SAN DIEGO—ProGreenUS Inc., an American company engaged primarily with investments in agricultural and real estate projects in Baja California, Mexico, has moved its headquarters from Bloomfield, MI, to San Diego. Concurrent with this move, the company has opened an office for its subsidiary operations in Ensenada, BC, Mexico. This completes a major transformation of the company's business.

Eighteen months ago, the firm signed of a strategic joint venture agreement with Inmobiliaria Contel S.R.L.C.V., giving the JV access to very large tracts of land for agricultural use in Baja. ProGreen's agricultural business investment, headed by Contel, launched its farming operations in January of this year, with the signing of a $1-million-plus sales agreement for chili peppers with a major produce importer/exporter to the US market; 1.9 million pepper plants have been planted on the first ProGreen Farms farm, with the impending harvest expected to yield millions of pounds of chili peppers through November.

“The establishment of the West Coast offices represents the sea change that ProGreen has undergone over the past 6 months,” says Jan Telander, president and CEO of ProGreen. “We are now in a totally different position, with enormous opportunities for not only the short term, but also for the intermediate as well as the long term.” The excellent results, expected already from this first year of production, has set the base for very aggressive expansion plans, going forward, according to the company.

But that's not where the story ends. Also in January, ProGreen, through its majority-owned subsidiary Procon Baja JV, acquired a 5,000-acre tract of oceanfront land, for which a master plan is currently being created, for the development of a very large, totally green, resort-style international vacation and retirement community called “Cielo Mar.” Very early public interest in this project led launching a pre-sales offer for lot reservations in April, which was closed after the firm received 25 reservations within a few weeks. A second offer of 50 additional lots is expected to be launched shortly.

“We now see a clear way toward a strong consolidation of the company on the financial front, and the close proximity of the two offices will enable ProGreen to manage the rapidly expanding business activities efficiently in Baja,” says Telander.

We spoke with Telander about the move to San Diego and what it takes to work on successful projects in Baja and Mexico in general.

GlobeSt.com: What sparked the move of your headquarters from the Midwest to San Diego? Why wasn't it based on San Diego originally?

Telander: We used to do business up in Michigan; I was rehabbing homes, rebuilding and looking at opportunities. I and never got into the real estate market that much. But when the opportunity came two years ago to do something in Baja, I was very interested. I'm Swedish, but I lived in Spain, and I understand the culture and the ways of Mexico since the Mexican laws are based on Spanish laws. It was like coming home again. That's why the move to San Diego made sense.

GlobeSt.com: How would you characterize working on projects in Baja California and in Mexico in general?

Telander: It's a little bit unusual. The reason this came about was, having a small company that is publicly listed, with a number of shareholders, one shareholder introduced me to a family of landowners in Mexico. This family had no money, no education, nothing—but they did have a lot of land and no way to monetize it. Most of the land never got entitled. We studied how we could do this, and we were able to strike up a partnership using my expertise and maybe some cash. It's turned into a very big business. We're based near El Rosario, about a 4.5-hour drive from the border, and there has been a lot of interest in the business from the public for ecotourism. We had to do this with our partners since as a non-Mexican, I can't own the land to do farming in Mexico—it's against the law in Mexico. So, we fund the operation and share the profits.

Now, the real estate side I understand more since I was a real estate developer. For Cielo Mar, we have in El Rosario another huge pact of land we bought; it's 5,000 acres with 5.5 miles of oceanside. In another 18 months, this land will be a closed, gated resort community that's purely solar powered. We're planning up to 7,000 single-family lots, 3,000 condos and commercial facilities including a marina. It will be like a self-contained town. We have to provide our own services there since we cannot rely on the little town of El Rosario to provide services for us. It's gated both for exclusivity and security. There will be solar roofs, similar to Tesla technology, where you create your own grid with a backup so that every house is its own power plant—the whole resort becomes a power plant. You can only do it if you do it from the beginning.

We've had great interest from shareholders, so once we break ground, we will be fairly good cash flow from day one on this project. We will do the master plan and put the infrastructure in and invite in other property investors to do the hotel, golf course, resort, etc. This will be a very large, multi-billion-dollar project. In most real estate development deals, you're always restricted in an area to what is around; here, we're not restricted, but we have to provide for everything we do. And it can't be a high-rise; it must be naturalistic.

GlobeSt.com: What advice would you give to other companies seeking to do business in Mexico?

Telander: Make sure somebody in your organization has extensive knowledge of the Spanish-mentality marketplace. Mexico today is at the same place where Spain was when I got to it 45 years ago. It's a complicated place, and nothing is straightforward. It doesn't shock me because I know how to navigate in that environment. You have to be very careful, but if you know what you're doing, it's not that hard. You have to know exactly how to do it and what to do. Working with someone who has contacts, local know-how of the political and economic systems is necessary to do this otherwise you will shoot yourself in the foot. We are working with someone who was born in the village of El Rosario, who can be part of redeveloping that town he was born in, to create a scene for the local people and wants to make it great. He liked what we were doing. We've done developments in Spain, and this will be similar. It will be a retirement place for people in North America and Europe.

We spoke with Telander about the move to San Diego and what it takes to work on successful projects in Baja and Mexico in general.

GlobeSt.com: What sparked the move of your headquarters from the Midwest to San Diego? Why wasn't it based on San Diego originally?

GlobeSt.com: How would you characterize working on projects in Baja California and in Mexico in general?

GlobeSt.com: What advice would you give to other companies seeking to do business in Mexico?

Instant Insights /

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