Meet Our Team

  • Justin Berg

    PRESIDENT

    Justin Berg is the chief visionary, and builder of connections. 2003 Concordia graduate & Masters in business from NDSU, who has incrementally grown his real estate company since 2007 which now encompasses residential land developments, historic buildings, and infill projects.

  • Sydney Kenny

    SECRETARY & SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTOR

    Sydney is the organizer of our operation. 2017 Concordia Social Work graduate, Sustainability & Circular Economy graduate from Cambridge University in London, Sydney provides insights into how hemp can uplift social, environmental, and economic resilience.

Dakota Hurd Company is a North Dakota company focused on uplifting our regional economy by combining the benefits of industrial hemp with circular economy strategies.

Our goal is to create a vertically integrated system that turns bales into buildings.

Here’s how it works:

  1. We contract with farmers in the Upper Midwest to grow industrial hemp.

  2. The hemp repairs their soil that might be depleted from monocrop farming of corn or soybeans, also sequestering carbon as it grows.

  3. Using conventional equipment, the hemp is harvested, retted, baled, and sent to us at DHC.

  4. DHC processes those bales into a value-added product called hurd.

  5. That hurd is used by local manufacturers to create building materials like hempcrete.

  6. Then DHC’s collaborator, Grassroots Development, builds homes utilizing hempcrete providing access to safer, nontoxic dwellings that continue to sequester carbon throughout their lifecycle.

  7. A few hundred years later, the hempcrete homes biodegrade and return to the soil.

Located in Wahpeton, ND, DHC has a 5,500 sqft. facility featuring equipment from regional suppliers. Our facility has an estimated 2,000 acre capacity to create value-added products for use in our local economy. This first year in operation we are focusing on R&D to ensure that our products are premium quality. Our primary goal is to produce hurd for building materials & animal bedding, while also optimizing production of fiber and micronized hurd for uses like erosion control blankets and bioplastics, respectively.