Podcast: Fire Prevention Tech to Protect Homes After LA Fires, CitroTech’s Wes Bolsen

Wes Bolsen is the CEO and board member of CitroTech (NYSE AM: CITR), the company behind the only EPA Safer Choice recognized fire inhibitor in the United States. Before CitroTech, Wes co-founded LaderaTech, a wildfire prevention company built on patents from Stanford University and MIT, which he subsequently sold to Perimeter Solutions (NYSE: PRM) and joined their leadership team overseeing global wildfire prevention ahead of the company’s $2 billion public listing. He also served as board member and CEO of Imidex, a medical device company focused on early-stage lung cancer detection. Earlier in his career, Wes held executive roles at Cool Planet Energy Systems, Codexis (NASDAQ: CDXS), Coskata, and ICM, and consulted at McKinsey from 2000 to 2006 across the Chicago and Palo Alto offices. Wes is based in Oceanside, California.

(02:08) From LaderaTech to CitroTech: why Wes came back
(03:21) The Palisades fire & what it changes for developers
(05:09) Why community-wide protection beats home by home
(06:55) Suppression vs. prevention: the 1-to-7 cost argument
(08:38) What home builders are hearing from insurance
(11:02) Fire resilience as a marketing differentiator
(14:39) Cost of fire-resistant construction vs. traditional methods
(16:31) The three layers of CitroTech’s approach
(22:27) The Hexion JV
(26:01) Getting into Lennar, DR Horton, KB Homes, and national spec
(27:22) Fire risk across California, Colorado, Montana & Idaho
(29:03) Mass timber, CLT, and the fire retardancy case
(31:43) What a REIT looks like after deploying CitroTech
(33:34) Collaboration superpower: Jesus and Elon Musk