Wednesday March 18th
12:00-5:00pm REGISTRATION OPEN
2:00pm ABLC Leadership Summit: Global Agriculture & Supply Chain Summit
This session examines how global feedstock systems are evolving to support scale—covering advanced crops, residues, land use, economics, and logistics. Leaders discuss what it takes to build resilient, financeable agricultural supply chains for fuels, chemicals, and materials.
Jordan Solomon, CEO, Ecostrat
William Kusch, Director of Product & Processing, TerViva
Greg Jaffe, CEO, Jaffe Consulting
J.R. Claeys, Administrator, Rural Business Cooperative Service, USDA
Moderator: Gerard Ostheimer, CEO, Molecule Group
3:00pm ABLC Leadership Summit: BioMADE Summit
Hon. Todd Young, Senator, United States Senate
Hon. Joe Jewell, Assistant Secretary of War for Science & Technology, Department of War
Moderator: Doug Friedman, CEO, BioMADE
3:45pm ABLC Leadership Summit: National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology
Caitlin Frazer, Executive Director, National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
5:00pm ABLC Leadership Summit: The Path to SAF at Scale
Brentan Alexander, CEO, Roebling
Andy Billig, Senior Advisor, SkyNRG Americas
Sarah Boisvert, Senior Consultant, Poten & Partners
Siegfried Knecht, Chairman, aireg
Chris Cooper, CEO & Executive Director, XCF Global
Moderator: Lonnie Rosenwald, Partner, Zuber Lawler LLP
5:45pm ABLC Leadership Summit: FOAK Survival and Networking Like Crazy
This session introduces a new practical toolkit for First-of-a-Kind survival — a way to design projects that remain financeable, buildable, and operable under real-world uncertainty.
How to diagnose cliff risk vs. slope risk — why FOAK failure is usually participation collapse, not price movement. Spot weak coupling early — where buyers, lenders, and policy are aligned on paper but not built to stay aligned under stress. Audit commitments for durability — distinguishing reputational promises from structural ones. Design repairable deal structures — clauses and mechanisms that trigger adjustment instead of cancellation when conditions shift. Engineer coordinated timing — staged commitments and synchronization tools that prevent hesitation cascades.
Traditional techno-economic analysis assumes markets already hold together. FOAK reality is different: when uncertainty rises past a threshold, participation can vanish and a strong IRR becomes unfinanceable overnight. This ABLC session introduces the missing design layer — Persistence Engineering (Ψ) — the degree to which stakeholders remain coupled through volatility and doubt. And the session is followed by structured introductions for every delegate attending as each delegates begins their week of Networking Like Crazy.
Tad Dritz, Bioconversion & Hydrogen Advisor, Ariel Green
Steve Weiss, President, Grey Heron Consulting
Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
Thursday March 19th
7:00am REGISTRATION OPEN
7:30-8:00am COFFEE & PASTRIES
8:00am The Bioeconomy Policy Forum
This is a pivotal year for the bioeconomy — not because of a single breakthrough technology, but because policy choices now underway will determine which fuels scale, which projects finance, and where capital flows for the next decade. E15 expansion isn’t just a retail fuel story — it’s about unlocking domestic demand for low-carbon liquid fuels at scale, stabilizing agricultural markets, and delivering emissions reductions that can deploy faster than most infrastructure-heavy solutions.
Renewable Fuel Standard volume obligations (RVOs) will set the tempo for production, blending economics, and investment confidence. Signal strength here shapes plant utilization, credit markets, feedstock pricing, and expansion decisions across the sector. The 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit is redefining project math. Its carbon-intensity design means tax policy now directly influences technology pathways, feedstocks, process design, and lifecycle accounting — turning carbon modeling into a core engineering and finance variable. State Low Carbon Fuel Standards are expanding, creating regional demand pull and layering new compliance markets onto federal systems. Their interaction with federal tax credits and voluntary carbon markets is reshaping how carbon value is priced, stacked, and financed.
