Officers
Bob Walker, Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman
Bob Walker, a successful serial entrepreneur with more than four decades of experience, founded Bixby Energy Systems in 2001. At Bixby, Mr. Walker is developing the nation’s first vertically integrated alternative fuels company. With Mr. Walker’s help, Bixby has raised in excess of $22 million in capital to fund its research and development, production and marketing efforts. During the 2005–2006 fiscal year, Bixby registered sales of nearly $8.5 million and projects to do four to five times that in the coming years.
Prior to Bixby, he founded Select Comfort Corporation (Nasdaq: SCSS). A lifelong inventor, Mr. Walker invented the Sleep Number® Bed, which the nationally known manufacturer and specialty retailer of an air-supported sleep system has produced for nearly 20 years. In 2005, Select Comfort, using its direct response marketing program and a chain of nearly 400 stores nationwide, posted net sales of more than $700 million in revenues and was ranked the number one U.S. bedding retailer by Furniture Today.
Mr. Walker personally holds 25 patents and has received national recognition for marketing programs that he designed. He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Agriculture Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry and the Minnesota State Senate Committee on Jobs Energy and Community Development, written three niche sales books and has been a featured speaker at trade conferences in a range of industries, both domestically and internationally.
Alternative and renewable energy conferences at which Mr. Walker has been a featured speaker or panelist include the Third Annual BioCycle Conference on Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling; The Norwegian Research & Technology Forum in the US/Canada, titled “The Environmental Impact of Agriculture and Energy Use: Genomics and Biomass/Bioenergy;” MNBIO and Energy Alley Showcase Program Biotechnology and Energy: The Shift from Fossil Fuels to Plant Matter; and, Bob has also spoken in Ireland, Norway and Canada as well.
Previous companies that Mr. Walker has developed include Dynatech, the air mattress design technology firm that preceded Select Comfort; Gateway Laboratories, a producer and distributor of all-natural skin care products, food supplements and cleaning products; Timmel Industries, a marketing company for newly invented products; Homes for America, a residential real estate sales and development firm; and, Walker International, an international products distributor.
Mr. Walker received his associate’s degree in business from the Wahpeton State College of Science, now a division of the University of North Dakota. He is a registered member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, as he is one-quarter Native American.
Chuck Limbach, Vice President, Fuel Manufacturing
Hammer Pellet Corp., Pellet Operations General Manager
Modular Energy Corp., Pellet Operations Manager & Director
Virginia Solid Fuels, VP & Director
Bill Gallagher, Chief Engineer
Deltak LLC ($700M), Mechanical Engineering, Boiler Design
Black & Veatch ($1.6 Billion), Power plant systems design engineer
Ron Kinner, Controller
Hitchcock Industries, VP/Chief Financial Officer
Wellman Dynamics, Division Controller
Pinnacle Food Group, Chief Financial Officer
Kenall Manufacturing, VP of Finance & Administration
