Partner Profile: Aaron Fitzgerald and Kristian Gubsch

“At Mars, we work really hard. I think everyone is willing to put in the hard work because we all embody those same shared values and have absolute respect for each other. To me that’s success." 

This issue features Aaron Fitzgerald and Kristian Gubsch, Co-Founders of Mars Materials 

Aaron Fitzgerald is a carbon removal entrepreneur. He uses his experience as a three-time founder, Prime Coalition Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) and former Carbon180 EIR–along with other experiences ranging from politics to product management–to chip away at his ambitious gigaton-scale carbon removal goals. Outside of his efforts to combat climate change, you can find Aaron practicing martial arts, exploring Lake Tahoe or advising women, minority and LGBTIQ+ self-starters.

Kristian Gubsch is an Ernest F. Hollings Scholar, Barry Goldwater Scholar, and Marshall Scholar. He has a BS in chemical engineering from Washington State University and MSc in Energy and Environmental Engineering from the University of Sheffield. He became interested in CO₂ utilization following a summer research experience in 2018 where he designed experiments to optimize the yield of formic acid from a reaction that utilized captured CO₂. While attending university, he also completed four other research projects all related to climate change. Outside of his passion for getting carbon out of the air, you can find Kristian training for a half Ironman, traveling, reading a wide variety of books, and spending as much time as he can outdoors. 

How did you get started in the CCU space? 

AF: I think a lot of it really has to do with my upbringing. I'm from Western Pennsylvania, where steel mills were shutting down and people were suffering economically because of it. And I remember thinking, “We need manufacturing back. I would love to bring my town back to normal by bringing back manufacturing jobs.” As I've gotten older and learned more about manufacturing and materials, I realized there’s greater opportunity in new materials. And carbon fiber called to me as a solution.

Also, as a child, I moved around a lot; I had a very fragmented grade school education. We changed schools so frequently, my sisters and I had to teach ourselves most of the time. We had to learn on the fly and solve our own problems, rather than be held back by them. Those skills are really important to someone who undertakes an entrepreneurial journey.

I went to Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. On my first spring break, I went on a service trip to help rebuild people’s homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And, it was during that time that I began to really understand the magnitude of the climate crisis. 

Until that point, I hadn't witnessed firsthand what it meant. I knew about the destruction to New Orleans and how it impacted black people especially. Having grown up poor and sometimes homeless, sustainability to me meant, “having what you have, and never over consuming, because you don't have the ability or resources to do that.” 

When I went on this rebuild trip, sustainability became more than that to me. The people who were impacted the most were folks who didn't have much. That really left a mark on me. And, I decided to do what I could to be a better steward of the environment. 

From then on, I made choices to not drive cars, to live in dense areas, to limit food waste, etc. 

A few years after I graduated college, my alma mater asked me if I would help with their alumni fundraising. I’ve always been very good at maximizing efficiency, so I figured out how to automate the process for them. The process I designed led me to launch my first company with that idea. I then went on to experience the ups and downs of startup life and along the way ended up starting two companies.

Shortly after closing my second company, I moved to California. I joined Kairos Aerospace, a remote sensing firm. At Kairos, I was able to see firsthand super emitting methane leaks, which didn't sit right with me. In fact, it kept me up at night thinking about the constant leaking. Back then, there didn't seem to be an appetite to address the methane problem. So I started educating myself about this issue and looking for companies that I could join to help solve that problem. I didn't find any. After some soul searching, I decided that, in order to fit into this bigger climate picture, I would start my own company, which was something I was already experienced in doing.

Things started to happen quickly. I got a fellowship with Carbon 180, where I was an EIR for a year and went through a technology discovery process. Before the fellowship, I had read an article by Noah Deich, President of Carbon 180, about the need to commercialize technologies and climate. And, I thought that sounded really cool. I always thought about market-based solutions to climate change but never thought I’d be on the frontline. 

To do the work, I needed a chemical engineer’s help. Luckily I found my co-founder, Kristian Gubsch, through an Air Miners event. The technology that we use was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). I was connected to NREL through a pilot program called LabStart that aimed to help entrepreneurs like myself commercialize national lab technology. 

KG: I discovered my specific passion while watching weekly “Motivational Monday” YouTube videos that my senior year physics teacher would show our class. The videos spoke of the dire issues of climate change and the impact of fossil fuels, agriculture, and plastics on the environment. They also demonstrated technologies being developed to help counter these problems such as solar roadways and artificial photosynthesis. The videos simultaneously overwhelmed me with the urgency of the massive environmental changes we have witnessed and inspired me to dedicate my life to a challenge that at first appears insurmountable. The potential solutions gave me hope and entering my first year of undergraduate studies, I became laser-focused on finding research opportunities that could provide me hands-on experience with these nascent technologies. 

After two years of searching, I met a chemical engineering professor at Washington State University, who was beginning a CO₂ utilization project. He was looking for undergraduate researchers to help with the project and I could not wait to work on something that aligned with both my passion and degree program. Over the summer of 2018, I worked to develop and optimize a reaction that converted captured CO₂ to formic acid, which is an intermediate to several valuable chemicals or can also be used as a preservative. Following this experience, I became obsessed with learning all I could and getting involved with CO₂ utilization projects, as I was convinced it would only become more critical in the future. 

Fast forward to August 2020 when I attended a panel discussion hosted by Air Miners which featured several Carbon180 EIRs including my future co-founder Aaron Fitzgerald. During this discussion, Aaron mentioned that he was looking for a chemical engineer to help create a rigorous framework to evaluate technologies and their ability to sequester a gigaton of carbon dioxide. I immediately reached out to Aaron, we had an initial meeting, and then over the next several months, we began evaluating different technologies. The promise of the technology with respect to cost-savings, emissions reductions, and commercialization potential coupled with how much I enjoyed working with Aaron, made it obvious that this was the right path for me. As the engineering team lead and co-founder of Mars Materials, I oversee our technology development and scale-up. 

