 Mike Gregory bought an '06 Ford F250 first of July this year. He says, "I started running B20 in the middle of October 2006 and have about 750 miles on biodiesel to date. The truck runs great on biodiesel and I love knowing that I am able to do something to help curb our dependence on foreign oil." WELL SAID!
|  You! We are expanding the Brigade, which means we need to know if you are fueling your diesel vehicle with biodiesel! Please contact us at 865-974-3625 or [email protected] and let us know about your action. We'll provide you a magnet and place your picture here as a testament to your positive action for your community and country.
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 Gary Bulmer has been running B20 in his 2006 Jeep Liberty CRD since it was purchased. After 8,500 miles, performance and economy are both great, and he doesn't notice any difference when he's forced to buy petro-diesel on road trips. He would use a higher percentage, at least during summer, if it was available in Knoxville.
|  Mark Cannon has a 1983 MB 300TD that has been running on biodiesel he makes since October, and his car--Hilda--loves it! In addition, he is interested in forming a cooperative for biodiesel in the Knoxville area. If you are interested, contact Mark via email.
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 Bruce Parker is a Senior Reliability Engineer for Gerdau Ameristeel in Knoxville, and lives in Athens, TN. For the last four months, his 126 mile-per-day commute has been in this 1982 Mercedes 300D which is a test bed for various blends of WVO, and home-brewed biodiesel. He says, "The Benz runs smoother and quieter on WVO and Bio-D, better than it ever did on Petro-D!"
|  Mark Mauss's car is a 1985 Mercedes 300 TD wagon with 220,000 miles. He says he's been running on B99.9 for nearly 9 months (~75% of the time), but when he can�t get that blend, he'll run B20. For the occasional cross-country trips, he has to run on petrodiesel. He's never plugged a filter and I have only changed the fuel filter once (not because it was plugged).
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 Ken Boyd and his son Andrew are shown here standing next to Ken's 4-door dually F350. He's been running B99 for a couple of months now. He's also looking to put a diesel engine in his Expedition so that he can run biodiesel in it, too!
|  Nick LaFon who works at the Blount-Greenback Farmer Co-op has a 2002 Dodge Ram 3500 that runs anywhere from B20 to B100 (when the latter is close to diesel's cost) and is Ken Boyd's nephew! Nick ran B99 most of 2006 but with the recent downturn in diesel prices has segued back to B20.
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 Don Shults began filling his 2003 Chevy Duramax 2500HD about three fills ago with B99 from the Blount-Greenback Farmers Co-op in Maryville. He says it runs cleaner, he recognizes more power and is getting slightly better fuel economy. He says, "I changed the fuel filter after the first fill to keep things clean. You should too if you're using B99!"
|  A friend poses here with Ken Hylton (center) who is building a company around a clean and green theme. You'll hear more about their company in the next edition of the ET Alt Fuels Advisor. He's helping the ETCFC get biodiesel sales and more jump-started in Greene County and looks forward to having a whole fleet of biodiesel-powered trucks and equipment! Go Ken!
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 John Weston of Weston Paving in Maryville bought a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 in February and started filling it with B20 immediately. He's gone almost 4,000 miles on B20 as of mid-May! He also runs B20 in a Ford Powerstroke that he has.
|  Scot Newell just started using biodiesel and went straight to B50! His 2003 Ford F-250 has had no problems thus far... he's checking into his fuel economy to see how it changes due to the biodiesel.
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 John Shober's 1990 Chevy Suburban is dual fuel... it runs on biodiesel and waste vegetable oil (WVO)! He's rigged a storage compartment in the rear that prepares (heats) the WVO before sending it to the engine (the main fuel tank holds his biodiesel blend). Keep up the good work John!
|  Todd Vinsant has been using B20 in his early 1980's Mercedes from the public station in Knoxville and is now driving to the McNutt oil cardlock in Maryville to fuel with higher blends, recently blending up to B70. He's got a friend who is also using biodiesel and he will join the Brigade officially soon.
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 Gerald Henry of Metro Wrecker Service began using B20 in his 1999 Ford F550 in July. He's already noticed smoother acceleration from the switch, and that's on a vehicles with almost 250,000 miles! He offers cost-effective werecker service to a wide area so if you want to support a wrecker service that uses biodiesel, give him a call! 865-681-5481.
|  Eric Zitzow is using B20 in his 1990 Mercedes from the public station in Chattanooga and is happy to show his proactiveness through being in the Brigade. As a real estate agent, he gets to meet lots of people and talk about his action. You know they see the magnets and say "what is bioidesel?"!
