American Resources Corporation Brings Dr. Byron Price Aboard in Multi-Faceted Roles
Medgar Evers College professor to help with ecologically conscious infrastructure restructuring efforts in Africa
A self-described scholar-activist, Dr. Byron Price continues to practice what he preaches. The former Dean of the School of Business at Medgar Evers College and the former Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair of Social Justice at Baruch College was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the Land Betterment Corporation as an independent director. In addition, Price was brought on to the team of ReElement Technologies LLC as the head of its Africa Division. Both organizations operate under the umbrella of the American Resources Corporation, an Indiana-based company that is a supplier of raw materials to the rapidly growing global infrastructure marketplace while practicing environmental stewardship by remediating the earth and fixing the negative issues left behind by the legacy industry has left behind.
With his areas of research centering on prison privatization, prisoner reentry, the school-to-prison pipeline, cause-based entrepreneurship and social justice, being brought aboard by American Resources Company was the latest step for Price in balancing the theory of academia and its application to solving real world problems.
“They reached out to me because I was doing a lot of work in Africa around work force development and renewable energy,” Price explained. “I’ve been to around 40 of the 55 African countries and one of the things I continue to see are the energy-related challenges they have. I started to think about ways to get engaged. Also, I was doing a lot of work with prisoner reentry and reading a lot of stuff about green space. I was looking for ways to create workforce development opportunities for ex-offenders and the formerly incarcerated. I started to delve more into that and as I started to read more and more about it, I decided this would be a great space to be in, particularly when it came to our students as well.”
Price will help ReElement evaluate and develop new relationships in Africa, where ReElement believes its patents and technology can be used to produce high-value, purified critical elements and benefit local economies.
Price spent the last six months in South Africa during a sabbatical and has “tremendous” contacts and relationships throughout Africa, according to Mark LaVerghetta, vice president of corporate finance and communication of American Resources.
LaVerghetta told shareholders that Price had “seen firsthand the opportunity that is present to bring high-value technologies to the African continent to produce highly-refined critical minerals for the electrified economy” while also improving the quality of life for the local population.
The concept of using this technology to work in tandem with these African countries versus the old template of colonial exploitation is what encouraged Price to work with American Resources Corporation when they reached out to him.
“One of the things I pitched to them is the fact that a lot of companies, especially those from the Western powers and Chinese, want to extract resources and they want to control everything,” Price explained. “What [American Resources Corporation] is amenable to is that we should build and process on site so you create jobs there. Plus they have technology that meets the tenets of the Paris Accord—what we talk about with in terms of sustainability, where you’re not contributing negative externalities with respect to the technology that you’re bringing in. I don’t want to introduce them to these proposals unless they’re willing to work within the local economy.”
Price is equally enthused about the opportunities he’ll be afforded in working with Land Betterment Corporation (“Land Betterment” or the “Company”), an environmental solutions company fostering positive impact through upcycling former coal mining and industrial sites to create sustainable community development and job creation.
“Royalty Management Corporation is getting ready to merge with an American Resources SPAC—Special Purpose Acquisition Company initiative,” Price said. “They do a lot of stuff around cultivating beehives with Land Betterment to restore land. Novusterra does a lot of stuff related to graphene and energy storage, battery storage and water desalination. Also with graphene, you can strengthen concrete and steel where you don’t have that issue in Miami where the buildings toppled. Nothing can leak through graphene. And that’s why I was really excited about collaborating with them. The Land Betterment Corporation is known for upcycling coal mines and infrastructure. I like that because then we can go in and repurpose a lot of these industries that have been shuttered.”