Tell me about your work at Mars Materials.

Before we picked our process, nitrilation, we first looked at 18 different carbon tech solutions, and put them through a rigorous market-focused framework. Central to our goals was a path to gigaton scale carbon utilization potential. After impact potential, we looked at the market to assess if there was a billion dollar market potential there. The next question we asked was whether or not there was a beachhead, or an entry point into the market for the technology we were reviewing. Other components of our search included science, engineering and economic feasibility studies. 

Nitrilation allows us to take captured CO₂, add renewable ethanol as feedstock, and convert these inputs into the raw material for carbon fiber. We were really drawn to this technology because of its potential to improve the supply chain for carbon fiber, reduce the material’s cost and its footprint.

We are now working to produce our set of samples to deliver to our beachhead customers in the acrylamide industry. One of the things that we can do with our CCU technology is to create a product that can be used to purify waste water and do so more cheaply than the existing process.

What stage of development are you at and what are your next steps?

KG: We are raising a pre seed round of $650,000 and we are looking to produce samples with our lab scale unit at NREL. We’ll then provide the samples to acrylamide manufacturers, who can then test them to see if they need any adjustments. If no adjustments are needed, then we’ll work to move forward with developing our pilot unit. 

We're also recruiting for a chemical engineer now to help with sample production. We are also finalizing our cost estimates, pricing, feedstock routes and life cycle assessment.

What do you see as the future for your company in the next couple years? 

KG: Soon, we will launch our pilot scale facility, which will take about a year of development. Then, we will have the insights that we need to then commission our first-of-its-kind, small scale commercial unit. Along the way, we intend to partner with customers in the acrylamide industry. And we’re already having those customer discussions. From there, we intend to develop our full scale unit. This whole process will take four to five years.

I expect that you have a lot of obstacles, because startups aren't easy things to do. And, I'm wondering if, because you, Aaron, are a man of color, there has been anything even more difficult about your experience?

AF: Of all the businesses that I've started, I've had the least issue with race and sexual identity in climate. I'm a pansexual, black man. I would say, so far, for the most part, the climate community has received me well. 

But there’s always room to grow the community and the growth strategy should place diversity, equity and inclusion first. Take fundraising for example, the same issues minorities face raising money in traditional venture capitalism are definitely prevalent in climate. I try to shield myself away from that by focusing on the communities that are important to us to get our mission through. I focus my time on funders who care about the intersection of climate, minority representation, and seeing manufacturing jobs come back to the US. I think for us at Mars, that strategy is beginning to pay off. But there’s still a long way to go.

Can you tell me how Mars Materials is unique in the CCU startup field?

AF: Firstly, we're focused on our team. We want a team that welcomes everybody. Daily we commit to creating a team that's inclusive, diverse and welcoming towards all. I like to say that we want to work with everyone from new hungry college grads to single moms to grandparents. We stick to those core values. We already have two of those three groups represented. 

The other thing that makes us unique is our perspective. In the climate world, there's carbon removal and there's decarbonization. We see ourselves as sitting at the nexus of the two. I don't think that you need to focus on one or the other. I want to draw down carbon from the air and stop the fossil fuel industry from extracting hydrocarbons. To me, that requires replacing the existing industrial technologies that we have with more efficient ones that are not carbon intensive. And, it requires us being able to use CO₂ as a feedstock. I think that's where we place ourselves. 

KG: I would add that a lot of carbon tech companies that are out there right now are not able to produce their product at cost parity with the market. We are. With the nitrilation technology (that we are licensing, but didn’t invent), we are able to achieve cost parity at pilot scale. We can utilize CO2 at a cheaper price than the conventional process. That's one huge differentiator from other startups in the field. 

Another difference is that we are able to utilize and sequester in the same step. We can capture or utilize the CO₂ and then it's sequestered long term in that polymer or carbon fiber, and it's not getting released. 

AF: Also, I want to make sure that, if there is an opportunity to make things cheaper with our technology, we will do so. To reverse climate change, I think there’s a lot of power in the purse. And if you make everyday items cheaper—and those items happen to be made with captured CO₂—everyone, regardless of economic status, will be able to be part of the solution. 

You’re really thinking about this as something for everybody?

AF: We're really thinking about climate from the perspective of the folks who are going to be most impacted by it. We want to build strong relationships with communities so that people are excited about the work we’re doing at the grassroots level. We want them to be excited about the plants and jobs we’ll be bringing. A strong community engagement piece is critical for our project, our future success and how we want our company to be perceived.

What's your measure of success?

AF: Other than removing carbon from the air!? I measure success by the quality of the relationships around me. I make sure to surround myself with people who have similar values, not necessarily similar beliefs to me. I'm always striving to build deeper and better relationships be that through Mars or in my personal life.

At Mars, we work really hard. I think everyone is willing to put in the hard work because we all embody those same shared values and have absolute respect for each other. To me that’s success.

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Just and Equitable Carbon Removal - Holly Jean Buck, Ph.D

January 18

Open Air Collective hosts Professor Holly Jean Buck, who will discuss how we can make just and equitable carbon removal policies and her new book, Ending Fossil Fuels. For more information or to register, click here.

20th Peter M. Wege Lecture: Expanding the Base for Climate Action and Social Justice

February 23, 2022

U-M SEAS presents a conversation with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and Brooklyn native, co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, and co-creator of the Spotify/Gimlet podcast, 'How to Save a Planet,' which focuses on climate solutions. For more information or to register, click here.

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