Metrolina Biofuels | Charlotte, NC | Biodiesel | Alternative Energy

Well, we did it! The call came in on Friday, and by Tuesday morning at seven we were filling up buses and trucks for the Dave Mathews band. We are now officially a biodiesel fleet supplier.

First of all, I have to give some credit to our esteemed el presidente, George. I talked to the Reverb Rock guy first, and I thought the notice was too short for us to pull off. I told him to schedule us for the next concert.

But George took the ball and ran with it, working the phone during breaks while he was stuck in a trial. Surprisingly, he was in the jury. Since our truck was not finished, he set up a subcontracting fuel service, bought 8,000 gallons of fuel from a refinery in Lenoir (friend of the co-op Randy?s Foothills Biodiesel) and coordinated an intricate hand-off of fuel from fleet trucks to an on-site fueling truck.

Denise provided moral support (emphasizing to me that it was important to do this), Sutton helped with the logistics, and I got all of the paperwork straight on Monday. Tuesday was a busy one and we worked like a well-oiled machine. George met at the first fuel transfer, I met the truck and rode it through security at the venue, and Sutton arrived just in time to keep the paperwork straight while we pumped the fuel.

Eleven semi-trucks, six crew buses, and five band buses. We pumped from eight o-clock in the morning until 4:30 at night, with a break in the middle of the day.

It was fun, it felt good, and Reverb says they want to use us for every concert in either of the Carolinas. After that feeling, and the passes to the concert and backstage bar they gave us, we?re primed to go as far as they want us to. Next time, maybe we’ll even figure in a couple of pennies for ourselves!

The lesson is this: Metrolina is starting to really get somewhere. We are now a real-live revenue-producing entity. We stumbled into this and found that it is easy and fulfilling to do. We have a truck and can service any size account. Our pump is finally, really coming. Time to stop just messing around, and make this into something we can be proud of.

I’ve cleared out the next two weeks of my schedule and I’m not working on anything else until our pump is open. I plan on starting this week by camping at the building department until finally tell us what we need (it’s been a constantly moving target) and give us the required building permits. Then I am going to do whatever it takes to get the thing done, inspected and filled with fuel. So I’ll probably call on the membership for some help during this period. Let’s do this thing!