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 Sean Peterson has a 1984 VW Quantum diesel with over 220,000 miles on it and he is looking forward to helping the engine last another 220,000 by using biodiesel! He just began filling up with B20 in Knoxville, and is a member of the SAE team at UTK that will soon start building a small-scale production unit for making biodiesel.
|  John Fultz showed up at our 36th Knoxville area monthly meeting and was not only using biodiesel in his Dodge Ram 2500, but is producing his own biodiesel from local restaurant grease! He has run several different blends and became a ETCFC and Biodiesel Brigade member on the spot.
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 Tom Henard of the Hawkins Farmers Co-op started learning about biodiesel last year and decided to get involved. He moved the Co-op's on-road diesel offering to B5 starting in early May '05. He had several customers requesting it before the move so there is definitely some local interest in the fuel, and with Tom's help, there will be even more! Tom, Chili Sanders, the local EMS director and a Co-op truck that runs B5 are shown.
|  Chili Sanders of the Hawkins Co. EMS is just one of the local fleets that refuels at the Co-op. They have been pleased with the move and are operating 7 ambulances and 2 crash trucks on B5. Chili and several of his employees are shown beside two of the vehicles that are running B5.
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 James Thomas works at Lowe's Drugs in Maryville and found out that biodiesel was being offered locally and began fueling his 1990 Suburban (6.2L GM diesel) with B20 in early April '05. He says he notices his vavles being a little quiter at stops and plans to begin working on getting his boss to run B20 in his Dodge dually!
|  Yes, Mike Whedbee is listed twice on this page, but it's worth it! He runs several vehicles on B20, but has added this 2005 Mercedes Benz E320 CDI to his biodiesel fleet. The vehicle is amazingly quiet for a diesel, and is nothing short of beautiful.
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 Sam Adams of Cortese Tree Specialists has championed getting his company's diesel vehicles on B20. With the opening of the new public B20 station in downtown Knoxville, just about two miles from their facility, they are started with the shown dump truck on B20. They've got about 4-5 other diesels that will be moved over to B20 over the coming months as they slowly work their fleet over to biodiesel! Nothing quite like a proactive for-profit!
|  Tom Kirchoff of Maryville heard about biodiesel through the local newspaper (The Daily Times). Soon thereafter, he was fueling his 1994 GMC 1500 diesel. He's working on getting some of the diesel users on his block to try it too!
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 Mark McCurry owns two diesel vehicles: a 2002 VW Jetta and a 2002 Ford Excursion. He began filling both with B20 in November/December 2004. Since that time he is seeing a slight increase in fuel economy, but that includes some hauling of a 25' trailer.
|  Rodney Boyd has quitea biodiesel story! Not only is he running B20 in 4 vehicles (2001 + 2005 International 4900s, 2000 Ford F-350, and 2005 Chevy 2500-shown), but he is working on a project to run B100 in a 1.6 MW Caterpillar generator! Read more about his operations at McMinnville Electric System in the Summer 2005 edition of the Alt Fuels Advisor.
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 City of Sevierville has been a hard-working member of the ETCFC for a couple of years now. With the Farmers Co-op now offering B5, which is where they fill anyway, they are moving to B5. They are pleased to be finally making this step and are looking forward to increasing that percentage in 2005!
|  Glenn Gray of Kingsport was just about to sell his diesel Excursion before he saw that biodiesel was coming to Tri-Cities! His excursion is a 2001 with a lift kit and he plans to begin filling up with B20 once Tri-Cities Petroleum opens their Weber City (and hopefully Kingsport) location, perhaps by May. In the picture is his wife Chris, pointing to the important part... they're runnin' on the Clean Burn!
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 Wade Davies bought a gold, 1999, Ford F-350 in late February and took it straight to Alcoa and filled up with B20! He has always wanted a truck and took the opportunity now that biodiesel is available in the area. Obviously, Wade is a very smart man!
|  Hallsdale-Powell Utility District began fueling a couple of vehicles (on-road and off-road) with B5 in October. They plan to move their whole fleet to B5 and are working in that direction.
