4 Minutes with… Douglas L. Faulkner, President, Leatherstocking LLC; Co-Founder, Jacob’s Ladder Energy Group

Tell us about your company and it’s role in the Advanced Bioeconomy.  

Leatherstocking helps build private-public bioenergy partnerships. It offers strategic advice for setting new priorities; targeting new business and research opportunities; designing new curricula; and, finding the best path for government assistance.

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

My goal is help the industry find a new private-public paradigm, including a politically-sustainable mandate and new R&D priorities for a shrinking federal budget. Resurrecting the bipartisan dream of the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations and their Congresses for a new advanced biofuels industry in our much different political, technological and market landscape is the challenge that drives my efforts.

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

The most important milestone is the passage of legislation for a new advanced biofuels mandate with teeth and with a clear sunset date. The next would be to secure a solid base of funding for research and development priorities, especially on feedstocks. Finally, building a new, enduring partnership with the auto and trucking industry.

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

Erasing the lack of clarity about future trends in supply and demand for liquid transportation fuels.

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?   

Reducing American reliance on imported petroleum.

Where are you from? 

Rural Central Illinois.

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

Asian Studies at the University of Illinois. President Nixon’s historic visit to China sparked this country boy’s life-long fascination with the Far East. Besides, I had long dreamed of playing basketball for the Illini (but only started on the Junior Varsity as a walk-on in the 1974-75 season.)

Who do you consider your mentors – could be personal, business, or just people you have read about and admire. What have you learned from them?  

The late Illinois Congressman and Secretary of Agriculture, Edward Madigan, and Dale W. Moore, formerly USDA Chief of Staff in the George W. Bush Administration and now Executive Director for Public Policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation. The former hired me as one of his first interns, introducing me to Washington, D.C., and then as a district staffer, allowing me to learn how politics intersected with local issues, including biofuels, first-hand in my native Central Illinois. The latter was my boss at USDA when I served first as Deputy Under Secretary then Acting Under Secretary for Rural Development. Dale oversaw that vast departmental confederacy with a sage and fair hand as well as a great sense of humor. He remains my friend to this day. I learned from them both many lessons in how our capitol city really works, the importance of paying attention to details and the value of personal integrity.

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

Perseverance and determination are critical. And, to be flexible and pragmatic enough to alter course, if necessary, but while staying true to yourself and your goals.

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

Reading as many newspapers, periodicals and books as I can; exercising with my son as often as I can; helping him launch his musical career as much as I am able; and enjoying friends and family whenever I can.

What are 3 books you’d want to have with you, if you were stranded on a desert island?

The Bible for faith; the Boy Scout Handbook for survival; and the collected works on the early struggle for control of the North American continent by the historian Francis Parkman, for filling all that new free time.

What books or articles (excluding The Digest) are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed? 

I always have a number of books in train at one time. I am particularly drawn to history, fiction, spy thrillers, mysteries and biographies from ends of eras or empires, like the fall of the Wall, World War I and the French and Indian Wars. I read everything by Alan Furst, Andre Maxine and Robert Olen Butler.

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

Charleston, South Carolina, for the food, the beaches, the people and the history.