When more than 22,500 petroleum marketers gathered in Las Vegas in late October for the National Association of Convenience Stores expo, top fuel experts from the U.S. ethanol industry were on hand to communicate the benefits of ethanol.

The “Blend Your Own Ethanol” campaign exhibited at the NACS Show, represented by both the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), organizations partnering on the national program to bring ethanol blending and blender pump information to gas station owners from Coast to Coast.

Ron Lamberty, ACE’s Vice President / Market Development, has lead the grassroots group’s market development efforts for nearly a decade. He believes the BYO campaign is a natural progression of this good reputation and many already-established business contacts.

“Because ACE has been attending these shows and working with these marketers for years, the Blend Your Own program is able to gain instant credibility. Petroleum marketers know that ACE has always been focused on answering their questions and helping them overcome hurdles to selling more ethanol,” Lamberty said. “And as a result, our partnership with RFA on the BYO campaign was instantly recognized as one in which we want to join them in selling our products, not asking them to join us. The BYO program isn’t about what the ethanol industry wants petroleum marketers to do for us, it’s about what the ethanol industry can do to help petroleum marketers.”

In addition to Lamberty, the BYO campaign was represented at the show by Lacey Dixon, ACE’s Director of Member and Industry Relations, and from RFA, Robert White, Director of Market Development, and Missy Ruff, Market Development Manager.

NACS, the Association for Petroleum and Convenience Retailing, has more than 2,000 retail member companies operating more than 75,000 stores across the United States. Forty-nine of the 50 largest companies in the industry are members of the association. It also has members in 49 countries which operate more than 300,000 stores globally.

Dixon says the traffic at the BYO booth was steady and the team spoke to people from all over the U.S., plus some from other countries including Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay. She noted a great deal of curiosity and interest about blender pumps, as well as comments about how helpful the information is on the website, www.byoethanol.com, regarding funding opportunities.

“It’s exciting to see the Blend Your Own Ethanol campaign reach so many people in its first six months,” Dixon commented. “With a new magazine, trade show appearances, and a new interactive website, we are connecting petroleum marketers with the information they need on blending ethanol, blender pump infrastructure, and the available incentives.”

Byoethanol.com was launched in early October, and the new Blending Fuels magazine was distributed in late September to 39,000 petroleum marketers across the U.S. representing more than 100,000 retail fuel stations.

BYOethanol is an unprecedented partnership between ACE, RFA, the National Corn Growers Association, and leading corn-producing states, announced in August of this year. The program’s goal – to establish 3,000 blender pumps across the country in three years.