Lindsay Leveen
Biography
Mr. Leveen obtained his BS
Eng Chem in 1973, his MBA in finance and strategy in 1975 and MSChE in 1977.
He was a Monsanto fellow for his graduate studies.
He worked from 1977 till
1982 at Air Products and Chemicals and was responsible for design and economic
evaluation of LNG base-load heat exchangers and other natural gas consuming
facilities such as Hydrogen/Carbon Monoxide.
In 1982 he joined Air
Liquide to lead their tonnage gas business as well as their merchant industrial
gas business in the US. He managed
the contracting and purchase of electric power and natural gas that exceeded
$100 million per year. After
attending an executive development program at INSEAD, Air Liquide appointed him
as VP of Group Strategic Planning in their Paris France headquarters.
Mr. Leveen was one of five senior executives who executed the successful
acquisition of Big Three Industries (NYSE)by Air Liquide for over one billion
dollars in 1986.
In 1988 Mr. Leveen left
Air Liquide and formed ITZ A GAZ to develop products and to consult to high
technology industries. For over a
decade he consulted to clients such as Intel, HP, IBM, and various Asian
microelectronics companies and was the project manager of over $8 billion of
capital projects executed worldwide.
In 1997 and for
approximately a year Mr. Leveen consulted full time to Duke - Louis Dreyfus on
power generation and distribution in the deregulated power generation market
that was emerging in the USA. This
company was a joint venture between Duke Power the large US electric utility and
Louis Dreyfus the large global commodities trader.
His work related to a strategic plan that was successfully executed.
In 1998 Bechtel invited
him to run the global business unit for the global design and construction of
microelectronic facilities. In 2000
Bechtel appointed him as their officer in a JV with Siemens and American
Electric Power to be the executive to develop business around independent power
generation and power quality and reliability systems.
He left Bechtel in 2004.
From 1997 till 2004, Mr.
Leveen also acted as the lead expert witness for Lloyds of London in the half
billion dollar insurance claim for a fire in a Taiwanese chip fabrication
facility. Mr. Leveen adjusted the
claim for Lloyds and led the settlement negotiations for a sum well below the
actual loss with the owner. He
then led the subrogation effort to recover the insurance payout.
These efforts were successful and gained the award of significant sums in
arbitration.
From 2005 till June of
2011 Mr. Leveen was employed by Genentech, now a member of the Roche Group,
where he performed strategic planning and drug product development for this
world renowned company. He has
published numerous articles on novel methods for the manufacture of monoclonal
antibodies and therapeutic proteins.
In June 2011 Mr. Leveen retired from Genentech but continues to consult to
Genentech in the area of strategic planning.
On September 15th
2011 the Northern California Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers (AIChE) gave Mr. Leveen their Professional Development award for his
lifetime of work in the field of chemical engineering.
This award is normally given to a distinguished academic at the
University of California Berkeley or Stanford.
Below is the announcement of the award from the Norcal Chapter of the
AIChE:
“Abstract:
The lecture tonight during this award ceremony for Mr.
Lindsay Leveen’s Professional Development will cover the topic of how Chemical
Engineers need to be cabinetmakers and make fine furniture out of wood.
This is a metaphor for his body of work where he helped the companies he worked
for increase value of their inputs and yield enormously valuable and
highly profitable products such as biological medicines, microprocessors, and
specialty and industrial gases.
About the speakers: With almost 40 years of experience in
chemical engineering and executive management in high value added process
industries such as pharmaceuticals, microelectronics, and specialty chemicals,
Mr. Lindsay Leveen brings much wisdom to organizations that are in the business
of extracting value out of processes that transform chemicals, energy, labor,
and capital into products that society needs and consumers will buy.
His knowledge of energy systems is broad and began with his graduate work in
Thermodynamics and the publication of his thesis on the direct integration of
the Gibbs Duhem equation in the Oxford University Press. He continued to
apply his education of chemical engineering and finance through many years of
work. He was an expert witness in perhaps the largest insurance claim for
property loss in a semiconductor fabrication facility. He has consulted
and worked in the areas of energy deregulation, alternative energy generation,
traditional energy generation, power transmission and distribution, power
quality and reliability systems, and on hydrogen and sustainability
Lindsay received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from University of
Witwatersrand, S. Africa and a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State.
His book on the hope and hype of hydrogen is translated into Japanese and is
used in Japan as a university text for students of energy policy and
sustainability. Lindsay has given outside expert testimony to the US
Senate on advanced batteries and fuel cells. He also has given keynote
addresses at numerous conferences on sustainability. Lindsay blogs each
week on energy and sustainability at
www.greenexplored.com
where he is called “Lindsay Leveen The Green Machine”. He has lectured at UC
Berkeley, Stanford and many other leading universities on numerous occasions.
He has worked with the think tanks in the Bay Area such as CIFE, SRI
International and EPRI. Lindsay says he is fortunate to have studied chemical
engineering and to have applied this wonderful profession to enterprises that
exemplify what we can achieve.”