Management Team
Board of Directors
Nova Biosource Fuels, Inc.
Kenneth T. Hern serves as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer He served as President of Texaco Saudi, Inc., between 1981 through 1984, as Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Texaco Nigeria Limited from 1984 through 1989, and as President of Texaco Brazil from 1989 through 1994, when he retired. From 1994 to 2006, he served as an independent consultant and served as Chairman of Fibrominn L.L.C., a company formed to generate electricity from biowaste material. Mr. Hern earned a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Austin College in 1960 and a Master of Science in Organic Chemistry from North Texas State University in 1962. He has also received Associate Degrees from the Wharton School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University.
J.D. McGraw serves as Vice Chairman of the Board. Mr. McGraw addresses the strategic planning and investment funding needs of Nova and provides knowledge and experience with the intricacies of taking companies public. He has provided consulting services to over 150 companies including AdTec, American Rice, Blockbuster Video, Chuck E. Cheese, Dryper, DataVon, International Recovery, Republic Industries and Swift Energy. From 2000 until 2002, Mr. McGraw worked as a Financial Management Consultant for Allan F. Dow & Associates, Inc. From 2002 until 2003, he served as the Executive Vice President of EnerTeck Corporation, a company engaged in the manufacture, sale, and marketing of fuel borne catalytic engine treatment products for diesel engines. Mr. McGraw has served as the President of Jonah Capital Partners, a financial advisory firm, since 2004. Over his 25-year career, Mr. McGraw has held numerous positions in all stages of business development including founder, CEO and President in a wide range of business sectors, including oil & gas industry, and has experience in large scale roll-ups.
Fred Zeidman serves as Interim President and director, as Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, and as a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees. Mr. Zeidman is the former Chairman of the Board for Houston-based Seitel, Inc., which is a leading provider of seismic data and related geophysical expertise to the petroleum industry. He has served as a Managing Director of the law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP since July 2003. Mr. Zeidman has served as Chairman of the Board of Corporate Strategies, Inc., a consulting firm, since July 2004, and is a former Chairman of the Board for Houston-based Seitel Inc., an oil field services company. Mr. Zeidman serves as the Chairman of the Board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Washington University in 1968, and an MBA from New York University in 1970.
C. Robert Black serves as an independent director, as Chair of the Compensation Committee, and as a member of the Audit and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees. He was formerly Senior Vice President in the Office of the Chairman of Texaco, Inc., an international oil and gas exploration, production, distribution and marketing company, until 1999 when he retired. He spent nearly forty years in various roles with Texaco before his retirement, including key assignments in engineering, supply and distribution, crude oil (international) and Middle Eastern Operations. Elected Vice President of Texaco, Inc. in 1983, Mr. Black was appointed Senior Vice President of Texaco Middle East/Far East that same year, and later named President of the same division. In 1992 he was elected Senior Vice President, and in 1997 was appointed President of Texaco's Worldwide Exploration and Production. In his last and most recent role with Texaco, Mr. Black was responsible for developing and managing the company's relationships with the industry on a worldwide basis, along with oversight responsibility for Texaco's Technology Division and Corporate Reserves Audit Group. He also served as Corporate Compliance Officer, and as a member of Texaco's Executive Council, which set corporate strategies and priorities. Mr. Black is a member of the Board of Trustees of the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, the University of Texas Engineering Advisory Council, and the Committee of Economic Development. He is a distinguished alumnus of Texas Tech University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering in 1958 and was appointed to the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents by Governor Rick Perry in 2001. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Coastal Energy Company, Madagascar Oil Limited, and Seital Inc.
John Reiland serves as an independent director, as Chair of the Audit Committee , and as a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees. Mr. Reiland has been a director since July 31, 2006. He is currently the Chief Financial Officer of StarVox Communications, Inc., a telecommunications services provider, a position he has held since August 2007. From March 2006 to 2007, Mr. Reiland was CEO/Chief Restructuring Officer of RONCO, a company engaged in the manufacture, marketing and distribution of consumer products. From March 2003 until March 2006, he served as the Chief Financial Officer of US Dataworks, a developer of payment processing software focused on the financial services market, federal, state and local governments, billers and retailers. From March 2002 until December 2002, Mr. Reiland was the Interim Chief Executive Officer of New England Pantry, Inc., a convenience store chain. From November 2000 to February 2002, he was Chief Executive Officer of ServiceIQ, a privately held developmental stage company developing wireless communications devices for the field service industry. Mr. Reiland also serves on the board of directors of StarVox Communications, Inc. and RONCO Corporation. Mr. Reiland is a certified public accountant and began his career at Price Waterhouse & Co. from 1973 to 1978. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston in 1973.
