Steve Gruhn is the president and co-founder of Freedom Fertilizer. He is an entrepreneur with more than 30 years experience in agriculture and horticulture. He successfully started a commercial turf farm, which ran in conjunction with his family’s 800-acre corn, bean and livestock farm. Steve currently owns and manages a retail garden center in Spirit Lake, Iowa that includes a retail garden center, a floral shop, 12,000 square feet of greenhouse, a nursery sales lot and a commercial landscape division.

Dave Bradley is the lead process engineer for Freedom Fertilizer. He is an energy consultant, wind turbine developer and local environmental activist. Dave spent 20 years at Allied Chemical’s Buffalo Research Laboratory working on a variety of R&D and production and design projects, which resulted in the commercialization of numerous products and 14 patents.

Frank Hannaford is chief operations officer. He has more than 40 years experience in information processing including more than 25 years leading complex, large-scale state-of-the-art projects and business development efforts.

Neal Rauhauser is the co founder of Freedom Fertilizer and is also the founder of the Stranded Wind Initiative (SWI) and a leading proponent of the development of stranded renewable energy sources. In addition, Neal heads a carrier network engineering practice and advises several of the commercial ventures spawned by SWI.

Barry Sackett serves as general counsel. He is a partner in the law firm of Sackett & Sackett, PC, which specializes in agri-business, real estate, estate planning and taxation. Prior to joining the law firm Barry held positions as CFO, controller or general counsel with ATI Title Company, F.W. Carson Companies, California Waste Services, The Brain Technologies and Arbor. Barry’s experience includes start-up companies, mergers and company reorganizations. He also has extensive experience working on state and federal government environmental issues.

Advisors

Ron Crowley retired from Berkley and Co. in 2006 after 28 years with the company where he was responsible for the design and development of processing equipment for the fishing tackle industry; facilities including structural engineering, construction and maintenance; and product development. Previously he served as plant engineer at Hormel in Fremont, Nebraska, where he designed water systems and processing equipment and supervised maintenance on ammonia refrigeration. Before this he worked in the underground mining division of Donaldson Co. in Bloomington, Minnesota, where he designed and tested air filtration equipment. In 2007 he started his own engineering and consulting company. Concurrently Ron manages a 660-acre farm.

Lance G. Johnson is a partner in the IP law firm of Roylance, Abrams, Berdo & Goodman, L.L.P. (www.roylance.com) based in Washington, DC. Lance specializes in patent and trademark matters and has extensive experience in litigation. His areas of expertise include petroleum and synthetic fuels processing. He has significant experience in the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in chemical, mechanical and software technologies. Lance was the first attorney to file and successfully win a reexamination request for patent owners and third parties. Lance started his career as a patent agent at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Mark Rosenbury retired in August 2006 as senior vice president and chief administrative officer (CAO) of Terra Industries, Inc., a NYSE listed nitrogen fertilizer manufacturer with a market capitalization of over $4 billion. During his 20 years at Terra, Mark held various other positions including chief financial office and managing director of Terra U.K. Prior to joining Terra, he served as controller of a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation. Mark started his career as an auditor with Price Waterhouse. He currently serves as vice chairman of the Agribusiness Association of Iowa and the Iowa Watershed Improvement Review Board.