About Michael Maffei

Mike Maffei is a self-taught naturalist and inventor with a passion for the environment and the well-being of his fellow man. He lives with the conviction that there are always new ways of looking at old problems. This belief has led him to invent numerous products including an innovative renewable way to naturally promote tree growth and produce clean efficient energy.

Mike’s passion for improving the world is infectious. He is naturally optimistic and has an uncanny way of finding solutions to circumstances others find daunting. People who meet Mike seldom forget him. He is a remarkable visionary and humanitarian.

As a long-time mail carrier in Washington State, Mike had found the experience of icy walkways to be a very personal matter. After a bad fall on the ice, he began to develop a natural product that solved his problem of constantly slipping and falling on icy walkways. The following spring, he noticed that the all-natural anti-slip material he created resulted in phenomenal plant growth wherever it had been applied.

This prompted him to experiment with what he created to verify the veracity of his observations.

In 1996, Mike found by mixing wood ash with other common ingredients on his property he was able to encourage tree growth. He had a few simple rules for his formulation:

  1. The ingredients had to be all natural; and
  2. All the ingredients had to come from the tree itself.

In the fall of 1997, Michael planted 40 Ponderosa Pine trees on the hillside behind his home. Twenty trees were fed with his proprietary mix; a control group of 20 trees did not receive the mix. All 40 trees were then left to grow naturally; being watered exclusively by nature. Within a two year period the fertilized trees flourished, yet all but two of the control group trees had died.

Seeing the success of his hillside trees, Mike also began working with his neighbors trees. These trees were irrigated for 5 minutes every other day and fed Mike's mix once a year. The trees had phenomenal growth of 3 1/2 to 4 feet each year. The trees at planting were 14-18 inches tall. After nine years the trees are now 30-35 feet in height.

From these early experiments, Mike was inspired to develop better ways of producing some of the natural ingredients needed for his formulation. This has included a low-emission furnace, a specialized pellet that can be utilized by power generation facilities and The Renewable Process.

Mike continues to invent and experiment in his Washington State home/lab.