"Sacramento Business Journal Honors Women in Business"
September 1998
Pam Marrone was recently (September 1998) honored by the Sacramento Business Journal as one of four business women who started their own companies and continue making big strides.
Pam Marrone has become a leading figure in our region's biotech industry. The successful founder and CEO of an exciting company, she also makes exemplary contributions to her community.
She started AgraQuest in 1996 to develop and market new biopesticides. The company has raised $10 million in private capital, and is on track toward an initial public offering in two years. AgraQuest develops and markets environmentally friendly products for pest control in the world market. Laginex®, for example, is the company's naturally occurring fungus that controls mosquito larvae.
Pam's interest in this area began as a child, blossomed into a Ph.D. in entomology, and took flight when she became head of the biopesticide control unit for Monsanto in 1983. In 1990 she was hired by a Danish company to start a biopesticide subsidiary, Entotech, in Davis, California. She launched AgraQuest when Entotech was sold to Abbott Laboratories.
AgraQuest was chosen the Business of the Year in 1997 by the Davis Chamber of Commerce, in part because of the company's extensive community involvement. Pam is also one of the founders of the Davis Area Technology Association, which seeks to make the community increasingly attractive to technology firms. She traces her success back to her parents' example... and with the insects in their organic garden.
"Sacramento Business Journal Honors Women in Business"
September 1998"
