Leadership

James A. Mennell has over 30 years of experience in the energy, metallics, bio-products, and environmental products sectors working for or advising major industry participants ranging from start-ups to large public and private companies including Cargill, Koch Industries, POET, 3M and GE. He has founded, led, and grown bio-based product, energy and environmental companies from concept through investment and growth to sale or partnerships with publicly traded multinational companies and has helped develop billions of dollars of capital projects across North America. Mennell’s experience includes serving as President of the bio-based products unit of Cliffs Natural Resources, founding and leading The Environmental Law Group, and investing and serving on the board of directors of biofuels, bio-based products, software, and wind and solar energy companies. Mennell holds over 100 patents regarding bioproduct and process technologies. Mennell graduated as University Scholar (highest honor) from the University of South Dakota and received his Juris Doctor (with honors) and Master’s degrees from Duke University.

Douglas Rohall has over 30 years of experience as an executive, investor, advisor, and/or board member working closely with senior management of dozens of high technology and industrial companies to accelerate growth, improve profitability, and increase shareholder returns. He’s funded numerous companies as a private equity investor, including serving as a Venture Partner at Ampersand Capital, as a founder and Managing Director of JMH Capital, and as an independent private investor. Prior to his private equity experience, Rohall served as a Global Director and Senior Partner of The Monitor Group, a strategy consulting firm, which he helped launch and grow into a highly profitable, $500 million global enterprise. While at Monitor, he launched a stand-alone business, Monitor Equity Advisors, where he was Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, focused on advising private equity clients on diligence assignments and portfolio company projects. Earlier in his career, he was Corporate Vice President at Nextel Communications during its launch and initial rapid growth, which was eventually taken public at a multi-billion-dollar valuation, and which was subsequently sold to Sprint for $13.5 billion.  Rohall earned a B.S. summa cum laude in Electrical Engineering and B.S. summa cum laude in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a J.D. from the Yale Law School (where he served as an Editor of the Yale Law Review), and an MBA (with honors) from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Jean-Michel Malek has over 40 years of experience practicing law both in private practice and in-house, including serving as General Counsel for multinational companies. Prior to joining Aymium, Malek served as Interim Chief Executive Officer and General Counsel of Erin Energy Corporation, a publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production company listed in New York and Johannesburg, with oil licenses in sub-Saharan Africa. Before that, he served, for nearly twenty years, as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of CAMAC International Corporation, a multinational holding company whose investments and activities included oil and gas exploration and production, engineering and construction, oil field service and supply, transportation, development projects (including energy and real estate), and trading of crude oil, oil products, natural gas and electric power. He also served as General Counsel of Community Health Computing, which provided turnkey information systems to hospitals throughout the United States and Europe. Among his experience in private practice, Malek spent time as a trial lawyer with the Houston firm of Driscoll & Lacey, whose clients included electric utilities, banks and maritime service companies. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston Law Center, where he taught a course on law and development in Africa, and, for five years, served as Honorary Consul of Namibia for the State of Texas. Malek holds a J.D., with honors, from the University of Texas School of Law and has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, with highest honors, from the University of Texas at Austin.

T.G. Jayanth has over 35 years of experience as a global project executive leading organizations in the execution of large industrial projects in the LNG, oil and gas, metals, manufacturing, and other industries. T.G. has been in leadership roles with Owner-Operator and Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) companies, with responsibility for large, global engineering organizations, and for major international projects, including $3B LNG projects. His career includes 4 years as an Expert in Capital Projects with McKinsey’s Capital Projects Practice, helping clients in a variety of industries achieve over 20% annual savings on their Capital Project investments. As V-P of Capital Projects for SunCoke Energy, T.G. built a capital projects organization from the ground up, and successfully completed a portfolio of critical projects for the company. T.G. has also held leadership roles in engineering and capital projects with organizations such as Honeywell, KBR, and Spruce Falls Paper. T.G. is a frequent speaker at conferences on capital projects, and has published articles on construction productivity and capital project management. T.G. has an MBA from Rice University and an engineering degree from the University of Madras, India. He is a registered professional engineer in Texas.

