Meet Bruno Miller

GC

Will you share a bit about your background and how you came into the aviation industry?

BM

My fascination with aviation started during my childhood when my father would take my sisters and me to watch airplanes on Saturday afternoons. In 2008, I joined a small team at Northwest Airlines, where we explored what is now known as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Having studied ways to reduce the environmental impact of aviation during graduate school, I was determined from the early stages of my career to contribute to making air travel more sustainable. My professional goal has always been to reduce the environmental impact of aviation and other industries.

GC

You have a great vantage point of various stages of SAF development. What do you believe is necessary to address emissions from the aviation industry?

BM

In this industry, it’s essential to cultivate three key elements: scale, capital, and confidence. At the end of the day, we are competing with commodity fuels, and that challenge demands we scale up our technology quickly. We’re essentially building a new industry that requires substantial capital if we are ever going to compete with legacy fossil fuels. This is where government support becomes vital. The influx of support AIR COMPANY has seen from partners like NASA and the Defense Innovation Unit is great because they’ve examined our technology in depth and decided to support us. Their vote of confidence is crucial in building credibility and trust, which helps circle back to the beginning of this topic, which is to attract the necessary capital needed to scale-up our technology. This is the only way we can have the biggest possible impact on global GHG reductions.

GC

In your own words, can you talk to me about your role at AIR COMPANY and what motivated you to join our team?

BM

In the simplest terms, my role involves finding partners and customers for our products, and ensuring our products meet all of our partners' and customers’ technical, economic, and sustainability requirements. AIR COMPANY has an exceptional culture where everyone is dedicated to innovation. It’s not just confined to a single department or lab - it’s everywhere. The culture of innovation was a huge draw for me and heavily influenced my decision to join. We can’t just file a few patents and rest on our laurels for the next 20 years. We need scientists and engineers to devise new methods of delivering and improving our products. That’s exactly what’s happening at AIR COMPANY.

GC

You’re intimately familiar with the strategies that are needed to advance commercial technology. What will be your focus as we scale up?

BM

There is a massive opportunity on the horizon for sustainable methanol. It doesn’t receive as much public attention as SAF, per se, but sustainable methanol has the potential to impact everyone’s lives and create significant global GHG reductions. Methanol serves as a chemical building block for hundreds of everyday products such as plastics, paints, and textiles in addition to serving as a fuel; one of the fastest growing areas for methanol application is the maritime sector for use in shipping and global supply chains. Along with the continued development of our AIRMADE SAF and AIRMADE Ethanol products and technology, sustainable methanol will be a major focus for us this year.

GC

What is one thing you wish people knew about SAF?

BM

Ultimately, we are in competition with the extensive fossil fuel industry. AIR COMPANY, along with our peers, is working to establish a new paradigm and that process requires time. We are all making progress and moving in the right direction, but it’s essential to speed up by continually nurturing our industry from every angle. That’s why early private and public support is crucial. It helps our industry reach a point of self-sufficiency, allowing it to continue to grow organically.