All those devices filling the big main lab floor ensure that fuel Iowans put in their vehicles is pure product that will power cars and trucks without ruining their engines.

And that isn’t all. The lab staff will use all that equipment to ensure the quality of ethanol and biodiesel used throughout the nation. Very soon, it will also be testing sustainable aviation fuel. “This lab will drive innovation in one of Iowa’s most important industries,” Gov. Kim Reynolds said Friday afternoon during a ribbon cutting ceremony marking the debut of the new lab on A Street West.

College President Jesse Ulrich said the facility is the nation’s only independent fuel testing lab.

It is also the official fuel testing lab for the state Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Ensuring the purity of fuel sold in the state is one of that department’s many responsibilities.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Dr. Jesse Ulrich, president of Iowa Central Community College, prepares to cut the ribbon for the college's new biofuels testing laboratory. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is to the left.

The concept of a fuel lab emerged in 2018. It started in an old greenhouse on the college’s main campus, moved into the Bioscience and Health Sciences Building and finally to the new building, which was specifically designed and constructed to be a fuel testing lab.

“I do have to say some things are worth the wait,” Ulrich said.

Reynolds recounted how the lab concept grew from a partnership between the college and Decker Truck Line Inc. based in Fort Dodge. The trucking company wanted to check the efficacy of biodiesel. The resulting test was called the Two Million Mile Haul.

The governor described it as “a groundbreaking study” that showed biodiesel was every bit as good as its petroleum based counterpart.

When the two Million Mile Haul made the need for a testing lab apparent, college leaders began working with public and private entities to make that happen. Jim Kersten, the college’s vice president for external relations and government affairs, was key in the effort.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Gov. Kim Reynolds shakes hands with UnityPoint Health — Fort Dodge President Leah Glasgo at the opening of the Iowa Central Community College Fuel Testing Laboratory. Dr. Jesse Ulrich, president of Iowa Central Community College, is to the left.

Ulrich described Kersten as the “most persistent human being I have ever met.”

Reynolds added “That guy doesn’t stop.”

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said the new lab is a “testament to a lot of partnerships and creative financing.”

The lab’s work to independently verify the quality of biofuels “goes a long way to support consumer confidence.”

He reminded the group at Friday’s event that a building is just that, a building. He said it is the people who work in that building that accomplish the fuel testing missing.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Former state Rep. Helen Miller, D-Fort Dodge, speaks at the ribbon cutting. Miller and former state Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort Dodge, secured the initial state funding for lab equipment.

Two former state lawmakers who secured the initial funding for the lab, spoke Friday.

“Everybody wins in a renewable fuel program – the farmer, the consumer and the Iowa economy.,” said former state Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort Dodge.

Former state Rep. Helen Miller, D-Fort Dodge, said she was on “every committee that made a difference for what we wanted to do here.”

Getting the funding for the lab involved fending off legislators, especially from eastern Iowa, who wanted the lab in their districts, she said.

“We prevailed,” Miller said.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Dr. Jesse Ulrich, president of Iowa Central Community College, speaks at the opening of the Iowa Central Community College Fuel Testing Laboratory.

Grant Kimberly, of the Iowa Soybean Association, said lab was “so important for our industry.”

Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, noted that the lab could have landed in any Midwestern state. It was hard work by all the partners involved that brought the lab to Fort Dodge and Iowa Central.

“None of this happened by accident,” he said.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Gov. Kim Reynolds attended the opening of the Iowa Central Community College Fuel Testing Laboratory.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Don Heck, director of the Iowa Central Community College Fuel Testing Laboratory, talks to Gov. Kim Reynolds.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
State Rep. Mike Sexton, R-Rockwell City, and Gov. Kim Reynolds listen to Don Heck, director of the Iowa Central Community College Fuel Testing Laboratory.