Huge FEW Expo

Some 700 exhibitors filled the floor of the America’s Center trade show arena this week for the 23rd Annual Fuel Ethanol Workshop, representing everything from industry organizations like RFA, to plants, design/builders, materials suppliers, consultants, and much more. As the expo was winding down on Wednesday evening, I did a walk-through with Kathy Bryan, who is the president and co-founder of BBI International, the company responsible for FEW.

“The people who are coming don’t come just to see the ethanol producers,” Bryan told me. “They come to meet the other vendors so they can team up and work together for a client.”

Bryan says the expo portion of the show is was started in 1996. “When the Fuel Ethanol Workshop started 23 years ago, we just had the workshop. There was no trade show, no exhibitors, nothing like that. And there were probably between 25 and 40 people who came to the first few years.”

This year there were over 5,000 in attendance at the FEW, an increase of over 60 percent just compared to last year.

Watch the video walk-through of the expo, which is posted on YouTube, here:

Or you can listen to the just the audio portion of the interview with Kathy here: Kathy Bryan (5 min MP3)