Freedom Fertilizer was founded by Steve Gruhn, of Spirit Lake, Iowa. Steve has extensive experience in agriculture as a farmer and nursery/greenhouse operator. It was this experience, along with Steve's interest in wind energy from the proliferation of wind farm development in North Central and North Western Iowa, that served as a catalyst for the launch of Freedom Fertilizer in 2007.

NH3 is second most produced chemical in the world and the current 100 year old process of manufacturing anhydrous ammonia from natural gas is finite. NG's steadily increasing price, which is recently helped push NH3 to over $1,000 per ton, and the nations increasing reliance on imported NH3 precipitated the need to look toward a renewable and sustainable source of fertilizer for the growing demand of crops in the Midwest, the nation and all around the world.

Freedom Fertilizer's sustainable NH3 concept is grabbing peoples attention. Since inception the project has been awarded a USDA grant to conduct feasibility and business planning. With this has come additional financial support from groups like the Iowa Farm Bureau, Iowa Corn Board, Ag Venture Alliance, numerous farmers, associated technology leaders and industry personnel. These people have since helped to spawn SAFE LLC. an operating entity that will work to produce Freedom Fertilizer, a sustainable NH3 fertilizer and fuel that can be made from the bountiful wind resources of the Upper Midwest. Or anywhere a renewable source of energy may exist.


Craig Arnold:
carnold@freedomfertilizer.com
LeMars, IA

will be taking over the position left vacated May 21st, 2009 after the tragic death of Project Director Don VanderBrook.
Prior to joining SAFE, LLC Arnold was employed as CEO at Plymouth Energy, Merrill, Ia where he oversaw the building from the ground up of a 50M-gallon ethanol production plant. Prior to that he served as the Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's US Library Program, where he led the nationwide effort to bring access to computers and the Internet to nearly 11,000 small towns and large cities in the United States. In that role, he was also responsible for ensuring the success of the Foundation's Native American Access to Technology Program as well as challenging International programs in Canada, Mexico, and Chile.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Arnold led the development of Gateway's Custom Manufacturing business, enabling the computer manufacturer to grow market share through integration of customer specific solutions into their core manufacturing and support operations.
At Northrop Corporation, Arnold played key leadership roles in the areas of facilities activation, manufacturing, testing, safety and quality improvement on the classified B2 Stealth Aircraft Program.
SAFE / Freedom Fertilizer looks forward to working with Craig and feels privileged to have such a strong background of successful leadership taking this project forward.

Barry Sackett:
bsackett@freedomfertilizer.com
Milford, IA

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.

Lance G. Johnson:

Washington, D.C.,

is a partner in the IP law firm of Roylance, Abrams, Berdo & Goodman, L.L.P. 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:
mrosenbury@freedomfertilizer.com
Des Moines, IA

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.

Scott Buchanan :
sbuchanan@freedomfertilizer.com
Algona, IA

has worked with wind energy development projects since the mid-nineteen nineties when he served as legal counsel to the Iowa Distributed Wind Generation Project (IDWGP), one of the earliest wind projects to go on-line in Iowa and the only municipally owned wind farm in the state. Since then he has reviewed and negotiated numerous wind easement agreements from a variety of wind energy companies and counseled landowners across northern Iowa about the terms of these complex long-term contracts. He is a member of the Iowa Wind Energy Association (IWEA) and has been a speaker on wind energy easement agreements at their Annual Meeting. He has presented remarks on legal issues involving wind energy easement agreements at Drake University School of Law (Nov. 17, 2008) and the Annual Meeting of the Iowa Chapter of American Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers (AFMRA) (Feb. 5, 2009).

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.

Troy Benjegerdes:
tbenjegerdes@freedomfertilizer.com
Ames, IA

grew up on the family farm outside of Manly, Iowa, helping farm corn and soybeans, repair farm electrical circuits and dreaming of growing up to be an inventor. Troy attended Iowa State University’s School of Science and Technology, graduated with a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and worked for two years in computer software based start-ups. At Terra Soft Solutions he envisioned and created Black Lab Linux, which was, the first high performance computing cluster distribution for the PowerPC processor and Macintosh computers. At MontaVista software, he ported embedded Linux to various computer boards and participated in bring-up Linux on the Motorola 7450 series CPUs. He since has returned to the ISU/Ames Labs as a systems manager for the Scalable Computing Labs and is working on finishing his PhD.