Kelpie Wilson is a writer and a mechanical engineer with a passion for wild nature and renewable energy. Early in her career she worked for several companies that were developing Stirling-cycle heat engines. Throughout the 1990s, she was a forest protection advocate with the Siskiyou Regional Education Project. She then turned to environmental journalism, where she learned about biochar. From 2008 to 2012 she worked for the International Biochar Initiative as a project developer and managed the multi-stakeholder process to create the first set of standards and testing guidelines for biochar. Since 2012, she has worked as an independent consultant on biochar production technologies and biochar markets for biochar companies, NGOs and government agencies. She pioneered development of the Flame Cap Kiln biochar production technology for use by forestry contractors, arborists and farmers, and presents many workshops each year bringing this technology to end users. She is a founding board member of the USBI, and she lives in rural Oregon, where she makes biochar compost and grows a large organic vegetable garden.