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Raymond Stenger
Chairman of the Board and President
Ray Stenger works with the chief science officer in the development of SWAPSOL intellectual property. Ray’s career has been centered in business development, environmental consulting and the management of private companies engaged in these activities. Ray also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Conklin Marketing, Inc (CMI), and it was through Ray’s involvement with CMI that Ray and Jim began working closely together.
Ray Stenger has received a U.S. Patent for a Closed Vent Bioreactor System (1993, U.S Patent No. 5,258,303), founded and operated Stenger Associates, Inc., an Environmental Consulting firm (1987-1995) and co-founded Envirotactics, Inc., an Environmental Consulting firm where he served from 1995 to 2007.
Earlier in his career, Stenger was a process engineer at Diamond Alkali (1959-1965). In 1965, he became senior process engineer with Stephan Chemical where he was involved in converting black strap molasses to citric acid. From 1967 to 1971, he worked as chief process engineer at Stauffer Chemical's Louisville Works, one of the largest chlorinated solvent plants in the United States. Following Stauffer Chemical, Stenger was chief process engineer and subsequently plant manager with the Philadelphia Quartz Company from 1971 to 1981. In 1981, he co-founded LOMA Environmental, an environmental consulting and remediation firm.
Stenger earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from West Virginia University in 1957. He served in the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Unit, working with VX nerve gas. He is currently the treasurer for the Princeton Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
James Wasas (SWAPSOL Board)
Chief Science Officer, Executive Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer
Jim Wasas is chief science officer, executive vice president, and secretary/treasurer
for SWAPSOL, Corp. He also serves on the Board of Directors. He has
spent his career engaged in corporate management and chemical research
with chemical product and process development in both the United States
and Ecuador.
From 2001 to 2007, Wasas served as president and technical director of Conklin Marketing and Sales Co., Inc. and Conklin Marketing, Inc. It was during this time that he invented “The Spirit of Liberty,” winner of the World Spirits Competition's Platinum Award for American Cream Liqueur.
From 1987 to 2001, Wasas worked in Ecuador, where he founded and was Chairman of the Board and technical director for Espiritu del Ecuador, S.A., a liquor manufacturing and marketing company. In 2008, the company won the World Spirits Competition's Gold Medal Award for "Espiritu del Ecuador," a cordial liquor combining 20 fruits native to Ecuador.
From 1988 to 1990, Wasas headed the Research and Development division of Geevor, PLC and invented a chemical process for dissolving cyanide refractory gold in metallic ores native to Ecuador.
Wasas also designed, constructed and trained the operation of three gold
refineries for U.S. companies and seven gold and silver refineries
for Ecuadoran companies, including one that produced aerospace grade
99.9999% pure gold.
Wasas earned his bachelor of arts degree in chemistry from Rutgers University in 1968. He also served as a captain in the U.S. Army, stationed both in Japan and Thailand.
Wasas is member of the American Chemical Society.
Randa Fahmy-Hudome (SWAPSOL Board)
President
Fahmy-Hudome Int'l, Wash., D.C.
Randa Fahmy-Hudome is a recognized expert in both the energy sector and international affairs. Her professional career of more than two decades spans service in both the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. government, as well as in the private sector. She is President of Fahmy-Hudome International (FHI), a strategic consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. that provides advisory services to an elite group of international and domestic clients. Prior to founding FHI, she served as the Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy in the Administration of President George W. Bush. From 1995-2001, she served on Capitol Hill as Foreign Policy Counselor to Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI), where she was instrumental in shaping legislation affecting U.S. interests abroad. She earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and has practiced law with the New York law firm of Willkie, Farr and Gallagher.
Wolf Koch, Ph.D. (SWAPSOL
Board)
Director, Senior Advisor, Swapsol
President, Technology Resources International, Inc.
Sterling, IL
Wolf Koch managed technology development programs for over three decades on environmental, safety and intellectual properties issues related to petroleum product distribution. He managed petrochemical and petroleum processing technology development for a major oil company and has collaborated with regulatory agencies at the Federal, State and local levels and with industry groups and associations. Wolf has been a Professor of Chemical Engineering and spent 15 years in an adjunct capacity teaching undergraduate and graduate chemical and mechanical engineering courses. He is the inventor or co-inventor on 26 patents and has authored over 40 publications covering topics in biomedical engineering, catalysis, environmental engineering and intellectual properties. Wolf holds Ph.D. and bachelor degrees in chemical engineering and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force, four years as a weapons and explosives safety officer in Germany and six years as a reservist in the Air Force Intelligence Service, covering technology issues for the Foreign Technology Division.
Robert Cohen (SWAPSOL
Board)
Managing Partner, Benson Oak
Prague, Czech Republic
Mr. Cohen is Managing Partner of Benson Oak Capital (BOC), a private equity fund which provides financing for buyouts and expansion capital with a focus on middle market companies in the Czech and Slovak Republics. He has 15 years experience in private equity, investment banking and financial advisory activities and currently manages the operations of BOC. He previously managed Benson Oak's corporate finance advisory business.
