The BDC Fall Symposium was held in Minneapolis on September 19-20.  Highlights were a keynote on Fibria's innovation strategy and a panel on petroleum issues and opportunities, with Matt Phillips, Director of Innovation for Flint Hills Petroleum, a subsidiary of Koch, Paul Stabler, President of Bannerstone Energy, who brokers petroleum fuels, and Jeffrey Jacobs, CEO of Ensyn and retired executive from Chevron.  The petroleum panel was a first of its kind for BDC and was informative and well received by members.

Actually, there were highlights throughout the day with updates from the forest products industry and from the bioindustry. The panel on lignin markets and breakthroughs at the end of the day on Tuesday encouraged us regarding significant progress regarding value added products from kraft lignin.

Members gave high marks to the full meeting and requested more panels like the one with the petroleum industry.  We will work on a panel from the chemical industry for our next meeting, which will be in Omaha, NE on May 1-2, with a tour of NatureWorks.