Gabe Martin’s path has taken him from the farms and shipyards of the Pacific Northwest, through a career in mechanical engineering, robotics, industrial control and automation, to helping farmers across North America. Today, he is growing his career beyond the “bounding box” of traditional engineering roles, and helping farmers remotely monitor and control their irrigation equipment from their phone.

The Lead Hardware Engineer on the team since Spring 2020, Gabe played a central role in the design and development of our early prototype devices that became FarmHQ, including sensors and circuit boards, as well as installation process best practices, procurement, and customer order fulfillment.

A childhood friend of CODA Cofounders David and Connor Wallace, after studying mechanical engineering in college, Gabe worked in a shipyard in Anacortes, WA. He then received his M.S. Degree in Robotics, and worked at a major controls company, where he supported companies like breweries, oil and gas companies, and the largest mozzarella cheese factory in the United States.

When David and Connor asked Gabe for help with hardware design, he leapt at the chance to become an early team member at CODA and help bring FarmHQ to farmers.

For Gabe, a highlight of his work is the opportunity to work directly with customers to simplify their day-to-day work and improve their farm’s operations.

“It’s exciting and rewarding to see how much our product is needed and to help farmers solve problems that they have to grapple with every day.”

Gabe also helped channel our learnings into a new custom-designed FarmHQ device for our customers – all while helping develop global supply chains for hardware to ensure we can continue serving farms across North America.

Gabe has also had the chance to work directly with customers who before using FarmHQ couldn’t irrigate their crop 24 hours a day, seven days a week like they wanted because they were worried about their equipment and crop damage – and wanted to get a good night’s sleep.

With FarmHQ, Gabe says, “Now they can.” 

“It’s cool to provide that to our customers – and it’s rewarding to put something into a customer’s hands and see them go off to the races with it. I get to apply my education, skills, and professional experience to help make an already hard job a little bit easier.”