KEARNEY — The wood and stone building with large glass windows along its front and back has a lodge-in-the-great-outdoors look.
That was by design for the KAAPA Ethanol Holdings central office building on the previous site of a south Kearney landmark, Grandpa’s Steakhouse. The Platte River is to the south and the back (east) windows and patio are beside a small lake attractive to Canadian geese and other waterfowl.
“It just creates a wonderful environment for our employees who work here ... and we’ve heard a lot of positive comments from our stakeholders,” said Chuck Woodside.
He has been chief executive officer the past 16-plus years as KAAPA Ethanol has grown from one ethanol processing plant west of Minden to a company with a current mix of ethanol production there and at Ravenna, commercial grain handling at Elm Creek, and, more recently, a grain marketing service.
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Woodside said the new central office involved a year of planning — the 13,000-square-foot building was designed by Wilkins Architectural Design Planning of Kearney — and a year of construction headed by general contractor Sampson Construction.
Ground was broken Oct. 1, 2018, on the $4 million-plus project.
“It was a terrible winter to build,” Woodside said about late 2018 into March 2019, which is why the original June 2019 date for the move from temporary office space in Kearney for two years was pushed back to September.
That same month, KAAPA Ethanol produced its 1 billionth gallon of biofuel.
“It was a huge benchmark,” Woodside said.
Other KAAPA Ethanol Holdings facilities are the KAAPA Grains elevator at Elm Creek and interests in three other ethanol plants: Lima, Ohio, majority interest; Hankinson, N.D., 42 percent; and Janesville, Minn., 33 percent.
CEO Chuck Woodside stands in the foyer of the new KAAPA headquarters in south Kearney.
Building tour
Features of the new central office include workspaces for commodity specialists and other customer service providers, board meeting room, larger training-meeting room, employee lunchroom, exercise room, a private wellness room, and a large foyer with high ceilings and five round light fixtures.
Communication and technology systems are better, including teleconference capabilities.
“This collaboration piece (between KAAPA Holdings sites and missions) is so important,” he said, and along with the central training space, “another efficiency” for the company.
“We are focused on getting closer to our farmer customers, not farther away,” Woodside said, which is a reason KAAPA Ethanol Commodities was launched last year.
He explained that a producer may farm near one KAAPA site, but be able to get a better market price at one of the others.
Combined, the two ethanol plants and Elm Creek elevator buy 70 million bushels of corn annually, he said, which is approximately 4 percent of the 1.8 billion bushels grown by all Nebraska farmers.
Ethanol issues
Woodside, who is a past chairman and continuing board member for the Renewable Fuels Association, said the biggest industry issues involve growing domestic and international demand for ethanol fuels.
The Trump Administration sent mixed regulatory messages in 2019.
Approval of year-round use of E15, a fuel blend with 15 percent ethanol, was welcome, but Woodside said, “there still are a lot of problems in the EPA with their small refinery waivers” from meeting the federal Renewable Fuels Standard.
Promises were made to resolve that issue and make up for waiver-related production losses, but that hasn’t happened.
However, on Jan. 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Washington struck down three of the exemptions described as improperly issued by the EPA.
The ruling was from a May 2018 challenge brought against the EPA by the Renewable Fuels Association, National Corn Growers Association, American Coalition for Ethanol and National Farmers Union.
Woodside called it a “significant ruling,” but it’s not known yet how the EPA will respond.
“We have been disappointed with the EPA response” previously, he said. “The RFS, it’s pretty clear ... We’re not asking the administration to do anything but uphold the law.”
Exports are another area of potential.
“There is a lot of potential internationally, but trade barriers in China have been huge,” Woodside said, adding that uncertainty remains about what a mid-January U.S.-China agreement that includes resumption of some ag-related imports by China means for ethanol.
“Mexico also is a potential big market,” he added. “It’s important for us to pursue these big markets.”
