FEW Panel Descriptions

	Track 1: Production and Operations			Track 2: Leadership and Financial Management
	Track 3: Coproducts and Product Diversification			Track 4: Infrastructure and Market Development

Track 1: Production and Operations

Dialing It In: Building a Best-In-Class Yeast Health and Propagation Plan at Your Plant
Savvy producers understand that optimized fermentation hinges upon their ability to simultaneously generate high mass yeasts cultures and reduce the lag phase of their propagated population. This panel will offer lab managers insight on the variables they can impact that reduce overall stressors and create an environment where yeast populations can flourish and get to work in the fermenters as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Moderator: Maha Dakar, Senior R&D Process Engineer, KATZEN International Inc.Considerations for Bacterial Control in an Era of Increased Regulation and Tightening Margins
The control of bacterial infections has been a reality in the industry since it began. The means of controlling these outbreaks continues to evolve as the industry continues to both drive down the overall cost of control and respond to a changing regulatory environment. Looking at the broadening range of options available to them, this panel will provide producers an opportunity to consider new approaches in antibiotic programs as well as non-antibiotic alternatives, all with an eye on overall cost and regulatory compliance.

Moderator: Dennis Bayrock, R&D Director, Phibro Ethanol Performance Group A Close Look at the Bottom Line Implications of Deploying Best-in-Class Ethanol Plant Cleaning Practices
The efficiency of stillage evaporators has a direct correlation to overall plant profitability and a failure to maintain high levels of throughput in this production step leads to decreased revenue opportunities and increased costs. This panel will explore not only current evolutions in CIP technologies but also a technique available to producers to better determine the efficacy of their cleaning program and identify areas where improvements could be made.

Moderator:Steve Rust, Director of Industry Relations, Phibro Ethanol Performance Group A Data Driven Lab: The Undeniable Benefit of Building a Culture of Information-based Decision Making at Your Plant
An industry wide recognition of the value of data capture at ethanol production facilities has producers wading through a veritable sea of information across all areas of their operation. The new frontier in plant data programs is streamlining the process by which producers decide what data to look at and how to effectively interpret what they see. Presenters in the panel will offer producers ideas on both third-party data management solutions and in-house programs that can unlock the potential in the ocean of information flowing by producers on a daily basis.

Moderator: Darlene Gonzalez, Regional Sales Manager, Lallemand Biofuels & Distilled SpiritsProactive Measures for Producers Confronting Aging Facilities with Vital Components Nearing the End of their Service Lives
With a good portion of the ethanol fleet now a decade old or more, producers are increasingly having to confront aging pipes, vessel and components. For many components, testing the mechanical integrity is required by OSHA and the EPA. Presenters in this panel will help producers better understand their compliance obligations, but will go further and highlight how to strategically approach plant aging with an eye on controlling the rate of degradation, available methods of vessel inspection and dealing with component obsolescence.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine Ensuring Your Plant’s Water Program Keeps Pace in an Environment of Increased Risks and Regulatory Requirements
The pressure on ethanol producers with regards to their water use and re-use program continues to increase and these pressures emanate from many different fronts. This panel will help producers trying to balance the demands on their operation’s water program introduced by the Food Safety Modernization Act, new phosphorous discharge limits and emerging risks like Legionnaire’s disease.

Moderator: Susanne Retka Schill, Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine Building a Fermentation Strategy for Your Plant’s Unique Operating Conditions, Desired Outcomes and Financial Goals
An era of tight to extremely tight profit margins continues to drive producers to reduce their investment on expensive inputs, but many producers have gone too far and watched yields erode when they’ve unwittingly gone past a hard to identify tipping point. This panel will offer producers strategies to more effectively find that production sweet spot where plant yields are maintained with the lowest overall production costs.

Moderator: Maha Dakar, Senior R&D Process Engineer, KATZEN International Inc.Unit Process Innovations that Help Ethanol Producers Decrease Carbon Intensity While Simultaneously Increasing Plant Efficiency and Profitability
Introducing technologies that can increase yields by even a fraction of a percentage point can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in new revenues for producers. The same can be said of a technologies that reduce overall energy consumption even nominally. This reality has created a fertile environment for continued innovation all along the ethanol production process. This panel features presentations on innovations in slurry tanks, water separation and emissions control approaches with a dual promise of increased revenues and reduced cost.

