AMES, Iowa — Lee Blank, who has a background in risk management in the agriculture industry, has been named chief executive officer of Summit Carbon Solutions, which is working on a multi-state carbon capture project to benefit the ethanol industry.

Blank has more than 30 years of leadership experience as an executive with various ag companies, Summit said in a news release. Most recently, Blank was CEO of Advance Trading Inc., an advisory and risk management firm in the ag sector.

Summit Carbon Solutions said on July 21 that Blank will assume day-to-day leadership of Summit Carbon Solutions, working with its parent company, Summit Agricultural Group.

"Lee’s background as an accomplished leader and entrepreneur, his experience in project delivery, and his ability to develop relationships and to engage with these stakeholders make him a perfect fit,” Bruce Rastetter, CEO of Summit Agricultural Group, said in a news release.

Summit Carbon Solutions is an Iowa-based company behind a $4.5 billion project to capture carbon dioxide emissions from 32 ethanol plants in five states and pipe it to western North Dakota for underground storage.

“Throughout my career in the agriculture industry, there has never been a more urgent need, nor a more difficult challenge than decarbonization, but at Summit Carbon Solutions we have an opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the industry’s carbon footprint, while bolstering its long-term economic fundamentals," Blank said in the release.

Summit Carbon Solutions also recently announced that Sabrina Ahmed Zenor is joining the company as the director of community relations.

Ahmed Zenor most recently worked as the morning news anchor on the WOI TV station in Iowa, and was the host of “This Week in Iowa.”

The carbon capture project is being met with some resistance from landowners in the path of the proposed pipeline. A group gathered to protest carbon capture pipelines at a July meeting of the Iowa Utilities Board.