Dr. Fletcher is a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) and a former senior member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories. With more than 30 years of experience in coal research, he is a world expert in pyrolysis of coal and low-grade fuels. Dr. Fletcher has been on the faculty at BYU since 1991 and is currently serving as its Chair. He is also the Director of the Advanced Combustion Engineering Research Center (ACERC), which performs about $2 million in research per year. He received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from BYU.

Mr. Higman is internationally renowned in the gasification industry with an established client base in six continents. In over 25 years at Lurgi AG, he was Project Manager for a number of integrated plants for the production of chemicals, fuels, and power, mostly based on gasification processes, he assumed responsibility for all process design and development efforts in the company’s gas production, treatment and synthesis sector. He graduated from Oxford University, U.K. and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa with degrees in Mathematics (B.A.) and Mechanical Engineering (M.Sc.).

Steve Jenkins has over 40 years experience in the process and power industries, with a specialization in permitting, design, and operation of gasification facilities using coal, pet coke, biomass, biosolids, municipal solid waste and blends, for generating electricity and for producing chemicals, liquid fuels and ammonia-based fertilizers. Mr. Jenkins is currently a principal at Energy & Chemicals Consulting LLC. Prior to this he was VP, Gasification Services at CH2M Hill, Inc. He has conducted feasibility studies for assessing technical and economic capabilities of small and large-scale gasification projects. Jenkins brings WES experience in moving gasification technologies from pilot to commercial scale. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of South Florida.

Dr Karri brings 28 years experience in particle technology and fluidization to the WES team. His experience includes FCC technology, cokers, polyolefin, methanol to olefins, maliec anhydride, acrylonitrile, TiO2, polycrystalline silica, gasification, pyrolysis, sulfur capture, CO2 capture, biomass and radioactive materials. His current responsibility at PSRI is to build and manage the firm’s consulting resources for the PSRI membership providing state of the art equipment design, effective process design concepts, first to market development methodology and start of the art training. Dr. Karri holds a PhD and MS in Chemical Engineering from University of New Hampshire and a BS in Chemical Engineering from IIT, India.

Mr. Kerr has over 25 years experience in high-tech marketing, branding, and communications. His marketing tenure includes working in venture-backed start-ups as well as Global 1000 companies. Before his career as an executive at SAP he led marketing, communications, branding, and investor relations for several start-ups, one of which, USWeb, made its IPO in 1997. Kerr also worked in two premier agencies in Silicon Valley, Regis McKenna Inc, and Cunningham Communications. Kerr has a BA in History from Denison University.

Ms. Krueger provides strategic qualitative and quantitative support to clients involved in policy and project development. Previously, she worked with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) communications office in Bonn, Germany and with Bingham, Osborn, and Scarborough, a boutique wealth management firm in San Francisco, California where she helped to develop the firm’s socially responsible investment offering.   Ms. Krueger earned her Master of Public Policy at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS). 

In China, Mr. LIANG was head of all gasification and coal-to-chemicals projects for Shenhua, the world’s largest coal company and world’s largest gasification company. He installed and commissioned all key commercial gasifiers for Shell, General Electric, Siemens, East China University of Science & Technology (ECUST). Steve commissioned 24 full-scale Ningmei gasifiers of indirect coal liquefaction (F-T) at the plant in Ningxia, China in 2016. For this work, the Ningmei team received a commendation letter from President Xi Jinping.

Steve, brings 20 years in coal gasification, holds many patents on coal converting and won the Gold Medal on outstanding patented invention from the World Intellectual Property Organization. Steve also won the first level award of National Science and Technology Progress issued by State Council of the People’s Republic of China. He moved to the US in 2017 under the US “Genius Visa” program. Steve is a graduate of Daqing Petroleum Institute and is a professor of China Petroleum University.

Mr. Todd is an internationally renowned expert in IGCC and Combined-Cycle Power plants. Currently Todd is President of Process Power Plants LLC, a consulting firm with more than 20 major industry and government clients. With over 50 years of experience, including 35 years with GE in Engineering, Marketing and Product Management positions culminating with Management responsibility for GE’s Process Power Plants Organization. His experience includes 15 IGCC projects with 7 different gasification technologies. He is a member of AIChE, the Global Syngas Technologies Council (GSTC) and has published numerous technical papers for ASME, IChemE, EPRI, MIT and GTC. He received the first European IChemE Medal for Excellence in Gasification in 2002 and the GTC Lifetime Achievement Award for IGCC in 2003.

Mr. Weeden is the former Chairman of Weeden & Co., a Wall Street Investment Bank. Mr. Weeden served as a trustee of the Weeden Foundation from its establishment in 1963 until retiring in 2019. The Foundation supports innovative environmental initiatives addressing issues such as the protection of ecosystems and wildlife, as well as population stabilization and sustainable consumption. He is a graduate of Stanford University.