For Orion

Compost Facility: A 90-Day CTO Plan

Orion, here’s your new CTO’s first 90 days. What to fix first, where AI pays off soonest, and what the hire should own.

If the CTO seat can stay open another quarter, ignore this. If it can’t, the next two minutes are worth it.

What we noticed

Family owned since 1992, with 400+ composting facilities and 2.5M+ tons a year of installed capacity, and two control platforms of your own, WebMACS and CompDACS.

Your Chief Technology Officer posting went up on October 31, and it asks one person to run product design, the production floor, controls and the roadmap at once.

Your own controls Two control platforms, WebMACS and CompDACS, with remote access through a secure online portal. Aeration control systems page
Your own sensors Wired and wireless oxygen and temperature probes that log the compliance record automatically. Compost probes page
A software engineer already A Lead Software Engineer on the team, next to electrical, civil and mechanical engineers. Meet the team page
Standard designs Designs and permit submittals are already being standardized, which is where engineering time compounds. Permitting and compliance page

Seen in your stack: WordPress · Google Tag Manager · Google Analytics · Vimeo · WebMACS · CompDACS · wireless probes

What your posting asks for

“Develop and execute a long-term technology and product development roadmap aligned with company goals.”
“Standardize and optimize product designs to improve manufacturability, reliability, installation efficiency, and cost competitiveness.”
“Production management oversight to resolve manufacturing challenges, improve workflows, and reduce costs.”
“Guide the development and integration of electrical, mechanical, and automated control systems.”
“Support project managers and sales staff with technical design, equipment selection, troubleshooting, and complex customer requirements.”
“Interest in improving engineering productivity through automation, software, and emerging technologies.”

From your Chief Technology Officer posting, posted October 31, 2026.

What changes for your new Chief Technology Officer

Your new CTO starts with a plan: the recurring problems to fix first, the products to standardize, where AI saves your engineers time soonest, and a clear line between what they own and what a fractional lead can carry while they get settled.

Your new Chief Technology Officer’s first 90 days

Three phases, each item with the reason it’s there and where that came from.

Days 1 to 30

Learn the floor and the field

1
List the problems that keep coming back to engineering
Your posting wants a systems thinker who fixes recurring challenges with scalable solutions, not temporary fixes. That list is the first 90 days’ priority order.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
2
Put every drawing, BOM and calculation for each product in one place
Consistent, organized engineering documentation is one of your stated measures of success, and nothing else can be standardized until it exists.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
3
See how inventory is tracked on the shop floor today
Your posting counts it as success when products are built on time, without mechanical issues, and inventory is tracked.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
4
Take stock of WebMACS, CompDACS and the probes in the field
The controls are what customers log in to every day. Knowing which versions run where, and who supports them, comes before any change.
Source: Aeration control systems page

Days 31 to 60

Standardize what sells most

5
Cut part counts on the highest-volume products
Your posting asks for fewer parts, more standardization and lower manufacturing cost.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
6
Give sales and project managers one intake for engineering requests
The role has to balance long-term product work against immediate customer needs, and one queue makes that trade visible.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
7
Set one way to create and release drawing sets
Your posting names creating and releasing drawing sets, and a single release process keeps the field and the shop on the same revision.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
8
Set the engineering budget and the project list
Managing engineering budgets and project priorities is part of the job description.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting

Days 61 to 90

Write the roadmap

9
Write the product roadmap against where installs are going
A long-term technology and product development roadmap aligned with company goals is the posting’s first strategic ask.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
10
Decide what the controls platform becomes
Your posting lists industrial automation, IoT and cloud-based monitoring as a plus. One answer for WebMACS and CompDACS shapes every product after it.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
11
Plan the team: who to hire, who to mentor
Mentoring technical staff and building an engaged, accountable engineering team are both in the posting.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting

Where AI pays off soonest

Workflows from your own business, in the order they save your team time.

