FEATURE
Experienced Team, Strong Culture Sets POET – Fairbank Apart A strong, experienced workforce has helped POET Bioprocessing – Fairbank transition seamlessly into the POET family. By Darrell Boone Ask POET Bioprocessing – Fairbank General Manager Bryon Wilson what he likes best about his job at the Iowa facility, and he doesn’t have to think long. “There’s an old saying that you go to work because of the people you work with,” he says. “That’s definitely the case here. I feel I have a good relationship with the Fairbank team, which includes a lot of tenured employees. It’s kind of like having a second family.” Wilson’s worked with many of his “second family” for years. He grew up seven miles from where the plant stands and came to work there as an operator right out of high school. Over time, hard work and a knack for leadership helped him work his way up to the general manager’s chair. And while Wilson’s relationship with the facility goes back several years, the plant’s history began two owners ago. Originally constructed in 2006 as Hawkeye Renewables, the plant was purchased by Flint Hills Resources (FHR) in 2011. Then, on June 1, 2021, the Fairbank facility was one of six FHR plants acquired by POET, which recognized the excellent quality of those plants and felt they would fit nicely with POET’s existing portfolio of facilities. At an annual production rate of 125 to 130 million gallons of bioethanol, the Fairbank facility is one of the largest in the POET family and currently employs 53 people. During the ownership transition, there was no shutting down, no retrofitting, nor any work stoppage whatsoever. And while the ownership transition took place with no hitches in production, Wilson says there initially was some uncertainty among the team members about what being acquired by POET might entail. “Within a short time, the POET leadership team came onsite and did a pretty darn good job of providing us with clarity and comfort,” he says. “They told us, ‘We understand that these plants run the way they do because of the people they have, and we want to continue that mindset.’ That really felt good to hear that.” A strong and diverse culture Wilson says the blessing of having capable and tenured team members gives the plant a couple of distinct competitive advantages. “The POET culture says that we want our team members to be ‘principled entrepreneurs,’” he says. “If we have that — and I believe we do — it gives us a competitive advantage. “Also, we generally have a pretty diverse group here, people who come from all different kinds of careers,” Wilson says. “We have engineers, we have farmers and people from many other backgrounds,” he says. “Having all those different kinds of backgrounds and experiences creates a richer blend of perspectives on how to approach different problems. At the end of the day, that helps drive a better decision, which gives us another competitive advantage.” Wilson says that the quality of the plant team’s strong work ethic and focused teamwork manifests itself in tangible ways.
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