Chris Rentsch is the head of engineering at Micromidas, Inc, a California-based start-up company currently commercializing a non-fermentation biomass to chemicals process. After obtaining a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2003, Chris worked for BP as a refinery production engineer while two new ultra-low sulfur hydroprocessing reactors were brought online. In 2007 he joined Dow AgroSciences as chlorinated herbicides production engineer and in 2009 became manufacturing representative for the design, construction and start-up a new herbicide production unit. In 2011 Chris joined Dow Energy Materials as research scientist and completed the pilot and commercial scale-up of new lithium ion battery cathode materials. In 2014 he joined Micromidas to engineer the demonstration facility scale-up of a first-of-kind plant to produce isomerically pure bio-paraxylene and other bio-derived chemicals from cellulose-rich agricultural byproducts.