When San Francisco hosted the 2005 United Nations' World Environment Day, I participated in several of the many events, including a tour of local homes using solar power. I was expecting to marvel in the minor miracle of folks powering their homes with solar in Fog City, and being in the market for a new car, I was looking forward to seeing the various kinds of electric cars that homeowners were powering with their excess solar electricity. What I wasn't prepared for at all was the fact that not only were the Incredible Adventures tour vans running on a fuel I'd never heard of, but three people sitting near me were running their cars on this same fuel. The eureka moment, when I discovered that a diesel vehicle was all I needed to be able to drive "off-the-grid" in a way I'd never imagined, was characterized by both joy and intense disbelief that somehow the amazing existence of biodiesel had previously escaped me.

Once home, my similarly flabbergasted, then thrilled, husband jumped online, and three days later we drove a 1998 Bug from a VW lot in Oakland to Berkeley's Biofuel Oasis - filled up with B99 and made an appointment for a fuel filter change - then drove back to San Francisco proudly sporting a No War Required bumper sticker. Having just moved back to the City, after a 5-year stint in Washington, DC, in order to help care for my elderly parents, I was in the market for work. But, being the youngest child of a Southern Baptist preacher, I didn't really want a job, I wanted a calling. And I had found it.

I volunteered for the San Francisco Biofuels Coop; the GO MUNI BIO campaign, which urged (the soon-to-be successful) SF transition of its entire diesel fleet to biodiesel; and Green Depot, a biodiesel nonprofit doing environmental justice work, until I was hired by Eric Bowen to work for Tellurian Biodiesel in 2007. With a degree in political science, and a long history of working for environmental and social justice nonprofits in outreach, program, and communications director positions, I immediately gravitated toward helping Eric with the policy work he was doing as chairman of CBA. CBA had formed just a few months earlier, but its small group of founders was already making great progress toward CBA's early accomplishments.

Soon, the national food versus fuel debate exploded. I worked with CBA board members and lobbyist Louie Brown to create a biodiesel factsheet, which was distributed to legislators and state agencies who were sorely in need of facts about biodiesel. But it was the actions of the State Water Board that cemented my relationship with CBA. The letter they sent to their local enforcing agencies (CUPAS) in early 2008 called biodiesel a hazardous material and stated the requirement that owner/operators storing biodiesel in USTs provide materials compatibility documentation from an independent testing agency for the equipment used in their systems. Because there were no UL listings for biodiesel, this action resulted in immediate closures of biodiesel fueling around the state and an unexpected and very serious threat to the biodiesel industry. Eric Bowen's initial efforts to reach Water Board staff were in vain, and each day the news of closures, including successful environmental programs run by cities and counties, got worse.

After repeated attempts, Eric established a relationship with key Water Board staff and began to bring in legal and technical experts from around the country, including National Biodiesel Board (NBB) staff to work toward a solution. I began statewide education and outreach to UST owner/operators, tracking the closures and the threats of closures and securing letters of public comment and in-person speakers as part of an initial legislative strategy. I continued these efforts when this strategy was replaced with what, after a year, became successful negotiations that led the Water Board on May 5th, 2009 to adopt emergency regulations that allowed for a 3-year variance process. Working in close cooperation with Laura Fisher, chief of the UST technical unit at the Water Board, I created the UST Compliance section of the Regulatory Matters web page on the CBA website, which included the information UST owner/operators needed to apply for the variance, housed all the available materials compatibility letters from equipment manufacturers, and offered assistance.

When REG acquired Tellurian Biodiesel in the fall of 2009, I was without a paycheck from the biodiesel industry, but continued working with UST owners as a volunteer. Since 2010, the NBB has assisted CBA by funding me and a technical assistant to help UST owners comply with the law. Though much of the fueling that was shut down in 2008 has not returned, I have been very happy to be part of the biodiesel industry's success in working with Water Board staff to establish, first, the temporary variance process and, now, the new permanent law that allows for the legal storage of biodiesel, including B100, with documentation that provides an alternative to UL (until such time as we do have UL listings for biodiesel).

In early 2011, CBA hired me as a contractor to grow the organization and broaden the scope and reach of its activities. This has included building and writing the content for an all new website; creating and writing a monthly email newsletter; working with the CBA board to recruit members from new communities within the biodiesel industry and to establish CBA's first annual conference; and much more. It has been extremely satisfying to be at the center of CBA's almost tripling of membership and successful entrée into the public sphere with new communication tools.