Meet our team
Highbury team
Len Bykowski
CEO
A proven entrepreneurial and visionary international C-Level business generalist with a primary focus on the agricultural, forestry and bio-based renewable energy sectors, Len is an expert in creating business models/plans, team building, innovative strategic planning, acquisitions and integration, domestic and international sales/marketing programs and operations. He is past President of Mascoma Canada and CEO Bioproducts Alberta, President and CEO BC Wine Institute, and past President and CEO of Money’s Mushrooms, a $250 million food company. He has also served on numerous boards and committees in the bioenergy sector, and within agriculture, including Mascoma Canada, Xylitol Canada and Money’s Mushrooms Ltd., and is a past member of the City of Surrey’s Environmental and Sustainability Advisory Committee.
Dr. Paul Watkinson
Co-Founder and CTO
Dr. A. Paul Watkinson is Professor Emeritus in the Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia. He joined the faculty in 1971 after spending five years performing research in the pulp and paper and metallurgical process industries. From 1992 to 2001 he served as the head of the department. He holds a B.Eng. degree in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University, and M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from UBC. He is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, and a registered Professional Engineer in BC (1978-2021). Dr. Watkinson has carried out research on pyrolysis, gasification and combustion, heat exchanger performance, and biofuel use in rotary kilns. He has won awards for his research and has published numerous articles in scientific journals on conversion of coal, coke, shale and biomass into gaseous and liquid fuels. He also co-authored patents on lignin-based liquid fuels, and on tar destruction in gasifiers.
John A. Kuehne
CFO
M.Mgmt., CPA, CA John is an Angel Investor advising, assisting and investing in startups and small public companies seeking game-changing opportunities. John is past president and founder of SmallCap Corporate Partners Inc., a successful management consulting firm that advised micro-cap and small-cap public companies on corporate governance, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and investor communications. John was Chief Financial Officer of Doman Industries, a Canadian forest products company with annual sales of over $600 million and assets in excess of $1 billion. John began his career with Deloitte’s, spending over nine years with the premier public accounting firm in both Edmonton and Chicago. John’s M.Mgmt. is from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Dr. Yonghua Li
Senior Research Engineer
Dr. Yonghua Li is a chemical engineer with over 25 years of experience in the fields of gasification and the processing, production, storage, and transportation of gas. He has worked in combustion and gasification of coals, biomass and bio-oil, biofuel firing of lime kilns, and dioxins formation in hog fuel combustion. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from East China University of Science and Technology in 1985, and holds a certificate in gas technology from the Centre de Formation Aux Techniques Gazières, France. He had seven years experience with the Nanjing Gas Company, China, before obtaining a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia. He spent over two years at the National Risk Management Research Lab of the US Environmental Protection Agency. He has published over 20 research articles in the above areas. Dr. Li is responsible for Highbury’s gasification and gas clean-up experimental program being carried out at the UBC Pulp & Paper Centre. He supervised the construction of, and operates, the UBC/Highbury dual-bed gasifier.
Dr. Wei Wang
Research Engineer
Dr. Wei Wang is a chemical engineer with a solid background in fossil fuels and renewable energy. His expertise lies in fouling in crude oil preheat trains, heavy oil upgrading (fluidized catalytic cracking, hydroprocessing and catalysis), biomass gasification and biofuels. He also has experience in patent application and examination in the oil and gas sector. He holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UBC.
Dr. Steffen Preusser
Sustainability Consultant
Steffen Preusser, Ph.D., is a chemist with international experience in biofuels, including nine years as Science and Technology Attaché at the Canadian Embassy in Germany, and more than eight years as a biofuels consultant in Malaysia. Steffen’s knowledge of government regulations, quality control and evaluating sustainability criteria has been effectively employed to identify lucrative biofuel markets, then produce energy products that meet their renewability requirements (i.e. sustainability certifications) and quality standards defined by ASTM or EN.
We’re looking for partners.
Highbury Energy’s patented, next generation dual-bed steam gasification technology requires investment partners to bring fully to market. We are seeking opportunities and strategic partners to build commercial projects that realize a truly viable, sustainable green solution. At the same time, we are pursuing collaborations with other ground-breaking technologies, private and government bodies and resource owners to further improve on the value proposition of our technology.
Contact us
Highbury Energy Inc.
Address:
Suite 1000 – 409 Granville St.
United Kingdom Building
Vancouver, BC V6C 1T2
www.highburybiofuels.com
