PETRA KNAPP
Raised in Hood River, Oregon, at the confluence of volcanic glacial melt from Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. The Columbia River cuts a gorge through rolling hills of fertile mineral rich soil graced by forests. It’s areas like this where a sense of place is present, the landscapes and water provide abundance for play and deep connection with nature. Growing up in awe of nature, with its seasons and magnificence, observance builds lifelong respect. These are the places where the outdoors are prioritized, where people design their lives around the joy of place.
I grew up in Hood River, Oregon, surrounded by the mountains, rivers, and forests of the Columbia River Gorge. It's a place where the landscape shapes how people live, and where my curiosity about the natural world, technology, and how things work began.
I grew up around engineers, entrepreneurs, and people who were constantly building, experimenting, and questioning what was possible. Conversations about renewable energy, electric vehicles, manufacturing, and the environment were part of everyday life. Those experiences shaped how I think about solving problems and the relationship between people, technology, and the natural world.
I studied Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, drawn to the intersection of technical systems, design, efficiency, and human behavior. My career began at Insitu, working in aerospace manufacturing engineering, before taking me to Nike, where I helped develop and implement circular packaging solutions across global supply chains, including co-creating Nike OneBox.
Over time, my interests expanded beyond engineering into business strategy, entrepreneurship, and the challenge of bringing new ideas to life. I've worked across industries including aerospace, consumer products, technology, and hospitality, collaborating with founders, engineers, designers, and business leaders to solve problems and develop practical solutions.
In 2022, I founded Native Provisions, a hospitality and experience-design business rooted in the Columbia River Gorge. Building a company from the ground up has given me firsthand experience in business development, strategy, financial planning, partnerships, operations, and creative production. What began with seasonal food and gatherings has expanded into executive retreats, private dining, destination travel, and brand experiences. More recently, I developed Magic Mix, a line of pantry products that brings together my interests in food, product development, packaging, and business building.
Across all of this work, I've found that what I enjoy most is understanding complex problems, bringing the right people together, and turning ideas into something tangible. I'm equally interested in the big-picture strategy and the details required to make something work.
I believe some of the most interesting opportunities exist at the intersection of disciplines. Whether I'm working on a new technology, improving a supply chain, developing a business, or creating an experience, I'm motivated by curiosity, thoughtful design, and the opportunity to make a meaningful impact.
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It was between here, in the Gorge, and Silicon Valley that I first learned about the environment, clean energy, transport, and material impacts. As I grew I was taught, through many experiences, of the human impact on the environment, the smog a byproduct of fossil fuel burning, the terrible taste water could have when it needed to be treated to drink, the traffic and inefficiencies. Family roadtrips in the Gorge consisted of stops at the hydroelectric dams and talking about the wind power generated in the east hills. Surrounded by engineers, my upbringing taught me that curiosity could be quenched by conversations and research. It was from my grandfather and his students that I learned about the value of the resources on this planet, and their abilities to probe into space, and understand relativity, geo-location, the power of lenses, gyros, and power generation.
My uncles taught me anything was possible, they told me like them I could start successful businesses, or convert my car to run off an electric motor, powered by solar panels. Like them I could fight for what I believed in. I watched the documentary helped create, Who Killed the Electric Car, and learned that agendas and politics were sometimes the reasons great ideas weren’t adopted at scale, but you could still do what your believed in for yourself. At family gatherings we talked about self-driving vehicles, unmanned air vehicles. Later we watched as he raced a Tesla against the fastest sports cars to prove the power of four electric motors far outweighed acceleration and power of fuel injection or turbo.
Living in a small town my family purchased a WeeGo short range EV, limited by range and speed I was mindful of the distance between locations, battery usage, and changing. As gifts my grandfather would gave us solar ovens, electronics kits, and a power metering system that allow us to measure exact usage of every appliance in our house. We quickly found out that heating our home, water, doing laundry, then lighting, and refrigeration were the biggest energy users. As my parents remodeled their home they were ecstatic in implement geothermal cooling, solar energy, instant hot water heating, and LEDs everywhere. We used the energy meter display to see what the best times were to charge the electric car, when we had excess energy when the sun was high.
My first car was a Prius, I shared with my sister, we’d compete to see who could get the best fuel efficiency, intensely monitoring the graphs of mpg and arguing topographic advantage with excessive regenerative breaking energy. In high school I learned I liked to be an active participant for the change I wish to see in the world. I joined the student government, earth club, and robotics team, using the voices of the student body and some bootstrapping to fundraise and implement a wind turbine and solar power on campus, win state robotics and attend robotics world completion.
When I went to university I couldn’t decide between Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, I found I actually loved the efficiency and human factors focus in industrial and manufacturing engineering. I thought about the environment more and more. San Luis Obispo was another natural oasis between California’s largest metropolitan areas the Bay Area and SoCal, surrounded by state parks, with a nuclear power plant built near two faults. Diablo Canyon power plant was integrated into our lessons along with solar and electric transportation capabilities. Managing the house and paying the bills each month gave me insights to our dependence on monopolized utility.
I was involved in the electrification of UAVs from hydrogen fuel cells as a manufacturing engineer at a subsidiary of Boeing - Insitu, as well supporting new product integration in the main product line and software integration. I love learning about technical capabilities and sharing information in a comprehensible way with all types of people.
I decided I wanted to create self sufficiency, out of school I looked for a van. I planned out a solar system which would allow me to live and work in the van full time. On a budget I installed 2 used led acid 12V batteries in series, and 2 solar panels, with a 2000W inverter. I also added a twitch between the car and “house” batteries that allow them to be connected or disconnected to avoid long term discharge. Then I tested my usage, lights, water pump, phone and laptop charging and use, and inverter needs for things like using the blender to make a smoothies or charge devices that weren’t USB. I installed solar panels, an inverter and energy monitoring system. This allowed me to start and run the van off solar and batteries exclusively for 2,593km from Utah to the South of Baja Mexico when my alternator died.
I am experienced gaining trust and buy-in from senior stakeholders, creating waste reduction plans for packaging, working with diverse teams to create unanimous approval, financial, and leadership support to implement major changes in Nike's systems and processes. I manage packaging data which I share monthly and quarterly with senior leadership teams to keep them informed on progress against our targets. My favorite aspects of the work are creating partnerships and working teams across the supply chain to gain the greatest insights and deliver the best results to all aspects of the business.
To implement change, I worked with leaders in global sustainability, operations, sourcing, and design to understand the business needs. With the high level deliverables identified I then work with product, engineering, and factory teams to identify opportunities for waste reduction and process efficiencies. As an extroverted empath and engineer I wholeheartedly enjoy working with people to identify needs and break them down into facets, with quick understanding of technical and process requirements, to achieve business goals.
Currently I get joy driving around a Fiat 500e. Driving EVs I have personally experienced challenges with limited range due to cold weather, over charging, and challenges with battery life and optimization that with more information from the UX of the car could have been prevented.
This enables me to share my passion and excitement for actionable ways to heal the planet using technology, data and green energy.
