CAAFI (Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative) Expands Leadership Team; Chris Tindal Added as CAAFI Assistant Director

(Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative) CAAFI announced today (January 16, 2018) that it is expanding its Administrative Leadership Team, naming Chris Tindal as CAAFI’s Assistant Director, a new role designed to enhance CAAFI’s outreach, catalyzation, and execution efforts.

"I am extremely pleased that Chris Tindal has come onboard in this new role as Assistant Director. He brings a wide range of experience and a deep-seated commitment to furthering the advancement of alternative fuels. In this new role, he will help to facilitate the expansion of aviation's development and deployment initiatives in partnership with our government and industry stakeholders," said Steve Csonka, CAAFI’s Executive Director. "Chris has been a strong partner of CAAFI over the last decade, leading parallel initiatives in alternative fuels adoption and deployment within the military.”

Over the past eleven years since its formation, the CAAFI coalition’s efforts have helped position aviation as a committed, long-term offtaker of alternatives to petroleum-based jet fuel. CAAFI's focus has expanded from the initial quest to simply enable an initial acceptable approach to qualifying such a fuel, to now having five qualified alternative production pathways, with two new approvals planned for 2018 and many others being developed for additional near-to-mid-term consideration. Additionally, CAAFI-facilitated efforts for regional deployment, which are being executed through efforts with various sponsors and partners, have expanded across the U.S. and to four other continents.

"Chris is an outstanding choice to lead CAAFI forward and to build upon its achievements and focus. With his passion, insight, and leadership skills, we look forward to advancing CAAFI’s objectives with Chris in this new role," said Airlines for America Vice President & Chief Economist, John Heimlich.

Chris moves into this new CAAFI leadership position with eight years of focused leadership experience in alternative energy, and more specifically in alternative fuels. Most recently, Chris served as the Director for Operational Energy underneath the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Navy for Energy, where he was in charge of setting energy policy and direction for the Department of the Navy, and promoting the adoption of alternative fuels and renewable energy resources. Additionally, he developed intergovernmental, international, and industry relationships throughout the energy field. He was the Navy leader of the pioneering U.S. Department of Agriculture/ U.S. Department of Energy/ U.S. Navy Alternative Fuels Initiative which developed programs to launch the advanced biofuels industry.

In his role, Chris successfully led the Great Green Fleet effort, in which the U.S. Navy acquired and used 77 million gallons of F-76 alternative fuel blend for their ships in the Great Green Fleet deployment in 2016, and through which the Defense Logistics Agency continues to solicit and award bids for additional supply. Chris retired from Navy service mid-2017, and since that time, he has continued to engage in several U.S. and international development and evaluation activities associated with alternative fuels.

“I am honored to be joining the talented CAAFI leadership team, and building on their foundation of success,” Tindal stated. "I humbly look forward to adding my skills and passion to the CAAFI leadership team, and assisting the industry in achieving near-term commercialization of affordable, sustainable alternative jet fuels at significant scale. I am excited to engage with CAAFI on key strategic efforts, and to enable greater CAAFI bandwidth for executing on the breadth of world-wide deployment opportunities.”

The Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative is a private/public coalition headed by sponsors from airlines (Airlines for America), manufacturers (Aerospace Industries Association), airports (Airports Council International-North America), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Environment and Energy. CAAFI has over 1200 sponsor/stakeholder contributors from more than 400 organizations, and from numerous State and Federal government offices. More details about CAAFI’s leadership team and work team efforts can be found at www.caafi.org. Commensurate with Mr. Tindal’s addition, Rich Altman, CAAFI’s Executive Director Emeritus, will scale back his focus on CAAFI administrative execution to concentrate on all of his efforts on various CAAFI-related State Initiative efforts along the East Coast.READ MORE