AFCC's Leadership

 

Mark Riedy

Co-Founder, General Counsel, AFCC

Mr. Mark Riedy serves as the General Counsel for AFCC. He is the co-founder of AFCC and a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP. 

 

Mr. Riedy primarily focuses his practice on U.S. and international project development and finance and private placement representation of renewable and conventional energy, clean technology, environmental and infrastructure clients. His clients principally represent developers, lenders, EPCs, O&Ms, equipment providers, private equity, venture capital and infrastructure funds.

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In his more than 40 years of practice, Mr. Riedy has represented clients in domestic and international matters, including energy and infrastructure, project development and debt and equity financing contracts, mergers and acquisitions, technology outsourcing, investment fund structuring and related investments therefrom, venture capital and private equity structuring and related contracts, and compliance with regulatory and legislative issues. He also has represented clients in international disputes before U.S. and foreign agencies, dealing with matters such as anti-dumping, export controls, sanctions, and anti-bribery. Mr. Riedy has counseled renewable and conventional energy clients doing business in more than 50 countries.

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Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Riedy was an attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of an international law firm, where he co-led its Energy and Infrastructure Project Finance Practice and chaired its Asia Practice.

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Recognitions & Awards

• A founder and original General Counsel: Renewable Fuel Association – 1979-1984. Clean Fuels Development Coalition – since 1985. Clean Fuels Foundation – since 1990. American Council On Renewable Energy/Biomass Coordinating Council – since 2001. Latin American Council On Renewable Energy - since 2009.

• Assisted clients in the creation of the original Alternate Energy Tax Incentives in the 1978 and 1980 tax acts, and their expansions and extensions thereafter.

• Assisted clients In the renewable fuels and renewable power industries In the development of provisions In the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, 1983 Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act, 1990 Clean Air Amendments (and reformulated gasoline regulations thereto), 1992 Energy Policy Act, 2005 Energy Policy Act,  2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, 2008 and 2014 Food, Conservation and Energy Acts, and 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

• Named one of the Top 100 Bioenergy Leaders Worldwide – BiofuelsDigest – 2011-2012 (#67), 2012-2013 (#50), 2013-2014 (#56), 2014-2015 (#49) and 2015-2017 (#42).

• AV® Preeminent™ rated by Martindale-Hubbell* for the last 22 Years.

• Named one of Washington, DC & Baltimore’s Top Rated Lawyers for Business & Commercial by legal leaders for 2012-2017.

• Vice Chairman for Project Finance, American Bar Association, Section for Energy & Natural Resources, since 2010.

• Kilpatrick Townsend is ranked #1 worldwide for Infrastructure Construction and #1 in U.S. for Intellectual Property – ratings by Chambers – 2011-2017.

• *CV, BV, and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedure's standards and policies.

 

Mr. Riedy represents a U.S. company in the project financing of a $7.7 billion natural gas-to-clean jet fuel project with related solar power, pipelines, water desalinization and other infrastructure in the Southwest U.S. As part of this representation, the largest volumetric and longest-term biojet offtake agreement has been executed, with three similar agreements in negotiation and drafting.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-j-riedy-4b963515/

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CJ Evans

Co-Fouder, AFCC

CJ Evans, along with Mark Riedy, is the co-founder of AFCC. Mr. Evans is the managing director of a holding company -- American Diversified Enterprises (ADE), https://www.ade.llc/ -- that includes four companies that assist clients (1) obtain financing through government grants and loan guarantees and proposals in response to Requests For Proposals (RFPs), (2) secure  equity investments and debt financing, (3) prepare independent third-party reports, and (4) perform due diligence services, as well as four companies that are pursuing innovations in agriculture, rural land stewardship (including carbon sequestration and ecosystem management), transportation, and communications.

 

Mr. Evans has, over the past 20 years, built ADE into an effective, well-respected firm with a team of 25+ subject matter experts and a roster of partner companies, such as Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, with expertise in a wide range of biotech fields. The ADE team includes corporate executives, technology developers, engineers from a variety of disciplines, entrepreneurs, financing specialists, marketing experts, strategic planners, publication specialists, project managers, and former senior-level administrators of federal government agencies.