Add Farm Bill Energy Title tools like 9003 loan guarantees, faster ASTM approvals for new fuels, local incentive packages, and long-awaited permitting reform — and deployment timelines can accelerate or stall based on regulatory design as much as technical readiness. Global forces add another layer. CORSIA and corporate net-zero procurement are shaping international demand, while tariffs and geopolitical tension affect feedstock flows, equipment supply chains, and the balance between domestic buildout and global trade.
None of these policies acts alone. Together they form an interdependent system that governs risk, return, capacity, and scale across fuels, chemicals, and materials. A permitting reform can unlock steel in the ground — but it also expands capacity that stabilizes markets for producers simply adding a shift. An LCFS change alters credit values that ripple into tax credit effectiveness. RVO levels influence feedstock economics that affect SAF, renewable chemicals, and power projects alike. Understanding these linkages is now as important as understanding any single program. This forum examines how the policy stack behaves as a whole — and how today’s decisions will shape the speed, geography, and economics of the advanced bioeconomy.
Michael McAdams, President, Advanced Biofuels Association
Linda Schmid, CEO, Coalition on Carbon, Trade, and Technology (C2T2)
Robin Vercruse, Executive Director, Low Carbon Fuels Coalition
Gerard Ostheimer, CEO, Molecule Group
Greg Jaffe, CEO, Jaffe Consulting
Kimball Chen, Chairman, BioLPG LLC
Graham Noyes, Managing Attorney, Noyes Law Corporation
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
9:00am ABLC Leadership Summit: Sustainable Aviation Fuels Summit
This summit examines the rapid evolution of sustainable aviation fuels, from emerging pathways and feedstocks to project development, airline demand, and capital formation. Industry leaders discuss what it will take to scale SAF globally—technically, financially, and commercially—while navigating policy, infrastructure, and long-term offtake requirements.
Pavel Molchanov, Vice President, Raymond James
Jennifer Holmgren, CEO, LanzaTech
Mike McCurdy, Managing Director, ICF
Jim Spaeth, Managing Director, Aerovovida Bio
Moderator: Steve Csonka, Executive Director, CAAFI
10:15am Coffee Break & Industry Networking
10:45am THE WILLIAM C. HOLMBERG AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Presenters: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest and previous Holmberg Award recipients
11:10am ABLC Addresses
This plenary session brings together top-level and deeply experienced leaders offering strategic perspectives across technology, policy, and project development. Speakers address the state of the bioeconomy, near-term opportunities, and long-range challenges—connecting innovation, infrastructure, and investment into a coherent view of what comes next, and lessons learned.
Pat Gruber, CEO, Gevo
Matthew Clingerman, Global Head of Licensing Technology Development. Sulzer Chemtech
Milica Folic, Product Line Director, Topsoe
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
11:55am The Finance & Investment Summit
This session brings capital providers and risk experts together to examine how bioeconomy projects are financed in today’s market. Topics include risk mitigation, public finance, tax equity, debt structures, insurance, and investor expectations—offering a candid look at what makes projects bankable and where capital is flowing next.
Krista Sutton, Principal Process Engineer, New Energy Risk
Joseph Abramson, Executive Director, Public Finance Investment Banking, Morgan Stanley
David Livingstone, Managing Director, Public Finance Department, Barclays Capital
Mark Glotfelty, Managing Director, RBC Markets LLC
Kenneth Hill, Managing Director, BioCarbon Strategies
Moderators: Mark Riedy, Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson LLP and Christopher Berendt, Partner, Faegre Drinker
12:55pm Lunch & Industry Networking
1:55pm The Propane Opportunity Summit
Renewable propane is an intermediate product of the HEFA process used to produce renewable diesel and SAF. This session will examine the strong economic value proposition of renewable propane extraction and related commerce. A study by the National Laboratory of the Rockies shows economic benefits to biorefineries of selling renewable propane into the market rather than using it for internal process heating. Leaders will discuss the study, explore on-purpose renewable propane production, and highlight the significant demand for renewable propane across the United States.
