Keynote SpeakerDr. TJ Paskach is a principal at Frontline BioEnergy, a developer of renewable energy technology and projects based in Ames. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1990 from ISU and spent 6 years at UOP, a Honeywell Company, developing petrochemical technologies and leading teams of field service engineers on new process unit startups. In 1997 he returned to ISU to pursue his Ph.D. in chemical engineering. While in graduate school he and Will Schroeder invented and patented the nitro freeze process and started Nitro Ice Cream, which has been a popular concession at the Iowa State Fair since 2000. Though still employed full-time at Frontline BioEnergy, Dr. Paskach returned to ISU again in the fall of 2017 and currently teach process and plant design in the CBE department. Dr. Paskach has a daughter, Dagney, who is a junior in Industrial Engineering and a son, Nathan, who is a freshman in Computer Engineering at ISU. Dr. Paskach lives in Ames with his wife Jeanne and his two younger sons, Eric and Ryan, both at Ames High School.