 

Mr. Evans has over 40 years of experience in public policy, technology development, project finance, and grant-making arenas, working on conservation, agriculture, renewable energy, and advanced fossil fuel issues. He has been at the leading edge of the renewable energy and advanced fossil fuels industries since 2005, helping innovators and companies commercialize new technologies and secure financing.

 

Mr. Evans has helped clients obtain close to $5 billion from government grants, loan guarantees, and project financing. Several projects in which he has been involved were the first commercial deployments of new technologies.

 

Mr. Evans is a successful (registered) U.S. Congressional lobbyist whose accomplishments include working single-handedly as well as with a group of 20 company CEOs and lawyers to restore $40 billion in loan authority for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Title 17 Loan Guarantee Program in 2018 after the program was eliminated by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate Appropriation Committee in their fiscal year 2018 appropriation bills.

It was this experience that led Mr. Evans to reach out to Mr. Riedy to form AFCC.

 

Mr. Evans has been involved in the approval of local policies and bond issues that provide incentives to private landowners to maintain productive farmland and endangered species habitats, along with model programs to develop “created wetlands” for wastewater treatment in lieu of typical wastewater treatment facilities, which have had the added benefits of becoming bird sanctuaries, havens for wildlife, and major tourist attractions for the counties in which they are located.

 

At the state level, Mr. Evans has been involved in crafting grant programs to attract clean energy projects to the state and land use policies that allow all landowners in an area to benefit from the economic returns generated by development, without creating winners and losers, while using development as the engine to protect high priority habitats and natural areas.

 

At the federal level, Mr. Evans has been involved in the legislation that created national recreation trails, allowed abandoned railways to be converted to trails (rails-to-trails), strengthened specialty crop programs, created conservation and energy title programs in the Farm Bill, and established grant and loan guarantee programs at USDA and DOE that support the bioeconomy.

https://www.ade.llc/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-cj-evans/ 

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Rina Singh, Ph.D.

Executive Vice President, Policy, AFCC

Dr. Rina Singh serves as Executive Vice President at AFCC.  In this role, Dr. Singh manages and directs AFCC’s public policy and advocacy development, educational initiatives, provides regulatory and legislative solutions to companies having leadership in technologies such as feedstock development and/or crop fertilizer booster production, synthesizing renewable chemicals for food ingredients additives, food substances, flavors, fragrances, cosmetic/personal care products, biomatierals/bioplastics, biofuels for both aviation and ground transportation, microbial conversion technology developers, and biobased product producers. 

 

Appointed in 2019, Dr. Singh is serving a three-year term on the ASTM International Board of Directors.

 

Prior to joining AFCC, Dr. Singh was the Managing Director at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) in the Industrial and Environmental Section (IES), where she led renewable chemicals (commodity and specialty) and biobased products, synthetic biology for pharmaceutical intermediates, biofuels, and other downstream applications. 

 

Dr. Singh is well recognized for successfully defining renewable chemicals in the 2014 Farm Bill, which is also incorporated in the 2018 Farm Bill, and opening up standalone renewable chemical facilities to USDA’s loan guarantee program, and her work in introducing renewable chemicals in pending tax legislation such as Master Limited Partnership (MLP), and production / investment tax credit (PTC/ITC) which continues to be used as template for the enactment of state renewable chemicals tax legislation.

 

Before her work with BIO, Dr. Singh had been with Ashland Inc., working in general management positions in technology and business development, including renewable chemicals and biobased products business development and platform technology manager.  She was appointed to a team to develop a new strategic direction for Ashland in their divestiture of $1.5 billion petroleum refining business.

 

Before Ashland, Dr. Singh was at Dow Chemical, Central Research, where she started her career as senior research chemist in the engineering thermoplastics group.  She holds number of patents and has written several technical publications.

Dr. Singh earned her B.Sc. in honors chemistry and her doctorate in natural products (synthetic organic chemistry) from McGill University, where she also completed a post-doctoral degree in polymer science. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rina-singh-5312a111/