BOC was originally founded in 1991, advising on over EUR6 billion in debt and equity financing transactions. Mr. Cohen has participated in numerous transactions in the Central European region, including loan, bond, multilateral and equity financings for Czech Airport Authority, CEZ (Czech power company), Unipetrol (petrochemicals and oil refinery), and Czech Railways.
BOC's current investments include AVG Technologies, a global security solutions leader protecting more than 80 million users in 167 countries. Mr. Cohen has served on AVG's Board since 2003 and handled all strategic financing issues for the company from 2004 until late 2005. Mr. Cohen is actively involved with the boards of all BOC investments.
Mr. Cohen has a Master's Degree in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Susan Hudome, M.D. (SWAPSOL
Board)
Monmouth Medical Center
Long Branch, NJ
Susan Hudome is a neonatologist and current Medical Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, NJ. She received her medical degree from Penn State University and completed an internship at Duke University Medical Center, a residency at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and a fellowship at Penn State University. Dr. Hudome is active in residency training and serves on the hospital Institutional Review Board monitoring clinical research. She is a member of the board of Ronald McDonald House of Long Branch, and Michael’s Feat, a local charity providing services to families with ill newborns.
Evan Howell
EVP, Marketing & Communications
Evan Howell is a communications professional with 20 years of experience in both the U.S. and Europe. He has worked in various sectors including green technology, international non-profit and international trade. He was most recently a public relations executive for the 10th largest independent media agency in the United States. From 1997 to 2005, Howell worked as a producer in the Washington, D.C. bureaus of CNN and Fox News Channel. Prior to that, he was a PR executive in Prague, Czech Republic, where he handled brand clients such as Pilsner Urquell, Citroen and ING Bank. Previously, he conducted press relations for five years in the Wisconsin State Legislature. He is a graduate of Beloit College and holds a master’s degree in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
the story of the SWAP
Like so many iconic invention stories, theirs began in a garage, when environmental engineer Ray Stenger and entrepreneur chemist Jim Wasas formed a partnership. Together they would unearth a profound scientific discovery – a breakthrough with the ability to convert and significantly reduce industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and change the world’s energy trajectory for the next 100 years.
Stenger and Wasas first met in 2002 during a networking event in Asbury Park, N.J. Stenger was an engineer focused on environmental cleanup; Wasas was a gold extraction specialist and had founded a liqueur company that marketed a brand he developed while living and working in Ecuador. Over time, the men became friends, regularly discussed chemistry, industry and finding the ways to live better through science. The May 2006 release of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” sparked yet another conversation between the two – the issue of greenhouse gases, CO2 and climate change. With two parts oxygen – shouldn’t CO2 be considered an oxidizing agent? Their conversation quickly became a brainstorming session.
Their scientific strong suits were symbiotic – Stenger was interested in “recombinant” science, or taking things apart and putting them back together. Wasas’ strength was “catalysis” and “extraction” science, or separating compounds. They paired their thoughts, and the foundation of the Stenger-Wasas Process (SWAP) was laid.
Stenger had extensive experience with elemental sulfur, having worked at the Army’s Chemical Research Center in Maryland. He knew that as a solid, sulfur is tame. But when liquefied, it becomes aggressive and combative. He had a theory that hot sulfur would attack CO2 and turn it into Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), and that solid carbon would precipitate out. Wasas’ expertise in extraction science armed him with the background to help identify a reacting agent. Together, they knew the answer hid beneath the facts.
Wasas had much of the proper laboratory equipment in his basement in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. They spent a few hundred dollars on additional items and together, having no idea what they were about to uncover, they converted Wasas’ garage into an ad hoc laboratory. Early thermodynamic calculations indicated the possibility of a reaction between CO2 and gaseous sulfur at very high temperatures, but they decided that this was impractical. They needed to identify a substance that contained the requisite potency to react with and decompose the CO2. It would need to be abundant and inexpensive, maybe even free.
More than a year of experimentation, seven-day workweeks and multiple
failures finally led them to hydrogen sulfide and their stroke
of genius – an inexpensive, long-lived, self-cleaning catalyst.
The beauty of the SWAP is both its simplicity and the scope of
its applications. The SWAP can permanently remove carbon from
the carbon cycle by converting it into stable, industrially valuable
solids and liquids. The SWAP could make carbon capture profitable
in sales to the oil and gas industry, impacting other carbon-emitters
including coal-fired power, waste management, manufacturing,
agriculture, aerospace and construction. Simply put, the SWAP
significantly reduces trash by marrying industries that produce
CO2 and industries that produce
H2S — oil and gas refiners.
The SWAP addresses the most important challenges of our time through
a newly-discovered field of chemistry, what Stenger and Wasas
call the “Global Sulfur Cycle” to reduce or eliminate
humanity’s impact on climate change while solving the world’s
energy crisis.
In a New Jersey garage, Jim Wasas and Ray Stenger discovered how
to convert and eliminate CO2,
opening the door to a new energy economy.
It’s time to rewrite the chemistry textbooks.
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