Web exclusive posted April 9, 2008 at 5:15 p.m. CST

VeraSun Energy Corp. has announced several appointments and promotions relating to its April 1 merger with U.S. BioEnergy Corp.

Greg Schlicht has joined the company's executive team as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. Schlicht previously worked at U.S. BioEnergy Corp., which officially merged with VeraSun on April 1. At U.S. BioEnergy, he was responsible for establishing a corporate legal department, adopting corporate governance practices, and completing the company's initial public offering of common stock.

Virg Garbers and Joel West has joined the company's senior management team from U.S. BioEnergy, and Todd Church was promoted to the position of vice president.

Garbers, who will serve as VeraSun's vice president and corporate controller, has more than 15 years of experience in management and public accounting. While at U.S. BioEnergy, he also held the position of vice president and corporate controller.

West will be vice president of risk management, where he will be responsible for overseeing ethanol price risk and all grain and energy related risk positions necessary for production at VeraSun's biorefineries, in addition to the development of an overall margin management strategy.

Church, who joined VeraSun in March 2007, will assume the role of vice president, operations and production support. In his new role, Church will be responsible for overseeing operations of VeraSun's East Region and its seven biorefineries expected to be in operation by the end of 2008, in addition to developing strategies across all facilities as it relates to process optimization.

Kurt Swenson, who has served as VeraSun's vice president of plant operations since January 2007, has transitioned into the role of vice president, operations and engineering support and will oversee West Region operations and the company's other nine facilities that will be operating by the end of the year.