Earthship
Earthship Corporation is a Lockhart, Texas-based company that develops and manages Proto-Town, an industrial innovation campus for hardware, manufacturing, and technology companies.
In a 2025 development agreement, Caldwell County identifies Earthship as the developer of the Proto-Town Innovation Hub. The agreement states that Earthship held a lease with a contract to purchase approximately 537 acres included in the project, while Greenwood Ventures Group was identified as the property owner at the time of the agreement.[1] The county described the project as a center for future high-technology manufacturing and technological innovation.[2]
Founding
Public reporting identifies Josh Farahzad and Merle Nye as the founders of Earthship, and identifies Farahzad, Nye, and John Cyrier as the founders of Proto-Town.[3][4] Farahzad and Nye met while attending Duke University and had prior experience with student rocketry and energy-hardware projects, respectively. Cyrier, a mechanical engineer and former Caldwell County commissioner and Texas state representative, assisted with securing the ranch property used for the campus and with local connections.[5][6]
Earthship's public-facing domain redirects to the Proto-Town website, which presents the campus as a place for experimentation supported by infrastructure for building physical technology quickly.[7][8]
This article concerns Earthship Corporation, the company associated with Proto-Town, and not the unrelated sustainable-building concept or companies that use the name “Earthship.”
References
- ↑ Caldwell County: Proto-Town development agreement
- ↑ Caldwell County: development agreement for Proto-Town approved
- ↑ The Real Deal: Earthship to develop nuclear research reactor at Proto-Town
- ↑ Lockhart Post-Register: Proto-Town expansion
- ↑ Lockhart Post-Register: Proto-Town: A new frontier for innovation in Caldwell County
- ↑ John Cyrier: About
- ↑ Earthship
- ↑ Proto-Town: official website