Small-town Company, Big-time Aspirations

Actor Larry Hagman sits on the board of directors.

Paul Mitchell founder John Paul DeJoria is a satisfied customer.

So is country-crooning legend Merle Haggard, whose tour buses have run on this company’s biodiesel.

Despite all its big-time connections, American Green Holdings Inc. is a fledgling renewable energy firm in a small Ozarks town. The Crane-based company was formed in October by trial attorney/music enthusiast Dale Wiley and engineering dynamo/grease monkey Russ Gehrke.

The duo – along with Gehrke’s longtime business partner, Rob Wood, of Joplin – have made it their mission to push the envelope on alternative fuel sources without compromising the coolness of the American automobile. Their first successful project is the EcoOutlaw, a mean-looking motorcycle that runs on gasoline, ethanol-blended fuel or – for those wanting to clean out the liquor cabinet – pure grain alcohol.

American Green Holdings officially unveiled the custom-built bike – purchased by DeJoria in January – on July 20 at Hammons Field.

The Ethanol Reformer

The EcoOutlaw is a modified Victory motorcycle that uses waste heat energy from the engine to reform ethanol into a state that burns less fuel because of increased cylinder pressure, Gehrke said.

Gehrke previously appeared on the Discovery Channel series “Cool Fuel Roadtrips.” On the show, Gehrke powered vehicles with anything and everything, including a Hummer that ran on Cajun food.

The company’s patent-pending technology, known as the Ethanol Reformer, also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, said CEO Wiley, noting that hydrocarbons are cut in half. Hydrocarbons are a precursor to ground-level ozone, a serious air pollutant in cities across the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

American Green Holdings’ $40,000 bike, which boasts significant speed and horsepower, is customized with chrome fixtures, arched exhaust pipes and a green flame job. DeJoria, who also is owner and founder of Patron tequila, in August will lead the annual Sturgis, S.D., motorcycle rally on his EcoOutlaw.

But the motorcycle is just the beginning for the Crane company. Wiley, Gehrke and Wood believe the Ethanol Reformer will have a wider impact on motor vehicles equipped to run on ethanol-blended fuel, also known as flex-fuel vehicles.

Gehrke’s mind is already running wild with ways to integrate the Ethanol Reformer into his Dodge Charger or possibly a flex-fuel sport-utility vehicle.

“The way I think is so mechanical,” Gehrke said, suggesting the boundaries are limitless. “That’s the nice thing about engineering – there’s no such thing as ‘should.’”

Gehrke first conceived the Ethanol Reformer while working with a farmers’ cooperative in Nebraska, where the group was seeking a way to make their irrigation engines run on 100 percent ethanol. The co-op had been running on ethanol instead of natural gas but at a rate of 11 gallons an hour.

Gehrke’s design for stationary engines cut the usage down to four gallons an hour for a savings of $2 to $3 an hour over natural gas but with lower emissions. American Green Holdings plans to officially introduce the Ethanol Reformer to the farming market this fall.

Celebrity support

Meanwhile, company officials are forging alliances with like-minded celebrities who share their common-sense approach to energy production and usage.

Larry Hagman, who starred on TV shows “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Dallas,” was recruited as a spokesman for American Green Holdings. Hagman is a major proponent of solar power, which enabled him to cut his energy bill from $2,800 in February 2005 to $13 a year later after installing large panels on his 40-acre property south of Los Angeles.

“We’ve assembled the best and brightest minds in energy development to make American Green Holdings an unstoppable engine of ingenuity,” Hagman said in a news release. “We intend to make huge strides toward energy independence by utilizing earth-friendly, renewable resources that can be grown in our own backyard.”

Biodiesel is one alternative fuel that has made big believers out of Hagman and company principals, who are staunch advocates of smaller plants that produce enough fuel for local use.

“We don’t need our alternative energy to be another hazard,” Wiley said. “This is not oil. The feedstock to make (biodiesel) is everywhere.”

In February, American Green Holdings filled Merle Haggard’s tour buses with its first tanks of biodiesel, while the country artist performed at the National Biodiesel Conference in San Antonio.

More recently, the company has started designing mobile biodiesel facilities that will enable owners to go the source of biodiesel’s precursors – vegetable oil or animal fat. But biodiesel’s soaring popularity has made the ingredients scarce, Wood said.

To that end, American Green Holdings recently launched www.bidforgreen.com as a clearinghouse for buyers and sellers of raw materials, blended alternative fuels and byproducts, such as glycerine. Wiley describes the Web site, which is expected to gain steam as partnerships with suppliers are formed, as a “green eBay.”

Ambitions abound

The firm also has been hired to build portions of a biodiesel production facility in Connecticut and is in negotiations with Bahamas Biofuels Ltd. for the first biodiesel plant in the Bahamas. Also on the table: a joint venture with South Carolina-based Verde Biofuels Inc. for possible plants in southwest Missouri, South Carolina and Georgia.

Jason Hoar, president of AgriFuels LLC, is working with American Green Holdings on the biodiesel project in Connecticut. AgriFuels is a biodiesel consulting, sales and software marketing company with offices in California and Nebraska. Together, the companies are exploring the potential for biodiesel plants in Africa.

The principals at American Green Holdings are “such a cohesive team,” Hoar said, specifically noting Gehrke’s knack for engineering. “He’s a mad-scientist engineer. He really is such an amazing human.”

While most energy companies are tied to agriculture or the oil industry, American Green Holdings represents a new breed, Wiley said.

“We don’t have those kind of prejudices,” he said. “This is the Model T. This is the Internet in 1994.”[[In-content Ad]]