John Sinders serves as an independent director and as a member of the Audit and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees. Since February 2007, Mr. Sinders has served as the Chairman of the Board of Aston Martin North America, a manufacturer of luxury automobiles. Since 2007, he has also been serving as a director of Mercator Lines Limited, a shipping company, Britannia Bulk Plc, a shipping company, Sundial Enterprises and Arabian Capital, a private investment company. In addition to his board positions, Mr. Sinders serves as Chief Financial Officer of Sundial Enterprises, Arabian Capital and Sinders Racing, a professional automobile racing team. Prior to February 2007, Mr. Sinders was a Managing Director of Investment Banking for Jefferies & Company, a leading investment banking firm, where he also served as head of its transportation, oil services and infrastructure group. Prior to joining Jefferies, Mr. Sinders was Co-Head of the Global Energy Group for RBC Capital Markets, a leading investment banking firm. Prior to RBC, Mr. Sinders was a Managing Director, EVP, and Co-Head of Energy at Jefferies & Company. Previously, he was Head of Corporate Finance and a member of the Board of Directors of Howard Weil, an investment company, in New Orleans and spent eight years practicing corporate securities law with Jones Walker and McGlinchey Stafford in New Orleans. Mr. Sinders is a registered broker, dealer and investment advisor in multiple states and a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers. He earned a bachelor's of arts from the University of Virginia in 1976 and a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1979.
Robert White serves as an independent director and as a member of the Compensation and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees. The last President of Mobil Exploration and Producing U.S. Inc. prior to that company’s merger with Exxon. Mr. White’s career with Mobil spanned over 40 years, including 15 years spent outside the United States. He joined the company in 1964 as a production engineer in Hobbs, New Mexico, following his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the rank of Captain. Since that time he has served as Manager of Economics and Planning for Natural Gas in North America, Planning Advisor for Exploration and Producing in North America, Chairman and President of Mobil Producing Netherlands, Mobil Producing Nigeria, and Mobil North Sea Limited in London. While in the UK White also served as Chairman of the Petroleum Science and Technology Institute, a scientific and development organization made up of oil industry representatives and Scottish universities. Mr. White is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering.
Charlie Vignieri - Honorary Chairman of the Board In 1936, Charlie Vignieri began his life long career in the meat packing industry. At age 12, he worked for his father at the family’s butcher shop in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The family shop grew and became known as Kenosha Packing Company. Following his father’s death in 1960, Charlie took over as president of Kenosha Meat Packing Company. As operations expanded overseas, the company eventually became Kenosha Beef International (KBI). For nearly fifty-years, Charlie’s leadership and vision have guided the company through key business decisions and helped position KBI as one of the top ten portion providers for the quick serve restaurant industry. Charles Vignieri was deeply interested in biodiesel and recognized that the byproducts of KBI’s meat industry was a feedstock that could be synthesized into biodiesel with the potential to lower the cost of biodiesel production to be competitive with hydrocarbon fuel. It was this pioneering spirit that drove the development of the Biosource Fuels technology, even when crude oil was valued at less than $20 per barrel and without the current economic incentives. KBI assembled a team of professional engineers and management staff, led by Mike Marquardt, who have brought this vision to reality and positioned Biosource Fuels as one of the premier biodiesel production technology companies in the world. Nova acquired the assets of Biosource Fuels in early 2006.
Other Nova Management
Jay Fillman, age 53, prior to becoming CFO, served as a consultant to the company, assisting with corporate development. Mr. Fillman was one of the founders of Illinois River Energy, a publicly traded green field ethanol producer, and served as the company’s Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from 2001 to 2004. In 1992 and 1978, respectively, Mr. Fillman founded Fillman Insurance and Fillman Tax Services. Mr. Fillman currently manages Fillman Insurance and the daily operations of a corn and soybean farm. He also served as a manager of the Illinois Soybean Operating Board and American Soybean Development Foundation. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois.
