South Dakota Trade navigates international trade for South Dakota. The association — a 501c(6) public-private partnership — administers South Dakota’s STEP Grant program, conducts export education, facilitates trade missions, and offers free and confidential consulting services to South Dakotan companies.

My focus is on new product development in the fermented plant-based protein market. I lead our engineering team, working on expanding our current manufacturing space and lead efforts to explore how different plant materials perform with our patented fermentation process. Some of our more exciting research projects are evaluating how new technologies can impact efficiencies and end product performance, and deriving high-value products from our fermentation co-products.

I have been involved in numerous biofuels plant startups including corn and cellulosic ethanol, corn oil recovery and wood pellets in the US and Europe.

I was in charge of the complete retrofit on an ethanol plant that was bought out of bankruptcy. The plant was a 14 MGY nameplate plant and under my guidance was running at 27 MGY with the shortest fermentatin time in the industry.

Shift leader for a 40 MGY ICM designed ethanol plant.Assisted with the end of construction and the startup of the plant.

Shift lead of a new 25 MGY ethanol plant.Assisted with the end of construction and start up of the plant.