Scythe Robotics, the creator of commercial-grade autonomous solutions for the landscaping industry, Boulder, Colorado, added Brian Merkel as its head of manufacturing and Jen Mongeois as its head of talent acquisition. These hirings come as the company scales to meet the demand for its all-electric, fully autonomous commercial mower, ScytheM.52.
“Brian and Jen bring not only a wealth of experience to their roles but also the energy and drive that will help Scythe deliver game-changing autonomous mowing technology to landscape professionals,” says Jack Morrison, Scythe co-founder and CEO. “… They join a team of dedicated and dynamic engineers, field operators, and customer relationship managers that are eager to transform how we care for our green spaces.”
Merkel comes to Scythe from SpaceX Starlink where he scaled production from an empty building to a manufacturing organization of more than 200 production associates, maintenance personnel and supporting staff that produced 5,000 to 10,000 dishes a week in its first year of operation. Merkel also managed test engineering for Crew and Cargo Dragon capsules and served as a lead manufacturing engineer on the Merlin rocket engines and the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles.
“…I’m thrilled to leverage my experience to quickly scale production and help support Scythe’s important mission as we bring resources, sustainability and greater productivity to the green industry,” says Merkel.
Mongeois brings to Scythe more than 20 years of expertise in recruiting for technical and non-technical roles across hardware, software and field operations. Among her prior roles, Mongeois was lead recruiter at Magic Leap, an enterprise AR technology company, where she hired more than 500 employees in a five-year period. Mongeois also previously led talent acquisition and HR for a freight logistics company, where revenue grew eight-fold over two years.
“… I look forward to contributing to the transformation of the landscape industry and aligning it with the interests and aspirations of the next-generation workforce,” says Mongeois.
