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In addition,
the Company has assembled a strong group of advisors with depth in
agribusiness, technology, and finance.
Mitchell R. Hawkins
(Chair of the Advisory Board) is the
Founding Principal of Restoration Capital Partners. Mr. Hawkins has
enjoyed a 40 year career as real estate developer, business developer, and
financier. His management experience includes multiple environmental and
traditional real estate, durable consumer goods, technology
commercialization, and investments aggregating over $1 billion in closed
transactions.
Mr. Hawkins
is also the Managing Member in the Natural Resource Damage Credit Projects
in aquifer restoration (New Jersey), habitat restoration (Seattle Harbor),
and cultural restoration (Portland Harbor). These projects are in the
forefront of third-party settlement Natural Resource Damages and Mr.
Hawkins is credited with bringing these ground-breaking deals together
Total revenues in the NRD projects are expected to exceed $1 billion.
He is founder
and President of the Brownfields Foundation, a 501(c)3 charitable
foundation dedicated to the recycling of impaired lands and the
development and support of innovative remediation technologies.
Mr. Hawkins is a graduate of the University of Nevada Reno with a BA in
Philosophy, and the New York Institute of Finance. He was initially
trained in the securities business as family members owned an
over-the-counter market-making firm in Wall Street (1946-1980).
Samuel (Sandy)
Hale, PhD
is co-founder and former President and CEO of
International Resources Group (IRG), a large international environmental,
agricultural and natural resource consulting and project management
company. He also built and managed the firm’s Agriculture/Forestry and
Financial Services practices.
Dr. Hale managed major agroforestry and sustainable agriculture projects
for public and private sector clients in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Projects focused on oilseed-bearing trees including members of the Acacia,
Prosopis, and Euphorbia families including Jatropha species). He
conducted economic studies for several private agribusiness ventures,
including ventures to produce diesel fuel from oilseeds. He managed a
large-scale natural resource management project throughout the former
Soviet Union and, as part of that project, directed forestry planning
projects in the Russian Far East. He also oversaw IRG’s subsidiary Tree
Seeds International, which specialized in seeds of leguminous trees.
In Financial Services, Mr. Hale consulted on energy and environmental
project financing for clients as diverse as the U.S. Overseas Private
Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Asian and African Development Banks
as well as for private clients. He advised USAID on management and use of
local currency proceeds of agricultural sales and a range of clients on
debt-for-nature swaps. He designed and initially co-managed a venture
capital fund in Kenya, in concert with a unit of Hongkong and Shanghai
Banking Corporation, and designed or advised on microenterprise funds in
several countries.
Mr. Hale also engaged in energy market analyses -and feasibility studies
for public and private sector clients worldwide.
Prior
to co-founding IRG, Mr. Hale was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Solid
Waste Management for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and then was
Vice President for Resource Recovery for a national solid waste management
company. He then founded an energy and environmental consulting company
that subsequently was acquired by the engineering firm M.W. Kellogg, now
part of Halliburton.
Since
leaving IRG, Mr. Hale has prepared business plans for or assisted in the
financial restructuring of roughly a dozen international and U.S.
companies or non-profit organizations, most involved in forestry or
environmental management. He has helped some of these clients attract
financing or strategic partners. He also headed the business school and
was a Dean at California State University Monterey Bay.
Mr.
Hale has worked in more than thirty countries worldwide including key
focus countries for ABC (Philippines, Dominican Republic, and Colombia).
Clients have included the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development, African Development Bank, and
Caribbean Development Bank; U.S. Agency for International Development and
Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and numerous private companies.
He holds a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business
School, and a doctorate from the Economics University of Vienna.
Jim Baker
is an aerospace engineer (retired) with expertise in aviation / rocket
fuels. Mr. Baker’s areas of expertise
include thermodynamics, cryogenics, fluid systems design and analysis,
fluid/mechanical systems test, and small scale ethanol production He
worked in the development and test of liquid fuel rocket programs,
including Centaur, Apollo, Spacelab, and Shuttle on behalf of Pratt &
Whitney, Boeing, PRC, Ball Bros. and Rockwell. As his post-retirement, he
invented a low-cost ethanol still suitable for use in developing
countries.
Don
A. Stringham,
CEO of the International Business Development
Group LLC. and Managing Partner of Biofuels Development Group, LLC which
has exclusively licensed technology that will
enable the production of gasoline and jet fuel from biomass. He
has been an attorney for more than 36 years, extensively involved in the
structuring, funding and management of many successful international
business enterprises. He was a moving force in the creation and expansion
of numerous businesses based upon emerging technologies and extensive
development of industrial properties for use in the commercialization of
technology and science. He has been a frequent lecturer and serves on
numerous boards of directors of organizations involved in development,
technology commercialization, new business creation, international trade,
food processing, hydrocarbon processing, trucking, the aquaculture
industry, the re-use of former military facilities, disposal of surplus
and obsolete military equipment and ordnance and environmental
remediation.
