Two companies received awards for their work in Indiana this December. Jeff Broin, CEO of Poet LLC, and Thornton's Inc., a gasoline/convenience chain retailer with 36 E85 stations, were both honored during the Greater Indiana Clean Cities awards ceremony. Broin received the 2010 Paul Dana Excellence in Bioenergy Leadership Award from the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

 Thornton's was awarded for outstanding achievement in the implementation and promotion of E85 retail locations from the Greater Indiana Clean Cities Coalition. Broin was honored for exemplifying leadership and innovative vision in the bioenergy industry. The Paul Dana Award was established in honor of Dana, an Indy Racing League driver, who died in a racing accident in 2006.

Poet has 26 ethanol plants with a total production capacity of 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol and about 4 million tons of distillers grains annually. There are four Poet plants in Indiana. "Jeff Broin's work has led to jobs for hundreds of Hoosiers and lessened our reliance on foreign oil," said Lt. Governor Becky Skillman, who serves as Secretary of Agriculture. "We are thrilled with Poet's presence in Indiana, and I congratulate Jeff on being this year's winner."

Thornton's has really went "above and beyond" in installing E85 pumps, said Kellie Walsh, executive director of Indiana's Clean Cities. Of the 36 the company has installed, 10 are in Indiana. The company has also been a partner in I-65: America's Biofuels Corridor, where flex-fuel vehicle (FFV) drivers can travel from Gary, Ind., to Mobile, Ala., and be assured of a good supply of E85.

The company learned of state and federal funding sources to install E85 infrastructure through Clean Cities, said Chris O'Bryan, financial analyst. Along with the 50 percent Alternative Vehicle Refueling Property Tax Credit, the company decided it made good financial sense to install E85 pumps. (That credit was reduced to 30 percent in the tax bill that passed during the lame duck legislative session.)

 Installing the E85 pumps was a good decision and a good investment for the company, O'Bryan said. First off, it's the right thing to do. The fact that customers were asking for it and the price spread between ethanol and gasoline was also a motivating factor. "There's more flex-fuel vehicles on the road every day, and we like the prospects going forward," he says.

In 2005, Indiana only had one ethanol plant and no public E85 pumps-even though it's the fifth largest corn state. That situation has changed a lot since then, said Indiana State Department of Agriculture Director Joe Kelsay. The state now has 11 completed ethanol plants and two more under construction, adding up to a combined total of 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol produced annually. In addition, the state now has more than 120 public E85 pumps.