Dr. Daren E. Daugaard has over 20 years of experience in the thermochemical conversion of biomass and 25 years as a practicing mechanical engineer. He was integral to the establishment of pyrolysis projects and programs at Iowa State University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) – Agricultural Research Service (ARS), ConocoPhillips, and Cool Planet Energy Systems. He has worked with a diverse variety of agricultural, forestry, and waste-stream feedstocks in lab, pilot, demonstration, and commercial-scale pyrolysis, gasification, and torrefaction systems. Dr. Daugaard is an expert in pyrolysis reactor design, biomass feeding components, bio-oil collection and clean-up systems, techno-economic analysis (TEA), life cycle assessment (LCA), and mass and energy balance calculations. Dr. Daugaard received his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering with Chemical Engineering emphasis and his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering with Specialization in Thermal and Environmental Engineering from Iowa State University. Dr. Daugaard is a licensed Professional Engineer, holds 14 U.S. patents, and authored 16 refereed publications.

Dr. Edgar Lotero has over 20 years of experience in Energy and Sustainability. He is the author of 36 peer reviewed articles, 52 industrial reports, 2 book chapters, and 21 Patents/Patent applications. In 2001, Edgar obtained a PhD in Chemistry with emphasis in Materials’ Chemistry and Catalysis from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he was a Fulbright scholar. After teaching chemistry for two years at the Universidad del Valle (Colombia) he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Clemson University as a Research Professor. In Clemson, he and his collaborators stablished the basis for the use of solid catalysts in the production of biodiesel. This is now the technology of choice for new plants producing biodiesel at large commercial scale. After his 5 years tenure at Clemson University, Edgar was recruited by ConocoPhillips (later to become Phillips 66) to advance biofuels technologies at their R&D centers in Ponca City and Bartlesville, Oklahoma. During this time, he worked with a great number of technologies for the conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals. These included: fast pyrolysis of agricultural residues for the production of bio-oil and carbon, hydrothermal liquefaction of wood, purification and hydroprocessing of vegetable oils, animal fats, and algae oil for the production of renewable diesel, reforming of bio-oxygenates and bio-olefins to produce aromatic fuels and chemicals. He pioneered new hydrocondensation technologies that used carbohydrate biomass to produce drop-in hydrocarbons for biofuel application. In 2019, Edgar joined Dupont Clean Technologies as their R&D Manager.

Thomas J. Hirt has over 40 years of experience in North American heavy industrial projects in the power, refining, chemical, coal/coke and paper industries. Tom has been in leadership roles with Owner-Operators, Owners Engineer, and Construction companies with total responsibility for cost, schedule, safety, and successful delivery of projects from cradle to grave. His career includes 18 years of senior leadership roles with Sunoco, and SunCoke Energy managing a portfolio of projects including plant turnarounds, major capital projects, ports, and transshipment terminals. As a Director for SunCoke Energy Tom developed a new method for Coke Oven construction reducing overall battery rebuild field times from 6 months to 3 weeks and an overall cost saving of 30% and a contributor to three significant patents. Tom has also held key roles in engineering and capital projects with organizations such as PBF Energy, Matrix Service, Allied Engineering, Orbital Engineers and Sorenson Engineering. Tom is a frequent presenter at conferences on capital projects, and the Project Management Institute. Tom has an undergraduate degree from the University of Nebraska, and a graduate degree from UI and Drexel along with many certifications including a long-time member of PMI.

