Dave Tolson has 25 years experience in the process industries. His early career involved engineering and operations, as well as supply and trading, and transitioned into general management at the COO/CEO level. With E&P, energy midstream, chemicals and industrial services experience, he has strong accomplishments in operational turnarounds, asset & capability rationalization, performance improvement, strategy development, corporate development, corporate finance and strategic transactions. He is currently President of Areti Advisors, Inc., a firm dedicated to strategy, business transformation and transaction advisory services for the energy, chemicals and industrial services markets.

Prior to forming Areti, Mr. Tolson was President/CEO of Koch Specialty Chemical Company. At Koch, he led the revitalization of Koch's $100 MM specialty aromatic derivatives business and led the development of a new $100 MM division involving the manufacture of ultra-high purity chemicals, onsite chemical distribution systems and wastewater purification systems for the semiconductor industry. He joined Koch Industries initially as a Managing Director in its private equity group leading non-core, leveraged investment activity in energy, chemicals, materials and industrial services.

Leveraging his energy trading and transmission knowledge, Mr. Tolson, as President/CEO, led a new venture for Panhandle Eastern involving mission critical trading, transaction processing and scheduling software systems. The array of systems sold to producers, traders, pipeline companies, utilities and industrial customers were accumulated via a combination of internal development, acquisition and a merger. The market leading business was ultimately sold to a group of financial buyers.

Mr. Tolson was founder and President/CEO of a polymers processing enterprise. He led the capital formation activities and acquisition of the distressed, large-scale extrusion business. Following the acquisition, Mr. Tolson executed the restart and turnaround of the business leading it until its purchase by a strategic buyer.

As President/COO of Llano, Inc., a subsidiary of Hadson Corporation, Mr. Tolson was responsible for the natural gas gathering, processing, storage, transmission and related trading activities of the company. During his tenure at Llano, he executed an operational turnaround of the business developing a new robust strategy, rationalizing assets, reducing commercial risk, improving the balance sheet and dramatically improving earnings performance. In this role he additionally had responsibility for the long-term supply & transportation arrangements for cogeneration projects of sister company Hadson Power.

Mr. Tolson started his career at Arco where he was responsible for the design, project management, start-up and operation of production and processing facilities at Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk, Alaska, as well as multiple offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Tolson holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. He is active in the Turnaround Management Association and serves on the Board of Directors of the MIT Enterprise Forum.

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