Moderator: Jacek Chmielewski, Prinicipal, BioMass Solution

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Track 2: Leadership and Financial Management

Bringing the RIN Market into Clearer Focus While Deploying Strategies to Maximize its Financial Impact
This panel will examine the RIN environment from a number of different angles. The first presentation will answer the question of whether or not QAP-certified RINs garner a premium for producers. Additional presentations include strategies for considering an investment to generate D3 RINs and a discussion about a potential RIN shortfall toward the end of 2016 and what it may mean for the industry.

Moderator: Jeff Kistner, President, Flag Leaf Financial Management Inc. It’s the Margin that Matters: Positioning Your Plant for the Best Possible Financial Results
Loaded with some of the leading financial analysts in the business this panel is a must for board members and management teams hoping to improve plant profitability in today’s lean margin environment. The discussion will begin with an overview of commodities markets and hedging strategies and then move into a broader look at the global marketplace producers now find themselves competing in and the impact these conditions are having on the landscape of the fuel ethanol industry.

Moderator: Jamey Cline, Business Development, Christianson & Associates PLLP Equipment and Approaches for Employees Working in Ethanol Plants, Around Rail Cars and Managing Accidental Releases
The first goal of every plant manager is to make sure each employee returns home safely at the end of their shift. Ensuring this happens requires the implementation of a robust plant safety program, a commitment to employee training and an ongoing commitment to deploying the best available safety techniques and equipment. This panel will walk plant teams through operational areas that require extra precautions and the innovation’s available to mitigate their inherent risks.

Moderator: Steve Schleicher, Vice President, Pinnacle EngineeringUsing Well-Considered and Strategic Capital Planning to Manage Risk, Project Financial Performance and Maintain Company Liquidity
This panel will event ethanol plant teams to lift their gaze beyond the financial realities their plants face this quarter or this year and instead to begin thinking in terms of multiple years into the future. Presentations wills illustrate how this approach will offer producers a platform to simultaneously consider and plan for the retiring of debt, the issuance of dividends and the investments vital to maintaining the asset.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Ethanol Producer MagazineDidn’t See that Coming: Best Practices for Being Ready for Unforeseen Weather Events, Inspections, Legal Events and other Uncommon Occurrences
Presentations in this panel will provide ethanol plant management teams with an opportunity to consider untimely events that while rare, can be costly. This panel will outline prudent risk management strategies for those events that are difficult or impossible to forecast or that are often overlooked. In the spirit of awareness and training being the best means of minimizing adverse outcomes, management teams would do well to attend this comprehensive session.

Moderator: Jessica Karras-Bailey, Principal, RTP Environmental Associates Inc. Using Plant Data to Gain Line of Sight on Your Operational Efficiency and Where You Stand in an Increasingly Competitive Marketplace
Maximizing the profit potential of an operating ethanol plant requires constant vigilance, disciplined management and well-considered financial strategies. This panel will provide plant teams thoughts on the metrics they should be watching closely and the value in comparing their results to their industry peers. Finally, analysis will be shared that will highlight some of the operational indicators that are a hallmark of the industry’s top financial performers.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Ethanol Producer MagazineHow to Build your Very Own Dream Team and Grow it into Your Operation’s Most Valuable Asset
Plant management teams know that achieving operational and financial goals at their facilities requires buy-in from a motivated and effective team. This panel will outline strategies for attracting quality employees, getting them trained up and retaining them as their overall value to the operation increases. Special attention will be given to the means by which human resources teams can build and maintain a funnel of qualified individuals so that when inevitable staff turnover occurs, they aren’t starting from scratch.

Moderator: Renee Loesche, Director-BIB Curriculum & Training, Southeastern Illinois College-BioFuels Technology

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Track 3: Coproducts and Product Diversification

How to Meet This September’s Food Safety Modernization Act Compliance Deadline with Ease
The Food Safety Modernization Act rule was finalized in the fall of 2015 and many producers have compliance deadlines this calendar year. This panel is a must for at least one representative from each producing facility. Presenters will share with attendees what the rule means for their facility and best practices for compliance including the preparation of required food safety plans, the performance of hazard analysis, the development of a recall plan and much more.

