4 minutes with…Larry Sullivan, Consultant, Lawrence D. Sullivan & Company

Tell us about your organization and it’s role in the advanced bioeconomy.

My consulting features work with investment firms on due diligence for biomass, biofuels and biochemical projects. Also, I advise investors on technology platforms regarding expected investment potentials in oil, gas, petrochemicals and petroleum refining.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

• Give 2-3 speeches on financial models used in petroleum and biomass extraction and processing.
• Continue to teach at Trident and also The Citadel.
• Work with the Israelis to develop biofuel projects.
• Take a leadership role in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
• Continue to advise Gerson Lehrman Group clients on investment models used in biotechnology.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?

The industry must come to grips with the disconnect between feedstock producers and companies that convert feedstocks to products. In petroleum, the oil and gas producers enjoy higher returns than the oil refiners fitting typical economic and financial models of risk and reward. Recent research shows advanced biotechnology must reverse their model.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change?

In the US oils, fats, sugar and other raw materials are protected to a degree hence the move of many companies from the US to Brazil (low cost sugar) and to SEAsia (low cost lipids). The US needs to rethink these protective programs. And, developers need to be more candid about expected investment returns to investors. The industry needs prudence.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?

I left petroleum processing in 2002, to lead the Crown Iron team in first generation biodiesel. Earlier in my career, I developed new technology inside oil and gas for drilling and production so it was a natural step to move to fuels. I enjoy meeting with oil and gas companies who are leading investors in biofuels, biomass and new biochemicals.

Where are you from? 

My father was a Conoco geologist so I grew up in CA, LA and TX. I worked in the oilfields as a teen and joined the industry for nearly 20 years after university in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway? 

I followed my father into geology, geography and some law school, graduate school and completed EPA RCRA planning for the State of Texas in the 1970s. My great aunts earned degrees at Texas in Austin 100 years ago, my father graduated in 1942 and I finished in 1973. Later at Arizona State and Texas A&M I enjoyed teaching and environmental research.

Who do you consider your mentors. What have you learned from them?

My boss at Conoco UK managed aviation fuels for Europe from two refineries. He had the confidence in me to provide my advanced engineering and business training and helped me understand how oil and gas companies do international business. He also supported my efforts inside Conoco’s parent Dupont to help them develop new technologies for oil and gas to lower GHG impacts in the early 1990s. He had the courage to tell the jet fuel industry that new fuels would be needed and he was 25 years ahead of his time!

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?

I was assigned to drilling rigs as an engineer in the middle of the Sahara Desert (Libya) and learned to manage operations in extremely remote locations, how to motivate multinational crews and learn Italian! I was assigned to the Italian oil giant Agip and learned from them safety, leadership and self confidence from their world class engineering staff. It was early in my career and the reward was assignment to engineering in Milan.

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry? 

In Charleston, I learned to sail on a 37 foot boat in the harbor and later in the Atlantic. I restored some old Triumph motorcycles and, in South Carolina, golf is a year around burden…

What 3 books would you take to read, if stranded on a desert island?

The Bible, the works of Shakespeare and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Catch-22 features a protagonist who learns that he will, “live forever or die trying…”

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?

“Measuring and Addressing Investment Risk in the Second-Generation Biofuels Industry” by ICCT in December 2013. www.theicct.org

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?

I learned Italian so Rome is fine for a visit but the Umbria countryside and Sicily and Malta (my home for three years) all feature in my ideal vacation.