Josh Tickell

Josh Tickell is a film director who specializes in connecting with the Millennial Generation, those born between 1980-2000 (a.k.a. “Generation Y”).

Tickell grew up in Louisiana next to waterways polluted by petroleum refineries. In 1997 he captured national attention by driving a van powered by used French Fry oil across the United States with his college sweetheart. “The Veggie Van” as it was called was a viral sensation. Only four years after the first web browser was introduced, Tickell’s Veggie Van Web Site with its early “blog” received over 1 million unique visitors (continuously crashing its server due to overwhelming traffic). The Veggie Van Voyage spurred an international wave of media coverage pushing Tickell into the spotlight as a voice of change for the young generation.

By 1998, Tickell had published his first book and was touring colleges giving talks to the first members of “Generation Y” (a.k.a. “The Millennials”). College students enthusiastically embraced Tickell’s philosophy of making the world a better place through smarter technologies.

Tickell continued his lecture tour de force for a decade – going to over 100 colleges; serving as a breakthrough business consultant for a number of high profile companies; and earing a Master’s Degree in Film from FSU along the way. His journey culminated in 2008 with the release of his first feature film, FUEL (a.k.a. ‘Fields of Fuel’).

FUEL won the Sundance Audience Award for Best Documentary and was released theatrically in the United States. FUEL became a global sensation gaining millions of viewers on Netflix, iTunes, Hulu and CNBC, Russia TV, TeleSur and beyond. The movie was screened in the White House for energy and environment staff working in the Obama Administration and was shortlisted for an Oscar.

During the production of FUEL, Tickell met his wife Rebecca Harrell, (a Millennial) who was at the time a producer on the movie. The two married in 2010 and have made several films together. The Tickells run a film studio called The Big Picture Ranch in the California resort town of Ojai.

Josh Tickell directed the Cannes Film Festival movie, The Big Fix (2011). The film explores the corporate and political malfeasance that led to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. His latest documentary PUMP (2014) exposes a conspiracy to block fuel choice at the gas pump and is being theatrically released by Submarine Entertainment in select theaters in September. He is currently in production on Good Fortune (2015), The Official Biography of John Paul DeJoria, Co-Founder of Patrón Tequila and Paul Mitchell Systems.

Today Tickell spends much of his time working for companies on strategies that engage members of the millennial generation. He achieves breakthrough results by modifying internal and external corporate practices to meet the desires and needs of Generation Y. By combining aspects of Corporate Social Value, Participation, Emotional Response and Product Design and Functionality, Tickell provides a wide variety of organizations with unprecedented success in working with the next generation.