"[Brent Frei '88 Th'89] was a successful businessman who knew a lot about software, robotics and artificial intelligence, but he was still picking rock by hand all day in the hot sun. And he couldn’t understand why technology hadn’t been applied to the worst, most boring job on the farm," reports The Bulletin.

'"Why has this not been solved?' he said.

"He realized all the pieces for a solution existed. Someone just needed to put them together.

"'When I see something, a problem that has never been solved, it motivates me to solve it,' he said.

"That led to collaboration and discussions with former partners, colleagues and acquaintances.

"The result was Frei’s fourth company, TerraClear, which is focused on designing a fully automated rock picker. The company officially launched in December 2017."