Vanguard Renewables, a company specializing in organics to renewable energy that is based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, has announced the appointment of Joel Gay as its CEO.
“Vanguard is in the midst of an aggressive expansion plan to deploy more than 100 new anaerobic digester projects across 30 states, representing nearly $2.5 billion of digester facilities. As the scale of the business grows, our team is expanding to include some of the most talented project developers and operators in the industry,” says George Polk, chairman of Vanguard Renewables. “Joel is an accomplished, results-driven leader with the proven ability to inspire growing teams and businesses to reach new heights.”
Before joining Vanguard Renewables, Gay was president and CEO of Energy Recovery, a global manufacturing and technology company serving multiple industrial markets. Under his leadership, Energy Recovery quadrupled its equity value as he led the company through a strategic and operational transformation including the creation of an extensive research and development program, the invention of new technology and expansion into new markets.
According to a news release from Vanguard Renewables, at 37, Gay became one of the youngest CEOs of a Russell 2000 company, the youngest Black CEO of a publicly traded company and was later named one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 in 2016. Gay holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a B.A. from St. Thomas University.
“We are thrilled to have Joel take the helm as we continue to accelerate the growth of our successful renewable energy production platform,” says John Hanselman, founder and chief corporate development officer of Vanguard Renewables. “Joel has the right skills to drive us further in achieving our mission to increase the nation’s renewable fuel supply while supporting America’s farm families.”
Vanguard Renewables specializes in the development of food and dairy waste-to-renewable energy projects. The company develops, owns and operates farm-based anaerobic digestion facilities that produce renewable natural gas (RNG) from recycled food waste and farm manure. Its manure-only division develops and operates farm-based anaerobic digesters to produce renewable natural gas for the low-carbon fuel standard market.
“My passion has long been creating and accelerating the development of technologies that solve hard problems and make both industries and the environmental economy in which they reside more sustainable,” Gay says. “Alongside the founders and the existing team, I am massively excited to help make Vanguard and RNG the most viable, scalable and economically sensible solution to materially reduce our collective carbon footprint while supporting American farmers, industries and consumers.”