Bas van Berkel President & CEO

Bas is a serial entrepreneur, specialized in developing projects with environmental impact. He has successfully formed, ran, and sold several businesses, both in Europe and North America. In his over 20-year career, he has been involved in several industries ranging from construction, urban development, water and algae technologies, plastic recycling, closed loop farming, infrastructure investment, and energy production. As well, he has been retained as expert developer in the field of landfill and biogas projects.

Currently Bas spends most of his time developing Renewable Natural Gas Projects He has developed BerQ’s first RNG project from initiation, signing supply and off take, and securing financing. As well, Bas was a founder of StormFisher Biogas and served as its President & CEO while building the company

Bas also acts as guest lecturer, business plan competition judge, and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Richard Ivey School of Business. He graduated with an MSc. Civil Engineering from Delft University, The Netherlands, a post-graduate degree “infra-development” from University of Groningen, The Netherlands, an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business, London, Canada and has enrolled in clean-tech executive education at Haas-Berkeley, California, USA.

Marty Ryan
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Legal Officer

Marty has over 25 years of experience in legal and executive roles in the energy field and has dedicated the last 15 years to the biogas to energy industry developing, operating, acquiring and optimizing projects processing waste sources into low carbon renewable natural gas and renewable electricity.

Prior to joining BerQ, Marty served as Chief Executive Officer, President and Executive Director of Montauk Energy, a listed company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE:MNK) and one of the largest renewable natural gas producers in North America.  Prior to being named President and Chief Executive Officer, Marty served as Vice President and General Counsel of Montauk Energy responsible for all legal affairs for the company as well as managing the Human Resources, Environmental and Health & Safety functions.   Prior to joining Montauk Energy, Marty held various legal, management and compliance positions with Duquesne Light Company, including the management of Duquesne’s Legal Unit as Director, Legal and Chief Compliance Officer.   Before joining Duquesne Light, Marty worked in private practice representing public and private companies in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, commercial finance and corporate governance.   

Marty obtained his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Dayton and his Juris Doctor from The Duquesne University School of Law where he served as Executive Comment Editor of the Duquesne Law Review.

Mikhail Arkaev
Chief Financial Officer

Mikhail Arkaev is a senior finance professional with over a decade worth of experience in clean energy and sustainable infrastructure. He has successfully closed over $2 billion worth of transactions, including acquisition and divestitures of various renewable power projects and corporate and project financings. Mikhail’s experience ranges from investing in platforms as well as direct investments and hands on operational involvement in renewable power projects.

Prior to joining BerQ RNG Mikhail served as Founder and President of the MSA Capital Corp., an independent advisory firm focused on helping entrepreneurs solve problems of climate change. Mikhail’s previous roles also included Vice President of Energy & Infrastructure at Dream Unlimited (TSX: DRM) from 2013-2020, where he was responsible for growth and an overall oversight of the renewable power portfolio for Dream and its institutional clients and partners. Mikhail oversaw the portfolio from its near inception to exit and was instrumental in leading Dream’s divestiture across the three different asset pools in both UK and Canada for an enterprise value in excess of $350 million.

Matt Atkins, PMP, MS ChE
Chief Operating Officer

Matt is a strategic leader with over 190 projects in renewable energy and industrial plants. He is experienced with conceptual project development through construction, commissioning, start up and long-term operations.

His experience with renewable energy is vast, having operated numerous RNG facilities; designed and developed RNG projects in areas of dairy manure, hog manure, poultry manure, human waste, and food waste; developed a facility design for biomass pyrolization to hydrogen production and power generation facility; and managed a number of waste-to-energy/biomass projects.

Prior to joining BerQ, Matt held leadership positions at Viridi RNG, LLC; Brightmark, LLC; Xcel Energy; ZAP Engineering & Construction Services; and Amec Foster Wheeler. He also was a Director for American Organic Energy.

He holds an MBA from University of Minnesota and a Master of Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technical University. Matt is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Pony Chief Morale Officer

Pony is our Chief Morale Officer. She has more than three years of experience in cuddles and playing. Pony runs around the office, says hello to everybody by waving her tail, and is an avid participant in board and team meetings. She is continuously searching for somebody in need of cheering up and she always boosts spirits around the office with her friendly demeanor.