Mr. Nelson was awarded his B.S. degree from Penn State University under the mineral processing option of the mining engineering program with highest honors in 1980. He has also earned a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he was a Kennedy Fellow, as well as a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arizona’s College of Law.

Early in his career he served short stints at the U.S. Steel Corp., the Burr-Brown Corp., a semiconductor company, and Booz, Allen & Hamilton, a major management consulting firm. Later, taking over at Sorbent Technologies with only a handful of employees and a $2 million valuation, over time he was able to build the venture into a $22 million acquisition by NYSE specialty-chemicals producer Albemarle Corporation.

The brominated carbons that Mr. Nelson invented and commercialized are now the leading technology used by coal-fired power plants to reduce their mercury emissions. He is currently Albemarle’s Global Business Director for Mercury Controls.