Green means go go go
Larry Johnson and Andy Suby
Jack rabbits, a silver fox and birds aplenty are all Andy Suby has for company at the new BioCentury Research Farm (BCRF). Not for long. Just west of Ames and situated across the road from Iowa State's research fields, this shining new facility will soon be brewing and cooking bioenergy products.
Suby, an Iowa State alumnus with a master's degree in mechanical engineer- ing, is BCRF's new processing facility manager. "I've been lucky," says Suby. "Every job I've had I've just loved, and all those experiences are really paying off."
Suby had the good fortune to grow up with access to old tractors on a small gentleman's farm east of Ankeny. "We'd pretend farm, more like it was done in the 1930s," says Suby. "Dad adapted horse-drawn equipment for our old John Deere with a flywheel start, the kind of tractor you work on with your hands. We'd handpick our crops as well - a tradition we're continuing with my own three sons."
At Central College while earning a bachelor's degree in physics, Suby worked a full-time maintenance job at the physical plant to make ends meet. Since then, he has been a manager of special projects for the Weitz Company, a project engineer at the Iowa Energy Center's (IEC) Energy Resource Station, an assistant scientist at the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies (CSET) stationed at the IEC's Biomass Energy Conversion facility (BECON), and the manager for pilot operations for Frontline Bioenergy in Ames.
BCRF is a demonstration and research facility. Here contracting researchers will design, grow, harvest, transport and process candidate plants into biofuels or biobased chemicals. It will be Suby who ensures their efforts are up and running quickly, all while supporting Iowa State's Conoco-Phillips biofuel development platform. Additionally, Suby facilitates tours and conferences at the site.
"Andy has the ideal background and attitude to manage the BioCentury Research Farm. He will undoubtedly make ISU faculty and the biofuels industry successful in Iowa," says Larry Johnson, BCRF director and Iowa State University professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.
"The bioeconomy is in the white hot spotlight, and we've got to produce," says Suby. "That will come from these facilities, and Iowa State has really gone after it."
