Forest2Market welcomes new bioenergy lead

Apr. 16, 2012 – Forest2Market announced today that Stan Parton, formerly of The Parton Group, has joined the company. In his new role, Stan will lead Forest2Market’s bioenergy practice.

Parton will be responsible for the expansion of Forest2Fuel, the company’s suite of services for buyers and sellers of renewable energy fuels, and for managing product evolution and derivative product development. These services include biomass supply availability studies, tipping point analyses, site selection studies, wood fuel indexing for supply and off-take agreements and a price benchmark that buyers and sellers of wood fuel use to compare their performance to, and improve their positions in, the market.

Before coming to Forest2Market, Stan was principal in The Parton Group, a company he established in 2001. A provider of project development support services for the renewable energy and forest products sectors, The Parton Group conducted dozens of studies, including technology options analyses, plant evaluations, and many of the same services offered by Forest2Market.

Pete Stewart, Forest2Market’s President and CEO, welcomed Stan to the rapidly growing organization. “Forest2Market and The Parton Group have been partnering to conduct resource studies for the last three years. Now that Stan is part of Forest2Market, I think the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts. His dual experience in the pulp and paper and bioenergy industries will help us serve our traditional customer base more completely.  As pulp and paper companies get ready to take advantage of emerging energy markets, Forest2Market is positioned to help them on both sides of the business.”

“At The Parton Group, we knew that due diligence analysis was most effective when it relied more on accurate market data and less on anecdotal information," said Stan Parton. "We worked with Forest2Market because the method they use to collect wood fiber pricing data—from actual contracts—is the best available. To now be working for a company of this caliber is an honor. I look forward to growing Forest2Market’s bioenergy practice and providing customers with the best market information and supply chain analysis in the industry.”

“Our goal is to facilitate the decision-making processes of our customers, and we know that better data equals better decision making,” added Suzanne Hearn, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Forest2Market, “With his knowledge of the technical aspects of energy production, Stan is a great addition to our team and to our ability to help our customers resolve complex issues in the bioenergy project development process.”

Stan has a B.S. in Pulp and Paper Science and Technology from North Carolina State University. He will work out of Forest2Market’s headquarters in Charlotte, NC.

About Forest2Market

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Forest2Market provides market pricing data as well as wood and fiber supply chain expertise to customers in the forest, wood products, pulp and paper, lumber and bioenergy industries. For more information, visit www.forest2market.com.