrial building in Bay View, which is currently producing thousands of perch and tilapia in a controlled and unpolluted ecosystem. The fish farm is just one of the projects of Sweet Water Organics. Its nonprofit Sweet Water Foundation helps to educate the public about the importance of urban agriculture. But most important of all, Godsil has inspired many young environmentally conscious people and showed them that it is possible to turn their vision into a viable business model.