Eric Smith 

Gov't Affairs Manager, San Francisco Bay Railroad     

 
In 2007, when then Tellurian Biodiesel business partners Joe Gershen and Eric Bowen began the search for a candidate to head up the San Francisco-based environmental justice (EJ) branch of Green Depot, the sustainable energy nonprofit Joe had founded in Santa Monica, they didn't have to look far. Eric Smith, a recent transplant from Washington, DC, an exuberant biodiesel evangelist, and a B100 user, was actively engaged as a San Francisco Biofuels Coop volunteer doing fueling shifts, and education and outreach through its "Go Muni Bio" campaign, which urged the transition of San Francisco's diesel fleets to biodiesel. He had built a website for the effort and was singing its praises in meetings with community leaders and city staff, including one impromptu elevator pitch to the brand new CEO of San Francisco's Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA), Nathanial Ford -- literally in an elevator.

Eric was hired as executive director of SF Green Depot after being interviewed by key stakeholders, including prominent EJ activists and biodiesel guru Randal von Wedel, and began carrying out the terms of a grant from the San Francisco Department of the Environment. The education and advocacy grant was focused on bringing the economic, health, and environmental benefits of biodiesel as an environmental justice solution to Bayview Hunters Point and Potrero Hill, the two SF communities hardest hit by asthma, cancer, and other health problems caused by toxic diesel pollution. Eric organized community forums; participated in joint education programs with Green Action, which included seminars to educate truckers working as contractors at the SF Naval Shipyard, a Superfund site; reached out to individual drivers and large fleets operators in the area, including SF Produce Market companies, the SF Food Bank and others; and wrote articles on biodiesel that appeared in the online SF daily, Beyond Chron.

SF Green Depot dealt with challenges, including the higher price of biodiesel, general resistance to change, and more regulatory uncertainty at the state level and fewer B20 OEM warranties than we have today. Eric highlights his work with a group of environmental businesses located on SF Port property that made a huge commitment to biodiesel: Waste Solutions Group, City Grazing (goats instead of pesticides to control vegetation onsite and to clients), and the San Francisco Bay Railroad (SFBR), a Class 3 short-line railroad that serves the City/Co of San Francisco and the Port of San Francisco (hooking up with Union Pacific trains that come up the SF peninsula). He recalls assisting owner David Gavrich in the process of making railyard history, which involved getting rid of some dirty diesel compressors and acquiring a Dodge truck to run on B20, before transitioning the company's trains -- in this case two 1946 ALCO locomotives -- to the blend they have been running on ever since, B50.     

 "The most important point of the story when SFBR trains are featured is that they are an example of how this kind of goods movement by rail can reduce carbon emissions by up to 90%," Eric stresses when talking about appearing in the National Biodiesel Board film shown at their 2009 national conference in San Francisco and recently on local news when the trains were shown bringing in parts for this summer's America's Cup race.

Eric expanded his work in biodiesel when former mayor Gavin Newsom, who did "Go Muni Bio" in a first-in-the-world way by issuing an executive order to run all municipal fleets on B20, appointed him to sit on the San Francisco Biofuels Access Task Force (SFBATF). SFBATF reported to city departments, the Board of Supervisors, and the mayor on all aspects of biodiesel fuel, including city-wide strategies and incentives to increase the use of biodiesel by consumers, vendors, and the city. Eric served as vice chair for two years, through the end of 2008, the life span of SFBATF. He describes that time as the "golden years" of biodiesel in SF when key biodiesel stakeholders, start-up hopefuls, and the city family of agencies (SFPUC, SF Fire Department, SF Port, and SF Department of Public Health) met regularly for updates on all things biodiesel, including the city's fueling program, implementing the new master fuel contract for biodiesel, troubleshooting quality control and UST issues, permitting for biodiesel fueling stations, addressing maritime issues, and more.

Eric wore all of his biodiesel hats when he assisted in transitioning SF Coop members first from fueling at the headquarters of the biodiesel-fueled tour bus company Incredible Adventures to SF Petroleum, which held the city's master fuel contract, then finally to the brand new Dogpatch Biofuels B100 fueling station in Potrero Hill. This involved helping the original owners, Robin Gold and Michelle Swiggers, understand the details of the process and actually get the city's first B100 station up and running. Once this transition was complete, the SF Coop was absorbed into SF Green Depot, which was then absorbed in 2009 into CBA member organization Biofuel Recycling, the nonprofit architect of the SF PUC's Greasecycle program, which collects biodiesel from San Francisco restaurants and turns it into biodiesel for use in the city's fleets.

Currently, Eric works as a consultant for SFBR and serves on the board of Biofuel Recycling. Otherwise, he spends as much time as possible on his long-standing passion, music, as one of the best selling artists on the independent, experimental record label Edgetone Records, under the name E. Doctor Smith. The trajectory of his work in this field -- as a sound engineer and drummer (inventor of the edrum instrument, the Drummstick), and one who has seen the musical mountain top through professional involvement in New York and LA with a host of musicians, including Madonna and Brian Eno -- has provided him with a clear vision and the happy actualization of his musical goal, simply "to make spirits dance."  

Importantly for CBA, Eric has been a volunteer working behind the scenes since 2007 when he jumped in with a masterful rebuild of our website (from shreds found in Google searches) after it was hacked to smithereens by those who proudly announced their national identity and tagged each page with a rendition of Edvard Munch's The Scream. He's been on-call since then, providing vital and timely computer and graphics support as needed. Frankly, we don't know what we would do without him. Thank you, Eric!