Tucker Perkins, President and CEO, Propane Education & Research Council
Dr. Robert M. Baldwin, Principal Scientist, National Laboratory of the Rockies
Dr. Hamed Heidari, Founder, CEO, C+UP
Stuart Weidie, President & CEO, Blossman Gas
Moderator: Dr. Sai Satish Guda, Manager, Research and Development, Propane Education & Research Council
3:00pm Coffee Break & Industry Networking
3:30pm TRACK A BioMADE Summit: Crossing the Bioindustrial Valley of Death: De-Risking Investment, IP, and Scale-Up from MRL 4-7
This session focuses on the leadership challenges of translating successful prototypes into commercial reality — the phase BioMADE defines as the “Valley of Death.” The discussion centers on how smart capital, predictive tools, and IP strategy are converging to reduce risk and accelerate scale-up.
Key Topics
• De-Risking Capital: Infrastructure investment strategies that shorten time-to-market and unlock new business model
• Predicting Performance: Data collection, recovery roadmapping, and modeling to improve scale-up confidence
• Technology Protection & Transition: IP, trade secrets, and market readiness during the move to production partners
• Commercial Case Studies: Lessons from performance textiles, aviation fuels, bioplastics, and other scaled products
Melik Demirel, Co-Founder, Tandem Repeat
Andy Logan, Chief Manufacturing Officer, Superbrewed Food
Joe Shaw, Senior VP of R&D, Manus
Moderator: Steve Evans, Senior Technical Fellow, BioMADE
3:30pm TRACK B Renewable Natural Gas and Biogas Summit
The Advanced Agriculture, Supply Chain & Locations Summit focuses on building durable, scalable feedstock systems for the bioeconomy—from seed traits, energy crops, and residue logistics to regional biomass availability, infrastructure, and site development. The summit brings together growers, technology developers, economic development groups, and project developers to align agriculture, supply chains, and locations that can support bankable projects at commercial scale. Why this matters now: Feedstock cost, reliability, and location readiness are the gating factors for scale. Projects succeed or fail upstream—long before financing, offtake, or technology choices are finalized.
Dr Andreas Kohl, Head of Specialty Chemicals and Catalysts, Verbio SE
Steve Wirtel, VP, Business Development, Gross-Wen Technologies
Joelle Simonpietri, CEO, Aloha Carbon
Fred Petok, CEO, Constellation Energy Advisors
Moderator: Joel Stone, President, Climate Systems Solutions, ConVergInce Advisers
3:30pm TRACK C Hot Technologies Summit
This session highlights breakthrough technologies reshaping fuels, chemicals, and industrial decarbonization. Executives present emerging conversion pathways, novel chemistries, and enabling infrastructure—focusing on what differentiates winning technologies, how they scale, and where real commercial traction is beginning to appear.
Todd Brix, CEO, OCOChem
John Murphy, CEO, Castlerock Biofuels
Mohammed Ali Eslami, Chief Scientist, Netrias
Moderator: David Dodds, President, Dodds & Associates
4:30pm TRACK A BioMADE SUMMIT: Building a Domestic Bioindustrial Ecosystem: Supply Chains, Cost Reduction, and Manufacturing Innovation
This session addresses BioMADE’s vision of a sustainable, end-to-end domestic bioindustrial ecosystem. Leadership discussion will focus on material accumulation, cost efficiency, resilient supply chains, and decentralized manufacturing strategies.
Key Topics
• Cost Reduction & Throughput: Equipment design, sensors, and continuous processing for faster scale
• Domestic Supply Chain Security: Vaccine manufacturing, critical materials, and strategic commodities
• Circular & Waste-to-Value Models: Upcycling agricultural, food, and industrial waste into high-value intermediates
• Decentralized Manufacturing: Modular and distributed production approaches that enhance U.S. competitiveness
Sunil Chandra, CTO, Amyris
Sarah Glaven, Visiting Fellow, Princeton University; former Principal Assistant Director for Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Molly Morse, CEO, Mango Materials
Moderator: Chad Pastor, Sr. Manufacturing Development Lead, BioMADE
4:30pm TRACK B Hot Technologies Summit
This session spotlights next-generation technologies addressing core bioeconomy bottlenecks, from feedstock processing to conversion efficiency. The focus is on innovations with clear commercial intent—what problem they solve, how they integrate into existing systems, and what’s required to scale them into operating projects.
