Bill Lee
Chief Executive Officer
Education: B.S. in Chemical Engineering (Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri)
Experience: Bill Lee is the CEO of Frontline BioEnergy, a biomass gasification technology firm, located in Ames, Iowa. Lee was one of five co-founders of Frontline in 1995. He served as a director for the company from its founding until assuming this leadership role in June 2009.
Most recently, Lee served as General Manager of Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company, a farmer-owned ethanol plant in Benson, Minnesota, from its start-up in 1996 until June 2009. He led CVEC’s efforts to expand production from 15 to 48 million gallons per year and was instrumental in helping CVEC create a uniquely diverse product and marketing portfolio including a range of beverage and specialty alcohol products, direct marketed E-85 and corn oil.
At CVEC, Lee led efforts to build and operate Frontline’s first commercial scale biomass gasification unit at the CVEC ethanol plant in Benson. This unit has over 3,000 operating hours in the service of displacing natural gas inputs used in the ethanol production process.
Prior to CVEC, Mr. Lee held positions with Delta-T Corporation and A. E. Staley where he was responsible for design, construction and operation of ethanol facilities and other grain-processing operations.
From 2000 until 2008, Lee served on the Executive Board of the Renewable Fuels Association – the trade association for the US ethanol industry. From 2004 through 2006 he served as the Chairman of the RFA. Mr. Lee also serves as the Treasurer of the Minnesota Coalition for Ethanol. He is a founding director of the Renewable Products Marketing Group – a marketing collective of 16 farmer-owned ethanol plants marketing over 750 million gallons per year of fuel ethanol.