Joel Bartlett

Joel was born and raised in Colorado, where he spent his youth camping and fishing all around the Rocky Mountains with his family. While attending college for Computer Engineering, Joel began working at SparkFun Electronics in Boulder, CO. In 11 1/2 years, Joel worked his way up at SparkFun from a Production Assembly Technician to Embedded Electronics Engineer while also teaching others the joys of soldering, electronics and programming.

In 2018, Joel moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to work for the immersive art company, Meow Wolf. While there, he brought his years of embedded electronic knowledge to the art world and produced Printed Circuit Boards and vast amounts of electronic infrastructure for interactive art installations.

As a kid, Joel would often say he wanted to be a farmer when he grew up, much to the dismay of his parents. In 2013, Joel was introduced to aquaponics. He felt drawn to soilless gardening from that point on and loved to build DIY systems to grow plants and raise fish. He attended Santa Fe Community College, where he solidified his aquaponic and hydroponic education and received a degree in Controlled Environment Agriculture. Now, as part of the Tortuga team and living back in CO, Joel is looking forward to fulfilling his childhood dream of farming, but with some unexpected robot friends by his side. When he's not tending to his gardens and menagerie of animals, Joel enjoys spending time with his family and doing all the wonderful things that come with living in the Colorado mountains, such as snowboarding and hiking.