Michael Cruse, CEO, BargerTech
Paul Peterson, Senior Vice-President, Visolis
Eric van der Meer, CEO, DAB Bio
Ian Klein, CEO, Spero Renewables
Moderator: Doug Rivers, Project Director, LEC Partners
4:30pm TRACK C The Race for Scale
This session explores how companies move from pilot to first-of-a-kind and beyond. Leaders discuss scaling strategies, capital intensity, infrastructure integration, and market alignment—examining why some technologies break through while others stall, and what it truly takes to reach meaningful commercial scale.
Dave Rubenstein, CEO, California Ethanol + Power
Tony Delgado, Vice President, Energy, Manufacturing, Bioprocessing, Merrick & Co.
George Rose, CEO, Rise Reforming
Isabel Puig, Corporate Strategist & Compliances & Marketing Expert, Ecolomondo Corporation
Moderator: Nafisa Lohawala, Fellow, Resources for the Future
5:30pm TRACK A Hot Strategies Summit
Rick Gilmore, President & CEO, GIC Group/ CPC Inset
Tom Treynor, CEO, R2DIO
Trevor Best, Co-Founder & CEO, Syzygy Plasmonics
Moderator: JD Creedon, Managing Director, LEC Partners
5:30pm TRACK B Biofuel Demand in the Maritime Industry
This session examines the growing role of biofuels in maritime decarbonization. Discussion will cover fuel standards, vessel compatibility, port infrastructure, lifecycle carbon accounting, and near-term demand signals—highlighting where shipping operators, regulators, and fuel suppliers see practical pathways to deployment.
Jeff Wasil, Vice President, Environmental Compliance & Marine Technology, National Marine Manufacturers Association
David Hume, Maritime Advisor, Pacific Northwest National Lab
Timothy J. Urban, Senior Principal, Bracewell LLP
Moderator: Doug Faulkner, President, Leatherstocking LLC
5:30pm TRACK C Wolfpack Technology Summit
In this session, the ABLC Due Diligence Wolfpack examines major bioeconomy technologies of their choosing, offering candid point-counterpoint analysis on what works, what doesn’t, and why. Drawing on deep technical, commercial, and market experience, the Wolfpack highlights risks, assumptions, and real-world constraints often missed in headline narratives.
Paul Bryan, Principal, BioCurious
Dave Collings, Group Manager, Worley Consulting
David Dodds, President, Dodds & Associates
James Iademarco, President, Strategic Avalanche
Sam Nejame, Principal, Promotum
Henna Poikolainen, Director, Head of Renewable Fuels & Chemicals, AFRY
Steve Slome, Principal, NexantECA
Joel Stone, President, ConVergInce Advisers
Steve Weiss, President, Grey Heron Consulting
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
6:15pm An Evening with Michael McAdams, President, Advanced Biofuels Association
Celebrating in reception-style the career and achievements of the founder of the Advanced Biofuels Association (and Holmberg Lifetime Achievement Award Winner) and celebrating the ABFA’s achievements and its membership
Friday March 20th
7:00am REGISTRATION OPEN
7:30-8:00am COFFEE & PASTRIES
8:00am Sustainable Futures Summit
This summit examines how companies are translating sustainability commitments into operating businesses. Leaders discuss feedstocks, conversion pathways, capital discipline, and market alignment—focusing on what it takes to build durable, scalable bioeconomy companies that can perform through policy shifts, commodity cycles, and evolving customer demand.
Eric McAfee, CEO, Aemetis
Rebecca Boudreaux, CEO, Oberon Fuels
Gerhard Muggen, Managing Director, BTG Bioliquids
Rashi Akki, CEO, Ag-Grid Energy
David Sudolsky, CEO, Anellotech
Tim Zenk, Managing Director, Earth Finance
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
9:15am Industry Horizons Summit
This session looks ahead at the next wave of bioeconomy platforms—from synthetic biology and biomanufacturing to advanced conversion systems. Executives explore emerging business models, technology inflection points, and commercialization pathways shaping where the industry is heading over the next decade.
