PFI served its membership for two decades without a full-time executive director. How did you come into this role? The association had been moving toward this for a number of years. I came to PFI in 2008, first as the association manager in a newly created position to supplement the work of PFI&rsquo;s executive director at the time, who was also working for the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association and who had just a small amount of time to dedicate to PFI. As it became more known what the growing needs of the association were, PFI leadership created the role of a full-time executive director in 2011. I had been working intimately with the committees and the board, and was in the weeds on a lot of different programs. The board felt that I knew the areas that the association wanted to focus on and the direction that the organization wanted to take, and so I was, of course, very honored that the board would pick me to fill that role. You&rsquo;ve worn multiple hats during your tenure at PFI: point person for PFI&rsquo;s standards program, and the PFI Annual Conference, as well as playing a key role in overall management and membership outreach, among others. Are you still wearing many of them? I definitely still do wear many of those hats and it remains an ongoing challenge for me to try to determine how to balance those roles. I think anyone who works in the nonprofit sector, including smaller trade associations, knows what that&rsquo;s like. Sometimes you&rsquo;re putting out fires when you want to be in the field tilling the soil. You just have to turn your attention to immediate needs, but also keep at the forefront of the goals and mission of the association. What gets you to come to work every morning? One of the joys about being in the association world is working with the members. I have been working in Washington, D.C., since 1997, so being able to focus on an industry that is outside of Washington is certainly very appealing, as is working with members from all over the U.S. and Canada and other parts of the world. I enjoy the opportunity to look at the needs of those members and try to play a role in bettering their businesses and opportunities. I think that there are a lot of passionate people and I enjoy being an advocate on their behalf. PFI has 90 member companies. How have you seen the association grow since you joined in 2008 and what are your hopes for the future? I think overall one of our main goals has been to expand our relationships. We&rsquo;ve seen the North American residential pellet market grow in small, but steady, increments over the years. And, the advent and growth of the export pellet market has obviously expanded the overall pellet market and created new alliances and business opportunities for our members. PFI leadership is focusing on new markets and market development, and embracing the changing industry. My hope for the future of PFI as an association is that we not only continue to advance the residential pellet market and create greater awareness of the benefits of using pellets, but also help to develop new markets and new market opportunities for our members for the various end users of pellets&mdash;thermal, power, absorbents and others. We cannot hang our hat on only the residential pellet market and expect to meet the ever-changing needs of our members. Why join PFI? What are the benefits of membership? That&rsquo;s a question that I ask myself on a daily basis, and is one of the things that the PFI leadership has focused heavily on over the past year: What is the return we are giving to our members, and potential return to those who haven&rsquo;t made that decision to join PFI? One of our members uses the phrase &ldquo;defending your right to do business&rdquo; and that is really spot on as our main deliverable as an association. Other opportunities include learning more about the issues that are impacting the industry, being privy to information that we collect through our partnerships and being able to provide that information to members to use as a resource and, in some cases, to guide their business decisions. We also create opportunities for companies to gather, to network, those business-to-business opportunities that occur through events such as our PFI Annual Conference and our Breakfast &amp; Biomass event. PFI members are able to join the standards program at a discounted rate, and we believe that the market will prompt more participation in that standards program as consumers will expect to purchase fuel that has been qualified through it. We get calls all the time from people who say, &ldquo;Well, why should I join PFI?&rdquo; I enjoy those conversations, giving companies the opportunity to educate us about what they do, but also allowing us the opportunity to educate them on what we do as an association. In 2011, the PFI Standards Program was launched. What is the program&rsquo;s purpose and how has it shaped PFI? We have five companies enrolled in the program that represent 10 mills and several companies in the process of enrolling. We expect to see several of those come onboard within the next couple of months. One of the major goals of the program is to help consumers understand more about the fuel that they&rsquo;re using in their appliances. The program&rsquo;s quality mark found on bags of pellets will show consumers that the fuel they are consuming has been subject to a rigorous quality assurance, control and testing program and verified as meeting the program&rsquo;s specifications. A great number of our members have been testing for a long time, both in-house and using outside labs. We&rsquo;ve seen companies sign on to the program and become aware of tweaks they can make to testing or production practices to realize significant cost savings. How is PFI&rsquo;s relationship changing with Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association? In the past year, we have taken a close look at our goals and mission, what the pellet industry represents and what we do as an association to foster its development. This industry has expanded to more than just a residential pellet appliance industry, and we see the growing need to expand our mission and to address some of the newly developing markets and opportunities. To do that most effectively, we have established a different relationship with the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association. They will no longer manage our association, but we will continue to have a collaborative relationship. We plan to continue to host our Breakfast &amp; Biomass at HPBExpo in March. Our relationship with HPBA has been long and fruitful and we&rsquo;re very pleased that will continue. PFI&rsquo;s work relies upon multiple committees. How do you attract members to the committees, and keep them engaged? There are so many options for people to spend their time, and they have limited time to give to volunteer activities. We try to provide as many resources as we can to our members to really help them make informed decisions about getting involved and extending their talents and resources in ways they like. We have some volunteers who have been involved in the association for a number of years and have built PFI into a stronger organization. We are excited, too, because of opportunities to engage with younger members who are new to this industry and have different needs, desires and ideas. That is sort of a challenge too, as boomers have different needs than millennials and different ways of wanting to spend and give their time. What are some of the biggest challenges you are currently facing in the industry, and what do you see looking ahead? There is a lot of misinformation shared by a variety of groups who do not see the value of biomass. As an association, it is really up to us to be the deliverer of good information and to be a resource not only for our members, but also for others who don&rsquo;t understand the biomass industry; those who don&rsquo;t understand the benefits and opportunities created&mdash;jobs in rural areas, fostering a sustainable resource&mdash;the list goes on. We have to stay ahead of the game, and be proactive versus reactive. There are challenges on the regulatory front, looking at the U.S. EPA and what they have proposed on the New Source Performance Standards and biogenic emissions.

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The Pellet Fuel Institute's executive director, Jennifer Hedrick, shares insights on her many roles, as well as the challenges and prospects ahead for the pellet industry. 

Q&A: Many Hats for Hedrick

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