Moderator: Susanne Retka Schill, Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine

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Improving Crush Margins by Increasing the Value of Individual Components within Your Plants Distiller’s Grains Streams
The economic importance of distiller’s grains revenues cannot be overstated. Still, innovation around this important co-product continues and its developers insist there is more value available. Presentations in this panel will examine new pathways to this increased value and showcase how distiller’s grains is evolving into an ever higher value feed product finding new market opportunities in markets where DDGs has struggled to make inroads including poultry, aquaculture and even companion pets.

Moderator: Eric Sumner, New Business Development, DSMGreater Than the Sum of Its Parts: Production Approaches that Enable Producers to Capture Maximum Value from Inbound Corn
Once proven, the uptake of corn oil extraction technologies swept across the industry as producers readily embraced their revenue generation potential. This co-product opportunity continues to evolve and this panel will provide producers with a snapshot of the technologies available to not only maximize their corn oil program, but also to position their facility for process steps beyond simple extraction to include fiber separation in anticipation of the fermentation of these streams to cellulosic ethanol.

Moderator: Kathy Reidinger, Co-Products Market and Regulatory Manager, Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLCInvestigating the Ongoing Efforts to Develop Anaerobic Digestion Technologies that Add Real Revenue to Ethanol Plant Balance Sheets
Anaerobic digestion continues to attract research attention within the ethanol production supply chain, but thus far has not been widely deployed. Still, thin stillage streams with abundant digestible solids are a reality within plants and efforts to perfect a system that can be deployed at ethanol plant’s without diminishing the value of these streams continue. This panel will bring producers up to speed on the progress to engineer a digestion platform optimized for ethanol plants.

Moderator: Ann Bailey, Staff Writer, Ethanol Producer Magazine

Track 4: Infrastructure and Market Development

Growing Beyond the RFS: Creating New Demand for Ethanol by Meeting Health, Fuel Economy, GHG, and Performance Standards
There is a growing initiative within the ethanol industry to leverage ethanol’s ability to deliver non-toxic octane as a means to unlock more market share. This panel will illustrate how the continued push for more efficient vehicles, reduced emissions and higher air quality present a real opportunity for the ethanol industry to capture market share and deliver even more societal value.

Moderator: Doug Durante, Executive Director, Clean Fuels Development CoalitionAn Update on Critical Fuel Quality, Regulatory and ASTM Specification Developments and How They Impact Market Access for Ethanol Producers
The road to market access is dotted with regulatory and fuel specification entanglements that must be addressed before the promise of expanded opportunities are realized. 2016 and 2017 are shaping up to be critical years for the industry as it works to grow the E15 market without necessitating major changes to ASTM specifications, manages new FTC labeling laws and prepares for EPA’s Tier 3 sulfur requirements. Attendees will be brought up to speed on how the industry is preparing to reduce the drag on market expansion presented by these new requirements.

Moderator: Kristy Moore, Principal Scientist, KMoore Consulting LLC Risk and Reward: Understanding Ethanol’s Place in the Global Marketplace and How It Impacts Your Operation
As gasoline consumption in the United States continues to wane and the growth of mid-level blends lags behind industry hopes, export markets are more frequently identified as the industry’s best opportunity for near term growth. This panel will look at export volume trends and how they provide profit opportunities for today’s producers. An exploration of Brazilian production and its place in the global ethanol market will also be included.

Moderator: Monte Shaw, Executive Director, Iowa Renewable Fuels AssociationOur Next Step: The Critical Importance of Maintaining Hard Earned Momentum in Building a Market for E15 and Mid-Level Blends
For the full marketplace promise of the Renewable Fuel Standard to be realized, ethanol usage must push well beyond the current inclusion rate of roughly 10%. Industry patience is beginning to wane and different approaches to this same end are being forwarded and championed. This panel will look at both the stepwise strategy offered by E15 as well as the varying approaches to growing the market for mid-level blends.

Moderator: Kelly Manning, Vice President of Development, Growth EnergyHow an Active Carbon Reduction Program Can Deliver Real Marketplace Advantage for Savvy Producers
While the industry continues its efforts to unlock market access via E15 and mid-level blends, more and more producers are eyeing California’s existing Low Carbon Fuel Standards as a here and now opportunity to sell increased volumes. This panel will offer producers a look at a number of different pathways to drive down their plant’s carbon intensity thereby qualifying their gallons for this promising market. Additionally, the correlation between low carbon production and lower energy costs will be explored.

Moderator: Ed Erminger, Sales Engineer, Somes-Nick & Company

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