Kathy Fortmann, CEO, Amyris
Hendrik Waegeman, Head of Business Operations, Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant
Cem Özsüer, CEO, SynPet Technologies
Brian Foody, CEO, Iogen
Cliff Keeler, Vice President of Business Development, SunGas Renewables
Moderator: Tim Zenk, Managing Director, Earth Finance
10:30am Coffee Break & Industry Networking
11:00am ABLC Plenary Addresses
This plenary session brings together senior leaders offering strategic perspectives across technology, policy, and project development. Speakers address the state of the bioeconomy, near-term opportunities, and long-range challenges—connecting innovation, infrastructure, and investment into a coherent view of what comes next.
Jeffrey O’Hara, Deputy Director, Office of Energy Policy & Environmental Policy, USDA
Gerard Ostheimer, CEO, Molecule Group
Gillian Harrison, CEO, Whitefox Technology
Moderator: James Iademarco, President, Strategic Avalanche
11:55am ABLC Plenary Addresses
This plenary session brings together senior leaders offering strategic perspectives across technology, policy, and project development. Speakers address the state of the bioeconomy, near-term opportunities, and long-range challenges—connecting innovation, infrastructure, and investment into a coherent view of what comes next.
Poormina Sharma, President, GreenBridge LLC
Mark Niederschulte, CEO, Jupeng Bio
James Dickerson, Director, ASCET (ASTM)
Nereo Rodriguez, Senior Sales Manager Licensing Biopolymers, Sulzer Chemtech
Moderator: Dave Collings, Group Manager, Worley Consulting
1:00pm Lunch & Industry Networking
2:00pm Regulatory Divergence: Bridging the Gap Between EU Compliance and U.S. Innovation
As the bioeconomy moves from development to global deployment, the legal and regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly complex. While the U.S. continues to leverage production-based tax credits (45Z/40B) and state-level LCFS programs to drive domestic growth, international bodies are leaning into mandatory blending targets and carbon intensity caps through frameworks like the EU’s RED III/FuelEU Maritime and the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework.
This panel explores the critical differences between these regional and global legal structures—specifically focusing on the interplay between CORSIA’s aviation offsets, the IMO’s emerging marine fuel standards, and the EU’s stringent sustainability criteria. Our experts will discuss the practical implications of these diverging paths on project finance, offtake certainty, and the global flow of sustainable feedstocks. Join us as we dissect whether these frameworks are moving toward harmonization or if “regulatory arbitrage” will define the next decade of biofuel investment.
Geoffrey Dietz, Senior Director, Federal Government Affairs, RNG Coalition
Alicia Koch, Director of Global Ethanol Export Development, U.S. Grains & BioProducts Council
Joshua Wilson, Senior Regulatory Counsel, POET
Moderator: Shailesh Sahay, Partner, Bracewell LLP
3:00pm Coffee Break & Industry Networking
3:30pm ABLC Due Diligence Wolfpack
This session applies the Wolfpack’s due-diligence lens to specific companies, using publicly available information to assess technologies, business models, scalability, and risk. The discussion is practical, unscripted, and analytical—designed to surface strengths, challenges, and unanswered questions critical to investors, partners, and project developers.
The Wolfpack:
Paul Bryan, Principal, BioCurious
Dave Collings, Group Manager, Worley Consulting
David Dodds, President, Dodds & Associates
James Iademarco, President, Strategic Avalanche
Sam Nejame, Principal, Promotum
Henna Poikolainen, Director, Head of Renewable Fuels & Chemicals, AFRY
Steve Slome, Principal, NexantECA
Joel Stone, President, ConVergInce Advisers
Steve Weiss, President, Grey Heron Consulting
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest
5:00pm ABLC Closing Remarks
Moderator: Jim Lane, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Digest