A Dirt Huggers Journey to and From Private Equity

By: Frank Franciosi

In a recent LinkedIn post, Pierce Louis, USCC Board President, announced the reacquisition of Dirt Hugger LLC. Pierce Louis and Tyler Miller, co-founders of Dirt Hugger, have reacquired their company 14 months after selling it to Atlas Organics and Generate Upcycle. This unexpected turn of events comes after a year of learning and growth for the duo, who had the opportunity to observe and gain insights from the larger organization.

Their reacquisition plan had been in the works since June 2023 and came together quickly after Generate Upcycle floated the idea to Pierce and Tyler.  Essentially, Generate Upcycle was consolidating operations, and Pierce and Tyler were the first on the list of potential buyers for Dirt Hugger.

According to Pierce, his and Tyler’s ongoing involvement with Generate Upcycle had been slated for a minimum of four years, with the possibility of extensions. The duo had extensive involvement with leadership at Generate Upcycle and Atlas Organics and had toured over a dozen facilities around the country, learning and assisting with each.

“We are grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from this process and even more excited to be back at the helm,” Pierce says. “For my personal journey, having been an entrepreneur for 13 years, my personality was not a good fit for working for a larger corporation. I like risk & uncertainty, and you don't get as much of that in a larger company environment. “

For this new venture, those risks Louis mentioned seem to be calculated and ambitious. The largest short term (3 month) change will be the development and implementation of dedicated liquid feedstock processing infrastructure. According to Pierce, “we will be able to take up to ten 6,000lb loads of liquid feedstocks a day starting this fall.” In addition to new and larger feedstocks, Louis and Miller are working with their dedicated staff to hand off more of the day-to-day operations and continue the responsibility and profit-sharing practices they adopted while within the Generate brand. Finally, Dirt Hugger is implementing new aeration pads on their existing facility, increasing their annual throughput by 50% through the 2022 Oregon Metro’s Investment and Innovation program's $500,000 grant they received.

As the compost industry sees unprecedented growth and change over the next decade, Louis offers some advice, based on his personal experience, for any entrepreneur who is considering selling their company: “Really take a hard look at yourself and your personal goals. What do you want to do after you sell? Do you want to work for the company you sell to? Are you ready to transition from boss, leader, decision maker to employee or vested employee?”

As a USCC Young Professional entrepreneur turned large scale composter turned USCC board president, I am thrilled to see Pierce taking the reins of his company and jumping back into the business. This small industry is growing and changing. While there is a space for acquisitions and mergers, we are excited to see what these two leaders are planning for their company.