Pop Star: Nathaniel Doyno
Abby Mendelson
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
“Here’s my story,” Nathaniel Doyno says. Dressed in grunge de rigueur – worn jeans and lime green biodiesel T-shirt, he’s quaffing a fresh carrot-apple drink in Squirrel Hill’s 61C Cafe. “A sharp young guy comes home, with good ideas about sustainable energy, gets a $10,000
Sprout Fund seed grant, finds people reaching out to him, and boom!”
Boom! is about it. Here’s Doyno hither and yon, jawboning with pols about biofuels in fleet vehicles, demonstrating sustainable energy in schools, sitting on the city’s
Green Government Task Force, moderating a CityLIVE green jobs panel at the
New Hazlett Theater, and so on. “My story is about young people having opportunities in Pittsburgh,” he adds, “taking on responsibility, building a culture of leadership.
“I started a business at 22,” Doyno says. “Now I’m 25. I work with some of the region’s biggest businesses, and I’m always the youngest guy in the room. That’s because in Pittsburgh young people can contribute substantially to our community. People don’t think you can be this young and make this much of a difference. That’s a perception that I’m trying to change.”
Born in Denver, Doyno came east with his mom, who moved here to get an English Ph.D. Living in Regent Square, Doyno graduated from Winchester Thurston, earned a degree in city planning from Cornell, and began the Cornell Biodiesel Initiative and the Ithaca Biodiesel Cooperative – his alchemy transforming soybean oil and used restaurant oil into diesel fuel.
All that under his 22-year-old belt, in 2005 Doyno returned home for family and opportunity -- “the ability,” he says, “to be a medium-sized fish -- and grow to be a big fish -- in a small pond.”
Jumping right in the water, Doyno became an
Urban Ecology Collaborative community garden coordinator, working primarily in Wilkinsburg. By October, he and two partners, Greg Boulos and Peter Lambert, had formed the non-profit
Steel City Biofuels. Offering educational packages, tech support, policy development, and energy brokering, in less than three years SCB has had a significant impact.
For example,
UPMC now uses a 20 percent biofuel mix in its shuttles; so do the city and county fleets. Shortly,
Port Authority buses will run on 11 percent biofuels. “These are significant institutions,” Doyno says, “that have made the switch.”
Living in Regent Square, 600 yards from the house he grew up in, Doyno’s close enough to snarf Mom’s meals and coach little Sis’ soccer games. Although he protests that “my life is wrapped up in my work,” off the circuit he’s got the proverbial green thumb, vegetable gardening and raising house plants. Walking through Frick Park to his Point Breeze office, he also finds time for Kassey, his elegant Norwegian Elkhound, and makes a mean Mexican omelet.
“Pittsburgh has a great history of technological innovation,” he says, “from steelmaking through high-tech. That same level of innovation is starting to emerge in biofuel, too. And there’s an incredible support network for bringing new ideas to the marketplace. Pittsburgh is poised to be a research center for a whole range of industries that will be part of the city’s green future.”
Abby Mendelson’s latest book, Ghost Dancer, a collection of short stories, is available at amazon and bn.com.
Photographs of Nathaniel Doyno copyright Brian Cohen