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 Sevier Farmers Co-op held the Grand Opening of their B5 pumps at their main location in Sevierville on Jan. 4, 2005. They have changed ALL their on-road diesel fuel to a B5 blend--they don't offer any on-road diesel without 5% biodiesel in it. They are running on the B5 in their fuel tankers and are displaying a brigade magnet on the rear of one of those trucks.
|  ALCOA, the Aluminum Company of America, which has its roots in East Tennessee and the city of Alcoa, made the move to biodiesel as B20 in all 550 (!!!) of its vehicles and diesel equipment on November 1, 2004. Their decision to begin using B20 at this plant is a very significant move for East Tennessee because they are a for-profit company. Successful adoption within the for-profit market is crucial for widespread acceptance of biodiesel, and Alcoa is helping us take that step.
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 Cal Blake, chief mechanic with the City of Gatlinburg fleet, stands happily in front of his 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 diesel that is running B20 from McNutt Oil's Texaco in Newport. He's been running B20 since October '04, after watching and working on several Gatlinburg trolleys that have been running B20 since Summer '04 (about 6 months). He has noted a slight increase in his fuel economy (about 1 mpg).
|  University of Tennessee has begun using biodiesel starting December 2004. The Dresser backhoe, which moves coal around the steam plant at UTK, is on B20. Once they are pleased with the performance and don't see any negatives, they will make plans for other equipment using biodiesel.
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 Rick Michaelhaugh works at ORNL and has "tinkered" with cars for a long time. He bought this Fiero that needed a new engine, and decided it needed a diesel. Over approximately 1 year, and working through some problems, the Fiero had a functioning diesel engine from a 82 Buick Century (transverse-mounted, of course). It is one of only two known diesel Fieros in the nation... and he's running it on biodiesel! Rick has run it on a variety of fuels, including a mix of 50% kerosene and 50% waste vegetable oil(in the summer only!!), but is moving it to B100. He has built his own refueling station from used tank and pumping equipment.
|  Blue Sky Biodiesel is the only current biodiesel production facility in East Tennessee. Michael Cretella, their Director of Technology, stands here (middle) discussing the operation of his 1980 Mercedes Benz 300CD that has been running on B100 for about a year (beginning in 2003). They are expanding their operation (in Morgan County, TN) so that they can become a more significant supplier of biodiesel to the East TN community.
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 McNutt Oil was the first East Tennessee fuel supplier/retailer to begin attending ETCFC meetings and make the decision to offer a biodiesel blend to the public. Since then, they have opened two other stations for a total of three public B20 stations (Alcoa, Newport and Loudon), and they continue to support ETCFC growth. Robert McDonell of McNutt is shown filling up one of their service trucks.
|  Calloway Oil, based in Blount County, started communicating with the ETCFC in late 2003. Since then, Tommy Hunt, CEO & President, has helped lead a charge to provide many fleets in the community with biodiesel. They have opened one public B20 store and have worked with the ETCFC through discussions to open others. |
 Mark Downing is an agricultural economist with ORNL and the owner of Trans Tech Volvo/BMW, an automotive repair shop in Oak Ridge. Mark is the elder of the Biodiesel Brigade, having a 1984 Volvo Wagon (pictured on this page) that has been running on B100 for over a year now. Additionally, he has a 1990 Ford F-350 that runs on B20 (pictured at left). He also can perform emissions testing for diesel and biodiesel vehicles.
|  James "Mike" Whedbee is with Whedbee Insurance in Knoxville (in the Bearden area) and has two Mercedes Benz 300Ds: one 1982 and one 1983. He is fueling both with B20 and wants to fuel one with B100. He searched long and hard for each car and cherishes both vehicles... that's why he's fueling them with biodiesel!! Mike is shown on the left in the picture at the University of Tennessee talking with students about his experience using biodiesel in one of his Mercedes.
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 Dan Pursglove, retired, and his 2002 Jetta which has been running on B20 ever since he bought it in Spring 2004. He has recognized improved fuel economy. Dan helps out with a lot of our events, bringing his BioJetta along every time. He has helped at our pre-game appearances, and helped recently at UT Engineer's Day.
|  Bud Cooper (at left), Road Sergeant for the Alcoa Police Department, and his 2003 Ford F-350 dually which has been running on B20 since about June 2004. He has seen about 3 mpg increase in fuel economy since his switch. The rest of the team in the photo are those that helped out with the "Biodiesel Rocks" campaign before the Alabama game (UT won, 17-13).
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In Summer 2004, Jonathan Overly of the ETCFC decided that, based on all the great support we were getting from the community with biodiesel, a group of users needed to be formed where we could all lay claim to being united in our support of biodiesel, and show it to everyone we know. And thus, the "Biodiesel Brigade" was created.
