Today we’d like to introduce you to Whit Allen.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Looking back, my life probably seems like a collection of unrelated chapters. I’ve spent more than 35 years building businesses around the world, eventually founding an agricultural technology company. Along the way, I had the privilege of raising two incredible children into adulthood. More recently, I’ve returned to DJing and fashion modeling after many years away, and about 18 months ago I began producing my own music for the first time.
But to me, it’s always been the same story.
I’ve always gotten my energy from creating something where nothing existed before.
As a kid, that meant starting little neighborhood businesses. In college, it was a sound and lighting company that catered to parties, weddings, and campus events. Professionally, it became a career helping build new businesses, markets, and organizations around the world before eventually founding SpectraGrow, where we’re developing technology that helps growers produce healthier crops more efficiently.
Running alongside that career was another part of me that never completely disappeared. I started DJing in the 1980s because I loved what music could make people feel. I loved dancing. I loved fashion. I loved creating experiences that brought people together. But somewhere along the way, those parts of me became quieter as career and responsibility took center stage.
Then life interrupted my plans.
Surviving two cancer diagnoses, navigating personal loss, and confronting parts of myself I’d set aside for years forced me to ask a different question: not just “What do I want to build?” but “Who do I want to become?”
That question brought me back—not just to DJing, but to producing my own music for the first time. What began as a creative way to process one of the hardest seasons of my life has become one of the most meaningful forms of self-expression I’ve ever known. Modeling returned too, not because I was chasing an industry, but because it became another way of expressing myself and feeling at home in my own skin.
Today, they no longer feel like separate parts of my life. They’ve simply become different expressions of the same part of me.
I’m not creating because I have life figured out. I’m creating because I’m still becoming who I am. If sharing that journey helps someone else remember there’s more possibility within themselves than they ever imagined, that’s a beautiful gift—but it begins with doing the work in my own life first.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road—but looking back, I wouldn’t change it.
Professionally, there were all the challenges you’d expect: building new businesses, taking career risks, founding a startup, and navigating the uncertainty that comes with entrepreneurship. SpectraGrow has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever built, but also one of the hardest. There are moments of incredible momentum and moments where you question everything.
Personally, life brought challenges I never expected. Surviving two cancer diagnoses changed my relationship with time and what really matters. Then, while I was undergoing treatment for my second diagnosis, my marriage came to an end. Facing that season largely on my own forced me to confront parts of myself I’d spent years avoiding.
For most of my life, I believed that if I worked hard enough or solved the problem well enough, I could navigate almost anything. After all, that’s what I’d done my entire career. The hardest lessons came when life presented challenges that couldn’t be solved—only lived through. Those experiences didn’t just change my circumstances; they changed me.
Looking back, I also realize how much of my identity had become wrapped up in being the provider, the problem solver, and the person everyone else could depend on. I’m grateful for those years and for the opportunity to raise two incredible children, but somewhere along the way I stopped asking what I needed in order to feel fully alive.
Healing wasn’t about walking away from responsibility. It was about realizing that caring for others and caring for myself were never supposed to be mutually exclusive. Music, dance, and fashion became more than creative outlets. They became ways of reconnecting with parts of myself that I’d set aside. They weren’t an escape from my life—they helped me return to it.
Ironically, those experiences have made me a better entrepreneur, a better artist, and a better human being. I’ve learned that success isn’t just measured by what you build or accomplish. It’s also measured by whether the life you’re building reflects who you truly are.
Today, I still face challenges, but I ask a different question. Instead of “How do I get through this?” I ask, “Who is this experience inviting me to become?”
I spent decades becoming exceptional at building things in the outside world. My greatest challenge—and ultimately my greatest gift—has been learning to build a life that reflects my inside world as well.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Today, I wear a few different hats, but they all stem from the same place.
I’m the founder and CEO of SpectraGrow, where we’re developing advanced LED lighting technology for controlled environment agriculture. Our work helps growers produce healthier crops more efficiently, and over the past several years we’ve had the privilege of working with customers in more than ten countries, from university research centers to some of the largest vertical farms in the world.
I’m also a DJ, music producer, and model. After returning to DJing and modeling later in life, I began producing my own music about 18 months ago as a creative way to process some of life’s biggest challenges. That creative journey has become every bit as meaningful to me as my entrepreneurial one.
Looking back, I realize that whether I’m building a company, producing a song, or collaborating with others, I’ve always been driven by curiosity and the joy of creating. The medium has changed over the years. The impulse hasn’t.
If there’s one thing I’m most proud of, it isn’t a particular title, company, or accomplishment. It’s that I’ve finally stopped feeling like I have to choose between the different parts of who I am. For years, I thought I had to fit into a single box. Today, I no longer feel like I have to choose.
If there’s something that sets me apart, I hope it’s that I’m willing to bring my whole self into everything I do. Whether I’m working with growers, producing music, stepping behind a DJ booth, or collaborating with a fashion brand, I want whatever I create to be honest, meaningful, and beautiful.
At this stage of my life, success isn’t about collecting accomplishments. It’s about building things that are aligned with who I am. I’ve learned that when we’re willing to tell the truth about our own lives, it quietly invites others to become curious about their own. If my work—whether in business or music—does that for even one person, that’s the most meaningful outcome I could hope for.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I’m always excited to connect with people who are building, creating, or reimagining what’s possible.
On the entrepreneurial side, I enjoy connecting with growers, controlled environment agriculture companies, strategic partners, and others who are passionate about advancing the future of food through technology.
Creatively, I’m always interested in collaborating with vocalists, musicians, producers, photographers, fashion brands, dancers, and other artists who value authenticity and aren’t afraid to create something a little different. Some of the most meaningful opportunities in my life have come from simply being curious enough to start a conversation.
More than anything, I enjoy meeting people who are building something they genuinely care about—whether that’s a company, a piece of art, a community, or a new chapter in their own lives.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the best collaborations don’t begin with asking, “What can we get from each other?” They begin with genuine curiosity, shared values, and a shared desire to create something that couldn’t exist without the collaboration itself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.spectragrow.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dj.whit.allen
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitallencleantech/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@djwhitallen
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/djwhitallen
- Other: http://whitallen.com/