Erin Heupel has over 30 years of experience in environmental engineering and permitting.  Heupel has served in leadership roles for one of the world’s largest biomass-based ethanol producers, POET. She served as the primary environmental contact and liaison with agencies, industry technical groups and trade associations to develop industry wide strategies to shape and influence both Federal and State activities for the best strategic position for the future growth of ethanol use as a biomass-based transportation fuel.  Heupel has been part of capital project development teams and was responsible for assisting with site selection, determining environmental requirements and permits for construction and operation of over 25 chemical production plants. She served as primary contact for all Federal and State agencies and Local boards and councils to negotiate permit timelines and obtain construction approvals to meet capital project deadlines. She has coordinated with multidiscipline engineering teams to ensure that all project designs and equipment selections met regulatory requirements.  Heupel held positions in a variety of roles within the environmental engineering community and has worked as a consultant on projects in multiple states. She obtained her B.S in Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.  Heupel is a licensed Professional Engineer in South Dakota.

Todd Smrekar has over 35 years of experience in the Forest Products industry in operational leadership roles for major publicly traded forest products companies including Louisiana Pacific and Potlatch Corporation. Smrekar’s experience includes overall plant management, fiber procurement, production oversight, and development and implementation of capital projects. Smrekar has managed operating assets valued at over $450 million with a workforce of over 175 employees. In 10 years leading a major operation for Potlatch, Smrekar established company leading safety and production records while overseeing dozens of capital improvement projects including completion of a $90 million expansion project. In addition to facility leadership for Potlatch and Louisiana Pacific, Smrekar also has worked as a Project Manager in the engineering group at Louisiana Pacific where he oversaw budgets for, and completion of, over 25 capital projects. Smrekar also has held leadership and fiber procurement roles with two new businesses in the forest products industry.

Michael R. Loreman has over 35 years of experience in the energy sector with a focus on coal trading, coal investing/asset management, and environmental products trading. Loreman has started up and run coal and emissions trading desks at Koch Industries, Williams Energy, Citadel Investments, and DTE Energy, where he honed his expertise in logistics, risk management, fuel supply, and market analytics. At Citadel, Loreman started up a carbon emissions trading desk focused on the emerging European carbon market and led Citadel’s investment in the European Carbon Fund; and at DTE, he started up a carbon trading business focused on the US voluntary carbon market. Loreman spent his early career with Shell Mining Company and Zeigler Coal Holding Company in a variety of roles including lead roles in engineering, metals trading, coal marketing, business development, including leading market development efforts for Shell/Zeigler’s ENCOAL coal beneficiation technology. Loreman is a graduate of the University of Idaho with a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering after transferring from Pennsylvania State University.

Dustin Slack has 13+ years of experience in quality control and product development ranging from wood products to iron ore production and activated carbon production for municipal drinking water. At the start of his career he ran quality assurance testing for a large scale densified biomass plant where the product displaced coal in municipal power generation. He transitioned to a quality control and research position with Cleveland-Cliffs where he worked on iron ore balling and sintering additives for product improvement and early stage development of direct reduced iron.  Slack helped Cleveland-Cliff’s Research Lab become ISO 9001 certified by writing ISO compliant procedures for Cleveland-Cliff’s internal test methods. Prior to his current role he managed the laboratory and product development for Aymium.  Slack is a co-inventor on multiple issued and pending patents. He served honorably in the U.S. Military’s 82^nd Airborne Division prior to starting a career in the private sector and has a degree in automation and robotics.

Eric O. Estep has more than 30 years of experience in the field of Logistics and Supply Chain Management. He came to National Carbon Technologies from Dyno Nobel Americas managing the explosives supply chain and distribution activities supporting the North American Mining Industry throughout the United States, Canada, and the Bahamas. Prior to his time with Dyno Nobel,  Estep spent 29 years as a U.S. Army Logistics Officer in various command and staff positions providing logistics support to field and combat operations. His experience includes combat tours as a military logistician in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, two tours with the Department of the Army Staff at the Pentagon, and as the Military Legislative Assistant for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.  Estep graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology with a Master of Science in Logistics Management (with Honors) and holds a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College.