Sep 28, 2023

Viridi Energy Adds Two New Team Members, as Firm’s Renewable Energy Work Gathers Pace Nationwide

Viridi Energy (“Viridi”), a leading renewable natural gas (“RNG”) platform, has hired two new team members, as the firm’s waste-to-value renewable energy work is gathering pace nationwide. Mark Cresanti has been appointed Executive Vice President of Operations, a role focused on driving operational excellence in safety, compliance, and reliability across the Viridi platform. Tamara Siskind has been appointed Director of Business Development and will be responsible for originating new RNG investment opportunities for the firm.

“The Viridi team is delighted to welcome Mark and Tamara and to leverage their well-aligned experience in support of our larger firm objectives,” said Dan Crouse, CEO of Viridi. “This year, we have announced several high-profile RNG deals, which push the leading edge of the renewable energy industry, and we have many more projects in our pipeline. With Mark’s deep operational expertise and Tamara’s business development acumen, Viridi is poised to build on our impressive momentum.”

In joining Viridi, Cresanti brings more than two decades of operations leadership experience and several recent years of work in the biogas-to-RNG space. Most recently, he was Director of Operations for RNG Operating Assets at Air Liquide Advanced Technologies for three years. In that role, he managed the operations team responsible for supporting new and existing biogas-to-RNG projects nationwide. Prior to that, he was the Northeast Director of Operations for the same firm, and he worked in a variety of operations-focused leadership positions for The Dow Chemical Company from 2010 to 2015.

Siskind joins the Viridi team with a focus on sourcing investment opportunities from multiple biogas feedstocks, including agricultural waste, food waste, municipal wastewater anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas sources. Prior to joining Viridi, she led U.S. sales for Wärtsilä's Puregas CA biogas upgrading technology. Her experience includes more than 10 years as an engineer in the oil & gas sector, with roles spanning operations, commissioning, and capital project development.

The expansion of Viridi’s team comes as the RNG platform is increasing its momentum across the United States. In June, Viridi announced its partnership with American Organic Energy to develop one of the largest food waste-to-RNG projects in the country. The Yaphank, NY project is expected to convert 210,000 tons of waste per year – the equivalent to the entire annual food waste of Dallas, Texas – into clean energy and agriculture products. Prior to that, in Q1 of 2023, Viridi began construction on a landfill renewable natural gas project at the Marathon County Solid Waste Department’s landfill in Ringle, WI. The development created a partnership between Viridi and Marathon County that will convert landfill gas into clean RNG, equal to more than three million gallons of gasoline annually.