by Kristina Gabalski
Those attending the April meeting of the Greater Churchville-Riga Chamber of Commerce had the opportunity to “pick the brain” of one of the area’s best known and most successful entrepreneurs.
Arunas Chesonis was the guest speaker at the April 11 meeting, held at Naughton’s Johnson House in Churchville. Chesonis founded PAETEC and served as its chairman and chief executive officer. In 2011, PAETEC was acquired by Windstream Corp. and Chesonis is now CEO and Chairman of the Board of Sweetwater Energy – a Rochester based cellulosic sugar producer.
Chesonis sat down with those in attendance following the Chamber luncheon, to tell them about Sweetwater Energy. He then opened the floor to questions.
He explained that Sweetwater uses a broad range of non-food agricultural and woody raw materials including energy sorghum, left-over material from sugar cane, and wood chips from lumber mills to produce sugars in a way that is more economical than the industry can currently provide.
The biomass materials go through a process of being ground and heated, Chesonis said, “and we squeeze out two types of industrial sugar or ‘sweetwater.’ ”
The highly fermentable sugars are then sold to refineries which use it to produce biofuels, biochemicals and bioplastics.
“Anything you can make out of oil, can be made out of sugar,” Chesonis explained.
That includes rubber, plastics, chemicals, fuels and food-grade plastics like containers for bottled water and ketchup. When you see a leaf symbol on the packaging with the words “made from plants,” Chesonis said that means sugars were used in making the plastic.
Earlier this year, Sweetwater signed two $100 million deals for its sugar; one, with Ace Ethanol in Wisconsin and the second with Front Range Energy in Colorado. Both are corn ethanol facilities which will begin to replace some of their corn with cellulosic sugar from Sweetwater to produce cellulosic ethanol.
Sweetwater is also concerned about the environment and sustainable business practices, Chesonis said.
When he meets with scientists at M.I.T., “ there is not one who is not scared to death about climate change,” Chesonis said.
It doesn’t really matter why the climate is changing, he noted, but it will continue to change, meaning that right now, “It’s all about adaptation.”
Sweetwater Energy processes carbon captured from the atmosphere over the past few years, as opposed to 100 million years ago as in the case of fossil fuel technologies, and Sweetwater technology uses a unique modular approach to produce sugars which are both less expensive for the end user and more environmentally friendly than today’s corn-grain based sugar extraction methods, the Sweetwater website states.
“A barrel of oil is not sustainable,” Chesonis told those attending the Churchville-Riga Chamber meeting.
Even the material left over from Sweetwater’s processing of biomass materials is usable. The leftover lignin, “burns cleanly,” Chesonis said, “it could be used as pellets in a wood stove.” Sweetwater burns the lignin to power its own facilities.
Toward the end of the Chamber meeting, Chesonis was asked if success in business is more dependent upon recognizing and seizing opportunities or surrounding yourself with the right people.
Chesonis was intrigued by the question.
“You need good people with the right skill set,” he said, and they need to work in, “an environment where everyone is open to each other.”
At the end of the day, Chesonis explained, Sweetwater is a “benevolent dictatorship,” but it is important for those in charge to be approachable.
People should not be scared to come to you, he emphasized. “I want to hear what people think.”
Chesonis also said fear of failure holds many people back from taking advantage of opportunities. He says he’s made his share of mistakes, but, “… if you don’t try, you can never be successful.”
