GreenFuel appoints new permanent CEO

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based GreenFuel Technologies today announced Simon Upfill-Brown is to join the company as its new chief July 14th.

Last July, GreenFuel laid off staff and restructured then-CEO Cary Bullock’s to become VP of business development. Investor Bob Metcalfe, also known as the inventor of Ethernet, (see Bowling for GreenFuel), stepped in as interim CEO at the same time.

In May, GreenFuel said it raised $13.9 million in Series B funding, which it said would be used for technology development and scaling projects this year (see Google gets into more solar).

In tandem with last month’s funding announcement, Metcalfe said the company would likely be making additional announcements in relation to scaling and development, a subsequent round of funding, and of course its “scaling CEO.”

Metcalfe noted the announcements would mark the end of a “seven-step interim plan,” which the company began in June 2007.

With last week's introduction of Algenol Biofuels to the mix and today's GreenFuel news, it appears the company is ramping up to bring its algae farm technology to scale, and this could mean more tough competition for companies such as LiveFuels, Solazyme, Aquaflow Bionomic and PetroAlgae (see Turning algae into ethanol, and gold).

Upfill-Brown had been CEO of Haltermann Custom Processing since 1993. After Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) bought the $50 million Houston company in 2001, Upfill-Brown was named general manager of Dow Haltermann until it was spun out in 2008.

GreenFuel said it hopes to provide algae oil feedstock for Haltermann’s biodiesel manufacturing services.

The Cambridge-based company said Upfill-Brown is to also join its board.