Russell D. Sammons serves as Vice President of Refining Operations. Mr. Sammons provides hands-on operational leadership for the company's operations as operates, plans, and builds several biodiesel refineries for its own account. In addition, he supervises the development and implementation of operational and safety procedures for Nova's biodiesel refineries.
Mr. Sammons earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Houston and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He began his career with Exxon in 1995 as a mechanical engineer and was promoted to more challenging assignments as a refinery profitability and energy analyst, a mechanical section supervisor and turnarounds and major projects planning section supervisor throughout his career with Exxon and ExxonMobil.
Leon van Kraayenburg serves as Vice President of Finance, Controller, and Treasurer. Mr. van Kraayenburg has more than 25 years of corporate financial reporting, tax, finance and treasury experience, serving the private and public sectors. From 1993 until 1999, he served in a number of capacities for BTR, Plc, a UK public reporting company and its subsidiaries. Since leaving BTR Mr. van Kraayenburg has provided financial and IT consulting services on various start-up companies, and has been on the team of certain acquisitions and divestitures. In late 2002, he joined EnerTeck Chemical Corporation, a private company, as Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer. At EnerTeck, he assisted in taking the company public through a reverse merger acquisition and served on the Board of Directors. Mr. van Kraayenburg is a graduate of Witwatersrand College in South Africa.
Richard(Dick) Talley serves as Vice President of Technology and Projects and as President of Biosource America, Nova's design/build arm. Mr. Talley has over 19 years of experience in process development and design. During the last 3 years, he has led the effort to develop the unique biodiesel production technology now owned by the company. Mr. Talley has been requested to speak at the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) Annual Conference and the Fat and Proteins Research Foundation (FPRF) Annual Meeting, where he led presentations on biodiesel production technologies.
In addition, Mr. Talley has authored an article regarding biodiesel production from animal fats and greases for the National Render Association’s Magazine (Render February 2004 “Biodiesel: A Compelling Business for The Rendering Industry”). Before joining biodiesel production technology development efforts in the fall of 2000, Dick served as the Western Regional Manager for HKM Engineering. HKM was a regional A/E firm that specialized in large scale industrial and public works projects including process and chemical refineries, structures, dams, highways and bridges, airports and large water supply, treatment and distributions systems. Dick began work with HKM in 1990 and served as a project engineer, project manager, and technical division director prior to his promotion and transfer to the Western Regional Manager position in Butte, Montana. During Dick’s tenure, HKM experienced significant growth in revenue, scope of operations, employment, and the geographical market that HKM served. Dick received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Wyoming in 1986, and is currently registered as a professional engineer in the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.
Nova Biosource Fuels, Inc.
Board of Directors
Committee Memberships
| C = Chairman of the indicated committee. |
| (1) |
Each of the directors indicated as being “independent” is considered to be independent under the listing standards of the American Stock Exchange. The Board of Directors has determined that each of these directors to be free from material relationships with the Company that would interfere with the exercise of independent judgment. |
| (2) |
The Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee also serves as a committee of independent directors meeting in executive session. |
| (3) |
Each member of the Audit Committee has been determined by the Board to be “independent” and “financially literate” as defined by the listing standards of the American Stock Exchange and the rules and regulations of the SEC. Also, Mr. Reiland and James L. Rainey have been determined by the Board to be “audit committee financial experts” as defined by the rules and regulations of the SEC. |
Biosource America Management Team
John Jackam serves as Director of Process and Controls. Mr. Jackam received his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Ohio University with a Minor in Chemistry in 1999. Mr. Jackam has more than seven years experience as both a Research and Development Engineer and as a Process Design Engineer. Mr. Jackam optimized each unit operation of the biodiesel process on laboratory scale equipment, establishing that the process could be completed and then designed and supervised the construction of a pilot plant, and operated the pilot plant to collect scale-up information on a first- hand basis. His research and development of advanced chemical processes has involved the development of analytical methods and models to quantify and describe the reactor performance, based on product distributions and yield, using HPLC, GC, ELSD and other methods. Mr. Jackam has been responsible for all pilot plant operations in the biodiesel industry, including multiple feedstock evaluation and processing, process optimization and steady state yield determinations, and product quality control. Mr. Jackam has played a very key role in the process design of the individual process units and his experience in the pilot plant operations is invaluable during plant startup, commissioning and operator training. Mr. Jackam also was a lead design engineer on the 20-MGY biodiesel plant for Sanimax Energy and provided the operational training, startup and performance testing services required.
