Jamie O’Brien
Founder & President / Managing Partner
Mr. O’Brien’s first eight years in business was with a Fortune 500 company, Service Master (SVM), subsidiary where he worked in a business development, operations & management capacity. He then elected to advance into a commercial consultative management position with Coverall North America (CNA), an international franchise operation, as a Marketing & Business Consultant where he remained for three years. After eleven years spent in the corporate world, Mr. O’Brien decided to form his first company, The O’Brien Group, LLC. The firm acquired properties in the Boston proper market for rehabilitation. A full-time expansion into the Costa Rican real estate market was initiated and office and residence was localized. Operations were focused in a real estate investment, management, marketing and a project funding capacity in the private equity sector.
During his ventures in Central America he was introduced to the alternative fuel world through the vast palm oil industry. In 2008, Mr. O’Brien joined Tennessee Bioenergy and it’s holding firm, Consolidated Bioenergy as the Director of Trading & Logistics and Business Consultant. After gaining this experience and educating himself from the ground up of the biodiesel business, he elected to form the biofuel commodity trading and logistics entity Universal Green Commodities to capitalize on the available opportunities in the market. For 8 years, the company was operating out of Westhampton Beach, NY and had a satellite office in midtown Manhattan. After 8 years in New York, he elected to move his operation to his home town of Boston, MA in Q3 2016.
He is married and resides in Boston, MA. Interests include: World travel, cooking, pyrotechnics, residential / commercial real estate investment and development, horticulture, foreign oil independence, commercial drone operations & building business’.
Andy Brindle
Managing Partner | Chief Financial & Compliance Officer
Mr. Brindle is a financial markets veteran with more than twenty-five years of business building experience. During his 18-year career at JPMorgan Chase Mr. Brindle was the senior executive responsible for Trading, Risk Management, Marketing and Structuring globally in several derivative businesses.
After leaving JP Morgan in 2005, Mr. Brindle spent time with MarketAxess as a Senior Advisor and served as an external advisor to a FRM, a major Hedge Fund of Funds manager based out of London, subsequently becoming the CEO of their US operations.
For the past decade, in addition to various financial markets consulting and expert witness engagements, he has been actively pursuing startup opportunities via his holding company, Brincorp Incorporated, including ventures in Fin Tech, Real Estate, Alternative Energy and Medical Tourism.
Azzedine Katane
Business Manager | Market Analyst | Soybean Oil & Biodiesel Trading
Mr. Katane, is a graduate of Kedge Business School in 2002, with a bachelor’s degree in finance and banking, and ESCP Europe, with a master’s degree in finance. From the onset, he has worked in the investment banking industry as a foreign exchange and commodity trader at Commercial Bank of Morocco.
Mr. Katane then moved to the commodities world within Haris Financial consulting firm, helping North African customers active in grains and oilseeds (Distributors, Millers, Oilseeds Crushers, Vegoil Refiners and Animal Feeds) to design tailor-made strategies to hedge FX and commodity exposure. He accepted the role of Purchasing Manager for one of his customers, Lesieur-Cristal, one of the biggest vegoil refiner and bottler in North Africa with 20,000 MT monthly capacity.
In 2012, he joined Archer Daniel Midlands as a Vegoil Trade Manager in Rolle, Switzerland. He was responsible for the EU soybean oil market, and crude and refined vegetable oils exports into the MENA region, mainly into Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and South Africa.
Mr. Katane, is a graduate of Hult International Business School in 2016, with a master’s degree in business administration.
Ryan Cournoyer
Director of Trading – Biodiesel | Crude Glycerin | USP Glycerin
Ryan joins UGC with over 14 years of sales and trading experience in the energy sector at investment banks in New York City, notably Cantor Fitzgerald, BTIG, Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse and Oppenheimer.
Ryan began his career at Credit Suisse as Vice President, followed by Director at Oppenheimer on the Institutional equity sales and trading desks during his first five years. He worked as Director in sales and trading at Bear Stearns and was promoted to senior energy trader after his first year. At Bear Stearns, he served as the firm’s global energy position trader and sector specialist for the salesforce.
Ryan built the sales and trading desk in New York from inception at GHS, a full-service energy investment bank, which was acquired by a larger firm.
He attended Stetson University, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration degree majoring in Finance and Investments.
Wilder Guadalupe
Director of Trading & Animal Nutritionist – Feed Ingredients
Mr. Wilder Guadalupe began his education in the animal industry at Agrarian National University in Lima, Peru where he got his Bachelor’s Degree in Sciences. After performing his thesis work “Evaluation of cassava meal as corn replacement in broiler diets” he received his Diploma as Animal Science Engineer focusing in Poultry and Pig Nutrition.
Over his 20+ year professional career in this industry, Mr. Guadalupe has had the opportunity to perform various positions in the pork and poultry industry assuming increasing responsibilities in vertically integrated companies and contributing decisively to the overall efficiency. While performing as Poultry Nutritionist, Wilder had the responsibility for the formulation of diets to provide the adequate nutrition desired and to oversee the productive performance of broilers, breeders, laying hens, turkeys and pigs.
His technical background and first-hand farms experience was complemented by obtaining his Master’s Degree in Agribusiness at Arizona State University where he graduated with honors and acquired a broader perspective and strength in his global business perspective of the feed ingredients industries for the animal production industry.
