Dakota Oil Processing, LLC is a privately held, development-stage company formed for the purpose of developing, constructing, owning and operating a crude oil topping refinery near Trenton, North Dakota.
Company Governorship
The Company is governed by a seven member Board of Directors. The members of the Board as of October 2011 are:
Chester L. Trabucco, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Chester L. Trabucco brings a balanced blend of corporate discipline and entrepreneurial creativity to the Project, as well as experience in complex project entitlement and implementation. Trabucco has held several senior management positions during his career, including both National Director of Sales and Corporate Director of Product Marketing with GTE (now Verizon, a Fortune 500 company) corporate in Dallas, Texas. As GTE’s National Sales Director, Trabucco was accountable for $100 million in deregulated equipment sales as well as growth and retention of $3.9 billion in network revenue He was responsible for the results and performance of over 1,200 employees.
At the height of the dot.com runup, Trabucco took on the role of President for Innuity, a Minneapolis subscription‐based, template webdesign and transaction processing company. Trabucco was instrumental in assisting the company to grow its national client base to 300,000 customers in under four years. Later, Trabucco was the founder and President of Communications Service Group (CSG), with offices in Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Trabucco sold CSG just two years later to telecommunications giant WorldCom, at an ROI of 465%.
In addition to his entrepreneurial involvement in the area of telecommunications, Trabucco has also been a majority shareholder and managing partner in successful endeavors including commercial real estate development, outdoor advertising and banking. Most recently Trabucco served as a founding board member of a new community bank, helping to secure the last new bank charter awarded in the State of Oregon.
Trabucco holds a Business Marketing Degree from the University of Oregon. He resides in Seattle.
Richard L. Bogaard
Richard L. Bogaard, Park Rapids, Minnesota, has spent the majority of this career in the food processing industry, holding positions at all corporate levels. He has extensive experience in operations, quality assurance, engineering, sales and general management. Bogaard is past president of RDO Frozen, Inc., a company that produces frozen French fries, located in Park Rapids, Minnesota. RDO is owned by the R.D. Offutt Company, Fargo North Dakota. More recently Bogaard served as General Manager of the Food Division of the R.D. Offutt Company.
Throughout his career, Bogaard has directed the design, engineering, construction and startup of many new food‐processing production lines and two completely new plants. In 2006, he helped form a new company, Design Solutions & Integration, Inc. (DSI). DSI is an integration company involved in the automation of food processing, wastewater and potable water treatment plants, and the ethanol industry. He recently finished serving as the construction manager for a new potato processing plant in Boardman, Oregon for RDO/Calbee, a joint venture between R.D. Offutt Company and Calbee, a Japanese food processing company.
Mel Falcon, Vice Chairman
Mel Falcon is serving as the Vice Chair of the Company Board. He is currently the President and CEO of Aqua‐Envirotech Mfg., Inc., of Williston, North Dakota, a position he has held since 1992. A founding member of the MonDak Energy Alliance, Falcon currently serves on its Board of Directors. He is a principal and a driving force behind the initial formation and success of Dakota Oil Processing. Falcon has been the Finance Officer of the Trenton Indian Service Area and was a member of the Board of Supervisors of Trenton Township, North Dakota. He also has extensive experience in water resource management.
Falcon was formerly Regional and General Manager of Fluids Control, Inc. for the U.S. Central Division and Canadian and Alaskan Divisions. In that capacity Falcon was responsible for management and oversight of the District managers of Williston, North Dakota; Gillette, Wyoming; Calgary Alberta, Canada; and Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska.
Fluids Control, Inc. was the first company in the Williston Basin to provide equipment and technology for a complete closed‐loop mud processing system. Falcon designed and manufactured oilfield filtration, drilling fluid processing, soil remediation and potable water treatment systems. He also installed oilfield tank batteries, pipelines, and operated roustabout equipment. Other operations included solidification of oilfield drilling pits, recovery of waste oil, filtration and providing material for drilling and production products.
Work as a derrick hand and roughneck in the oilfields of North Dakota and Montana provided Falcon with an up‐close experience in operations. He also served as a supervisor for several large construction companies in North Dakota, Montana, Hawaii, California and South Dakota.
Falcon, who was born in Trenton, has spent most of his life in North Dakota and is active in community affairs. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration and a Minor in Accounting from the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. He resides in Trenton.
Brom Lutz, Board Member, Secretary
Brom Lutz is currently the president of BEI LLC, an energy and Infrastructure company serving western North Dakota and eastern Montana, and also serves on the executive board of the MonDak Energy Alliance, a nonprofit company working to diversify and enhance the oil, gas and renewable energy industry in the Williston Basin. He has extensive experience in sales and marketing and has been directly involved in the development of the project since its inception. Lutz serves as Secretary of the Board.
Chris Melcher, Board Member
Chris Melcher is currently legal counsel and Director of Business at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Prior to joining Colorado College, Melcher was Vice President of Rocky Mountain Internet. He has served as Assistant General Counsel for KN Energy, Inc. providing legal services on regulated and unregulated market activities and directing corporate strategy in federal and state proceedings across the company's 15‐state territory. Prior to KN Energy, he was Senior Regulatory Counsel with Southern California Edison. Melcher also represented corporate clients with the firm of Brownstein Hyatt & Farber, P.C and served as Associate Independent Counsel with the Office of Independent Counsel in Washington, D.C. Melcher practiced law with the firm of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering. Melcher received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Carleton College and his Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.
Seth Urruty, Board Member, Treasurer
Seth Urruty is Senior Evaluations Engineer at Vantage Energy, LLC, an oil and gas exploration company in Denver, Colorado. A Magna Cum Laude graduate of Gonzaga University in Mechanical Engineering, Urruty manages evaluations of investment opportunities in oil and shale oil fields in the Central region and Gulf Coast of the United States.
Michael Wavra, Board Member
Michael Wavra is currently the President of Design Solutions and Integration, Inc., a company of which he is also a principal. Wavra brings extensive experience in project justification, implementation and the management of capital projects to the Company. He has 15 years of experience in the development and implementation of capital projects that include facility expansions and green‐field facility construction in the United States and Canada. Wavra has worked for J.R. Simplot, ConAgra Foods, R.D. Offutt and Lamb Weston at both the plant and corporate levels. Wavra holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology from the University of North Dakota.