Asim Zia,
PHD. Dr.
Zia’s research, teaching and community outreach focuses on alternative
energy sources, climate change, decision analysis and environmental
policy. Earlier (2004-2006), as a post-doctoral scientist in the Institute
for the Study of Society and Environment (ISSE) at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder CO, his research focused on
societal adaptation and mitigation to climate change (especially in
developing countries), value of weather/climate forecast information,
weather hazards and disaster management. In 2004, he completed his Ph.D.
in Public Policy, with a major in Environmental Policy, and a minor in
Planning and Environmental Assessment, from the School of Public Policy in
the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. The Association for Public
Policy Analysis and Management awarded him the best doctoral dissertation
for 2004-2005. He has extensive experience working with national and
international governmental agencies and civic organizations in the areas
of energy, environment and development. Most noticeably, he worked with
Government of Pakistan’s Federal Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs
for about 5 years (1993-97 and 1999-2000), negotiating and administering
bilateral development assistance projects funded by USA, Germany,
Australia and New Zealand in Pakistan. He has published research in
Transportation Energy and Environment, Public Policy, Environmental
Planning, Meteorology/Climatology and International Development. His
research interests include alternative energy sources, adaptation and
mitigation to climate change, environmental policy, decision and policy
analysis, international development, risk and disaster management,
forecasting and simulation models, risk communication, adaptive
management, spatial econometric.
Dudley Burton,
PHD
is an environmental scientist and engineer, and Chair of the Environmental
Studies Department at California State University, Sacramento. He started
working on energy technology and policy issues in the 1970’s, and he has
current projects in alternative electricity production, power quality,
energy conservation, and “biological agriculture”—the integration of
high-tech and “organic” strategies for food and fuel. He is particularly
interested in Jatropha as a globally significant bio-fuel that avoids the
food-fuel conflict.
Dr. Burton
earned an MA at the University of Pittsburgh and an MS in theoretical
physics at the University of Maryland, followed by his PhD from the
University of California, Berkeley.
Aslam M.
Ali, PhD
is
currently the President of Yakima Filters, Inc., USA and Managing Director
of Yakima Filters Private Limited, Bangalore, India. Dr. Ali is a
recognized International expert in the field of charcoal and activated
carbon. He has published over 40 papers in this field. Dr. Ali is
responsible for designing, engineering and implementing large scale
charcoal plants in India and its neighboring countries, along with
activated carbon plants in Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and South
Korea. He has licensed his Technology in the USA.
Dr. Ali has
developed one stage process for the manufacture of activated carbon
starting from any carbonaceous material. Dr. Ali has designed charcoal
plants based on Horizontal Retorts, Vertical Retorts and Rotary Kilns.
All these designs plants have the capabilities to recover the bye-products
from carbonaceous material. Dr. Ali is the inventor of patents related to
water treatment technologies using nano-silver impregnated activated
carbon.
Dr. Ali,
prior to joining the Yakima India & Yakima USA, served from June 2001 to
date as Product Specialist, North America Sales, at Mentor Graphics
Corporation, a world leader in electronic hardware and software design
solutions; He served from April 2000 to May 2001 as a Senior Manager
Arcadia Design Systems, Inc., a high performance data path CPU design
services and an EDA company; Dr. Ali served from Oct 1997 to Mar 2000 as
an individual contributor at Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in EDA
industry where he was responsible for leading one of the largest project
which he completed 3 months ahead of schedule; He served from Dec 1996 to
Oct 1997 as a Senior CAE (sales/marketing) Ikos Systems, Inc. an EDA
company; Dr. Ali held the position of President & Chief Executive Officer
of Bathul International, Inc. from Nov 1993 to Nov 1996. Bathul
International, Inc. had partnership/affiliations with Burns & McDonnell,
FMC Corporation, ABB, etc,; Dr. Ali served from Jan 1992 to Oct 1993 as
Vice President of Yellowstone Environmental Services, Inc., a Technology &
Environmental Services company, he also served from Jun 1989 to Jan 1992
as Vice President of Texcel International, Inc., a leading U.S. technology
& environmental company.
Dr. Ali is an
American Citizen and possesses degrees in Electronics, Communication
Engineering and Chemical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. for his work
on Activated Carbon from Oregon State University. He received an MBA. from
San Jose State University. Dr. Ali also received Masters’ Degrees from
Indian Institute Technology, India & IHE, Delft, The Netherlands. Dr. Ali
received Bachelor’s degree in Physics & Chemistry from Bangalore
University, India and Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from
Mysore University, India.
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