Through his career, Wilder has established a positive mindset enabling him to successfully perform and accomplish a variety of business activities within the animal nutrition and feed ingredients sectors. His integrity, commitment, accountability, energy, passion, determination and resilience are traits that makes Wilder a valuable team member within the Universal Green Commodities organization and to its counter parties.
Wilder has strong technical sales and marketing experience of various feed ingredients both locally and internationally. Wilder has developed a vast network of trading partners during his 20+ year career in this space throughout the Americas. He has attended multiple specialization courses and has completed multiple business transactions within the industry in Israel, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, United States and many countries in South America. He is fluent in Spanish, English and advanced Portuguese.
Darin Kelsey
Director of Trading – Renewable / Low CI Feedstock Trading
Darin brings to UGC over 20 years of brokering experience in the Energy and Commodities world, specifically Residual Fuel Oil.
Darin began his Energy career at Sempra Energy Trading in Connecticut, then moved to the Natural Gas Brokering Side at Gerald Energy/TFS. From there Darin moved up to Boston, MA and joined United Fuels International (later acquired by ICAP Energy), where he started his 20 year career as a Residual Fuel Oil Derivatives Broker.
Darin co-founded the Fuel Oil Brokering desks at both Marex Spectron and Tullett Prebon. Later he gained additional experience as an energy derivatives broker at AE Bruggemann and Co.
He attended St. Lawrence University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Psychology.
He is engaged to be married in June of this year and resides in Newburyport, MA with his fiancée, identical twin 13 year old daughters, and 2 dogs. He enjoys doing anything outdoors with his family and loves dogs, basketball, kayaking and good food.
Joe Marshall
Operations & Logistics Manager
Mr. Marshall is a transportation and logistics professional approaching nearly a decade of experience working in different freight and transportation industries.
Prior to joining the UGC team, he was the Assistant General Manager of the largest taxi company in Boston, Massachusetts. In tandem with this position for several years he had worked as the Air Cargo Security Coordinator for USA Couriers, a nationwide delivery service where he still serves as a part-time consultant. His expertise lies in specialized delivery solutions, compliance, and schedule management.
He is native to the Boston area, happily married, and has two children. In high school, he completed 4 years of JROTC management courses where he received numerous awards and decorations, and was a member of the debate team.
Joshua Hollander
Director of Business Development
Freight Brokerage | Meat Trading | Beef Tallow | Choice White Grease
Mr. Hollander is a 1992 graduate of University of New Hampshire at Plymouth with a Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Management.
His first 21 years in the business community were spent trading Commodity-Based Pork, Meat and Deli products on the Chicago Mercantile Market for Food Marketing Co-ordinators, Inc.
In 2011, he started his own Business Consulting Firm Commodity Investments and Logistics, Inc.
Mr. Hollander brings 3 decades of Business Development, Trading and Logistics expertise to Universal Green Commodities.
Christoper Capavella
3PL Division Manager & Freight Contract Manager
Mr. Capavella is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, CT. with a bachelor’s degree in economics accompanied with a minor in Writing & Political Rhetoric. He holds fourteen years of management and Business Development experience in the banking, financial services, and logistics industries. For eight years Mr. Capavella worked for Wells Fargo Bank N.A. within their retail mortgage financing division as a Senior Business Developer. He was then promoted to Wells Fargo’s distressed asset division as a certified REO Consultant negotiating deals on behalf of the bank with independent real estate investors where he remained for three years.
Needing to work his way through college Mr. Capavella was a former Teamster member working as an operational assistant for Local 25 in Charlestown, MA. Coming from a large family of Teamster Business Agents, Logistics & Supply Chain Management was an industry he has had extensive exposure to since childhood. As a result, after his tenure working for many years for one of the largest banks in the world Mr. Capavella decided to exit the banking industry and embark on the next chapter in his career spending the last three years with a national logistics & freight company. Working as a Sr. Operations Manager where he oversaw an 85,000 square foot facility with a team of 137 drivers. During his tenure, he managed to raise gross revenue for the company’s Boston facility 47% over a three-year period.
Mr. Capavella resides on the North Shore of Boston with his two children, two dogs, and fiancé. Interests include coaching pop-warner football; working as a high school football consultant for Boyles Strength & Conditioning Academy; weight training; hiking; spending time outdoors.
Patrick Versluis
Operations & Logistics Manager | Rotterdam, Netherlands / EMEA
Mr. Versluis has over fifteen years’ experience in the operations and logistics industry at various levels. He began his education in Sports Management in 1996 which ended in 1998, during this period Mr. Versluis also played as a professional soccer player in The Netherlands. He started a Bachelor Marketing and Communication education in 1999 and received his Bachelor in 2002. After this period, he joined the Dutch Marine Corps as a Marine.
Over the last 12 years, Mr. Versluis worked for the World’s biggest and leading company in the express business (FedEx Express) as an operations manager in The Netherlands, where he specialized in the express business worldwide.
While searching for a better opportunity Mr. Versluis joined Universal Green Commodities as the Operations and Logistics Manager in 2016. This last year he used his expertise to support Universal Green Commodities daily business operations as one of the largest boutique trading and logistics companies in the biodiesel and biodiesel feedstock business.