1 Compliance reports drafted from probe data
Your probes already log the PFRP record. AI can turn the logs into the written report and flag piles that are drifting, so an engineer reviews instead of compiling.
Source: Compost probes page
2 First-pass sizing and equipment selection for sales
Your designs and submittals are being standardized, and the CTO is asked to support sales with design and equipment selection. A drafted first pass from your standard designs saves engineering hours on every quote.
Source: Chief Technology Officer posting
3 Recipe suggestions from the calculator and the test vessel
You already compute C:N, moisture and bulk density and run feedstock trials. An assistant on that data can propose a starting recipe before anyone sets up a trial.
Source: Compost calculator page
4 Operator questions answered from your own videos and cut sheets
You publish training videos on probes, moisture and odor. An assistant trained on them answers the routine operator questions before they reach an engineer.
Source: Training videos page
5 Permit documents drafted from past submittals
Operations plans, emission studies and stormwater design repeat across projects. Drafts from your past submittals cut the hours before your engineers review.
Source: Permitting and compliance page

What the hire owns, and what a fractional lead covers

Your Chief Technology Officer owns

Product design and R&D, from concept to commercialization
Production oversight and the shop floor
Mechanical and electrical engineering quality and drawings
Mentoring the engineers and the engineering budget
Field commissioning and hard customer problems

A fractional lead covers

The AI and software side: where it pays off and what gets built first
The controls platform direction (WebMACS, CompDACS, remote monitoring)
Data, security and vendor choices for the portal and internal tools
This 90-day plan, run alongside the hire until it’s theirs

Your first 90 days of tech leadership, planned

The plan above is yours either way.

Email Kash

We build a handful of these a month, for founders hiring now.

90 days

from the CTO’s first day to a written roadmap

What to fix first, with the reason
Where AI pays off soonest
What the hire owns and what a fractional lead covers
A roadmap your team can run

Who’s building it

Kash Badami was Chief Architect of a national health information network and closed the CMS deal behind Healthcare.gov’s data infrastructure. He runs his own company on AI today.

Chief Architectof a national health information network for HHS, aligning 23 federal agencies

$27MCMS deal that became core Healthcare.gov data infrastructure

“he was singularly responsible for the company’s single largest customer by revenue - the Center for Medicare & Medicaid within the US Department of Health and Human Services.”

RLRobert Liebowitz, worked with Kash on MarkLogic’s Public Sector team; now First Ascent VenturesLinkedIn recommendation, April 2026
“Kash and I built ERT Credit together in 2021. He took my MVP and turned it into a SaaS that hit $10M ARR in twelve months.”

Jordan Anderson, CEO, PayStreetgobridgehead.ai/about

Green Mountain Technologies sales playbook, in brief

Green Mountain Technologies designs and builds composting systems and aeration controls, with 400+ composting facilities and 2.5M+ tons a year of installed capacity since 1992.compostingtechnology.com, Aeration control systems page

Its Chief Technology Officer posting asks one leader to run product development, production oversight, control systems and the technology roadmap.Chief Technology Officer posting

The first 90 days: list the recurring problems, put documentation in one place, standardize the highest-volume products, then write the roadmap and decide the controls platform.Chief Technology Officer posting, Aeration control systems page

AI pays off soonest in compliance reports from probe data, first-pass equipment selection for sales, recipe suggestions and operator support from existing videos.Compost probes page, Chief Technology Officer posting, Compost calculator page, Training videos page

Prepared by Kash Badami at Bridgehead · November 9, 2026 · Every source

Questions

Why a fractional lead instead of waiting for the full-time Chief Technology Officer?

You don’t have to choose. The hire owns the product and the team; a fractional lead covers the AI and software side and runs this plan until it’s theirs, so nothing waits on the search.

What does it cost?

The first engagement is a fixed price, quoted on a call once we’ve seen what you need. After that there’s an optional monthly retainer, and you can stop at any point.

Will it get in the way of the Chief Technology Officer we hire?

No. The line between what they own and what a fractional lead covers is on this page, and the plan is handed to them to run.

Where does our data live, and is it secure?

In your own accounts. Nothing runs on our side, and every tool or vendor we suggest is reviewed with you before anyone connects it.

Is this only about AI?

No. AI is one part. Most of the first 90 days is the work your posting describes, and the AI items are the ones that save your team time soonest.