In Florida, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack headed the “Top 100 People in Bioenergy” as voted by the readers of Biofuels Digest and the Digest’s editorial board, just edging out BP Biofuels chief Philip New, and the heads of Raizen, POET, Solazyme and Amyris. In today’s Digest, we profile the Second 25 in depth.

The first 25 are here, profiled in depth.

The complete Top 100 list is here.

26. Guido Ghisolifi, CEO, Chemtex

New to the list this year, and the highest new entry, as well as one of the highest ranking CEOs outside of Brazil and the US. As Codexis CEO Alan Shaw observed, “you will not find a person that has put more of his own money on the line, nor as knowledgable, nor as passionate about opportunities in the space, than Guido Ghisolfi....

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Headline story was coverage of an elaborate farewell dinner given to one Herbert Stanley Smith, an automobile factory worker who was leaving to work in Ohio's Stoddard-Dayton auto company.

According to the newspaper, the occasion was "the most elaborate dinner ever held in Tarrytown". Thirty-five people attended the gathering and inundated Smith with toasts and praise.

The first speaker to sing Smith's praises was Emmet Henderson Taxter, who was introduced with the warning that he had been educated in "a little red brick school house". However, the paper noted that despite his country education, his admiration for Smith caused the words to fall from his lips "as the dew falling on the flowers in the springtime".

After Taxter's speech, Henry Heimlicker roused the crowd by telling an Irish story backwards -- the paper proclaimed "the reader can guess the rest".

Smith would leave town later in the week and all in...

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