Jeff Jonesserves as the senior chemical process engineer and a Project Manager. Mr. Jones spent six years as a manufacturing process development engineer for IBM Corp in Endicott, NY. During his time at IBM, Mr. Jones specialized in impinging jet process and equipment development and hazardous waste reduction in electronics manufacturing. He also taught Six Sigma statistical process control to 200 engineers and technicians and served as a Site Technical Liason, overseeing technical development of 10,000 employees. In addition Mr. Jones has spent 10 years as an independent consultant aiding in the areas of product and process development, manufacturing, as well as the testing and licensing of 14 major prototypes. Mr. Jones is an inventor on 12 U.S. patents with combined value exceeding $50 million, co-authored a cover article in the March 1993 IBM Journal of Research and Development, and is a recipient of the 1999 SMT Magazine Vision Award for market leadership in new cleaning equipment. Mr. Jones graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University with a minor in Japanese.
Joel Pierce serves as the Senior Process Engineer and a Project Manager. Mr. Pierce worked for Phoenix Solution Co. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Pierce worked as a Research and Development Engineer on combustion processes related to material synthesis and power generation, as well as high temperature reactors for the production of hydrogen from short chain hydrocarbons. From 2000 to 2005, Mr. Pierce worked as a Senior Chemical Engineer at Resodyn Corporation in Butte, Montana. At Resodyne he conducted research on mass transport operations and designed bench-scale and pilot-scale chemical processes for several government agencies including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense. In 2005, Mr. Pierce became a Process Engineer with Biosource Fuels in Butte, Montana. Mr. Pierce received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1998 from the University of Minnesota, Institute of Technology.
Mark Chadek serves as the Senior Mechanical Engineer. Mr. Chadek began his career in 1976 as a Boilermaker, Rigger and Welder for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders in Eugene, Oregon. Mr. Chadek’s career has included working as a Manufacturing Engineer for Nordic Track, where he provided engineering support to the welding and metal fabrication departments, as well as the Senior Manufacturing Engineer at Mustang manufacturing, where Mr. Chadek worked closely with Design Engineering to identify and implement design changes to enhance manufacturability and introduce new product and product enhancements into to production. In 2004, Mr. Chadek joined the team at Resodyn Corporation in Butte, Montana as a mechanical Engineer. His responsibilities included mechanical design and specification of processing equipment in support of Resodyn’s development of Straw Pulp and Biodiesel production technology. Later that year, Mr. Chadek became the Lead Manufacturing Engineer, for ATK Thiokol, in Brigham City, Utah, where his responsibilities included process development and ongoing production support for the manufacturing of the Booster Separation Motors used in the Space Shuttle program. In 2005, Mr. Chadek was hired as the Senior Mechanical Engineer for Biosource Fuels. Mr. Chadek received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Utah State University in 1995.
John McKee serves as Instrumentation & Controls Technician and Project Manager. Mr. McKee was the project manager and Software Implementation Specialist for Education Logistics in Missoula, Montana from 1999 to 2000. Following his time with Education Logistics, Mr. McKee was hired as the Lead Technician and Project Manager at Computer Geeks in Butte Montana from 2000-2004. In 2004, Mr. McKee became the Network Administrator and Project Manager for Resodyn Corporation in Butte, Montana. John McKee worked for Resodyn until he joined the team at Biosource Fuels as I & C Technician and Project Manager. In 1997, John McKee earned a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Montana in Missoula. In 2000, he also earned another B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Montana in Butte. Mr. McKee later went on to earn an M.S. in Engineering Project Management from the University of Montana in 2005.