Ryan Lamberg

Executive Director, California Biodiesel Initiative

A National Biodiesel Board/California Biodiesel Alliance Joint Venture

Ryan Lamberg worked for 5 years in education and outreach at Greenbelt Alliance, the Bay Area's leading land conservation and urban planning non-profit, before he began his agricultural fair trade work in the U.S. Peace Corps in Nicaragua in 2002. While there, Ryan ran into an old friend who had come down from North Carolina to work on a sustainability project at a nearby eco-preserve. The friend was Rachel Burton, cofounder of Piedmont Biofuels, and her project was grease conversion.  

What appeared to be an odd happenstance would change Ryan's life. He gave Rachel an extensive tour of the coffee farms where he worked and introduced her to the small-scale farmers, whose businesses were in crisis. Rachel talked to them about energy independence and crop diversification and introduced Ryan and the farmers to the little known fuel called biodiesel with its potential to help with their problem of high diesel fuel costs in a country with no petroleum production of its own.

Motivated by biodiesel's potential to dramatically improve the lives of citizens in countries like Nicaragua, Ryan began his foray into the burgeoning world of biodiesel. Upon his return to the U.S., he accepted a managerial position at Taylor Maid Farms, an organic coffee and tea company in Sebastopol, California. Taylor Maid's owner and a small group of local investors set in motion the process that created one of California's largest biodiesel companies, Community Fuels.

Ryan, who was made VP and given a share of ownership in this biodiesel start-up, began setting up the business documentation and scouting locations. However, just before breaking ground on a site in Sonoma County, the team brought in a CEO, Lisa Mortenson, who decided that to achieve the economies of scale required for success, the plant needed to be located near a railroad. At the end of 2005, California's biodiesel industry was booming, and Community Fuels won out over a dozen other biodiesel bidders to secure the lease for the Port of Stockton property where the company's plant successfully operates today.

Ryan is quick to point out the many challenges involved with building such a large-scale biodiesel plant from the ground up, especially with the goal of producing 10 million gallons shortly after start-up. Happy to have Lisa at the helm, and an expanding staff of specialists to take over the demanding load of financial and technical work, Ryan still had his "fingers in everything." After several title changes with the changing needs of the organization, he ended up as Director of Logistics and Communications. Over the next three years, Ryan created the company's website, wrote news releases and factsheets, presented to dozens of organizations, and was in charge of site logistics at the huge two-acre chemical facility. This included responsibility for the truck on and off loading systems, securing tanks, inventory of all equipment, and assisting with permitting, QA/QC lab set-up, and off-take agreements.

By 2008, commodity prices were going up, diesel prices were going down, and the economy, especially for biodiesel, was very tough in the state. But Community Fuels, with angel investors, low interest loans from the state, industrial bonds, Department of Energy and California Energy Commission grants, and a new lease on an adjacent property, was poised to weather the storm that destroyed many California biodiesel start-ups. By December of 2008, the company's first gallon of test fuel was produced. Having locked-in jobbers and customers, in addition to his other contributions, Ryan felt that his work was done, and he left his position at Community Fuels.  

Ryan secured and completed an EPA-funded project called Bridging the Biodiesel Gap, a manual/curriculum on best practices for handling and distributing biodiesel with fleet management and jobber information, in collaboration with Ben Jordan of Peoples Fuel, and Gerald Bernstein of San Francisco City College. He also consulted with Randall von Wedel on the pHLip test and worked with Rachel Burton on fleet training. 

His experience at Community Fuels had confirmed his love of the start-up, and inspired by President Obama's energy goals, Ryan become certified in energy efficiency auditing. He worked setting up programs in residential energy auditing, first at Energuy, Canada's second largest auditing company, where he hired, trained and managed 15 auditors throughout California as the company's first U.S. hire. He then moved to Ecology Action as the Whole House Training Manager where he was responsible for training 1200 participants of Energy Upgrade California, with federal stimulus funding, until April of 2012.

Ryan comes back to California's biodiesel community as Executive Director of the California Biodiesel Initiative, a new joint venture of the National Biodiesel Board and CBA, which will promote the benefits of biodiesel throughout the state with a special focus on outreach to groups and key individuals in the environmental community.

CBA is very pleased to have Ryan, who was involved in the start-up of CBA with its original founders, working with us again in this exciting new collaborative effort.