Collection of Works

Norway Means Business: 

PFAS Challenges Facing Communities Across the Globe

June 11, 2026

Introduction:

Simen Ekblom

Minister-Counselor 

Norwegian Embassy

Master of Ceremonies: Idar Voldnes

Idar G. Voldnes is a dynamic and results-driven international business leader with a distinguished career spanning both the U.S. and Norway, holding senior leadership roles as Chairman, CEO, and President across high-growth startups and Fortune 500 enterprises. 

He is renowned as a ‘doer’ with a proven ability to scale and transform enterprise software companies, delivering exceptional growth and market leadership. With deep expertise in securing equity and debt financing, executing acquisitions, and orchestrating successful exits, Idar has consistently driven innovation and value in the enterprise software and SaaS sectors. A strategic visionary and skilled negotiator, specializing in forging high-impact partnerships, driving solution-oriented sales, and developing and executing business strategies that propel organizations to new heights. He is also known for building and nurturing senior client relationships, optimizing business development, and leading high-performing teams to achieve ambitious goals.

He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cleveland State University, and earned Business Administration, BI Norwegian Business School

Keynote:  Dennis Calvert, CEO and Chairman BioLargo, Inc.

Dennis Calvert has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since June 2002.  His significant roles include being appointed a Director in June 2002, Corporate Secretary from September 2002 until March 2003, and as Chief Financial Officer from March 2003 through January 2008. He also serves on the board and in executive positions for BioLargo subsidiaries. 

Mr. Calvert holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Wake Forest University, where he was a varsity basketball player. Mr. Calvert also studied at Columbia University and Harding University. Mr. Calvert was appointed by the Secretary of Commerce of the United States to serve on the Environmental Technology Trade Advisory Committee (ETTAC) for a two-year commission starting January 2025. He was also appointed as the Chairman of the Enabling Innovative Technology Subcommittee reporting to ETTAC. 

Mr. Calvert also serves on the board of directors at The Maximum Impact Foundation, a 501(c)(3), committed to bridging the gap for lifesaving work around the globe for the good of man and in the name of Christ. He serves as a Director and as Co-Chair of the Energy Committee and the Water Committee of Sustain SoCal, a trade association that seeks to promote economic growth in the Southern California clean technology industry. He also serves on the Board of Directors at TMA Bluetech, a leading regional water cluster promoting science-based ocean water industries. He serves on the leadership board at Water UCI, which is an interdisciplinary center in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California- Irvine, that facilitates seamless collaboration across schools, departments, and existing research centers around questions of fundamental and applied water science, technology, management, and policy. He is also an Eagle Scout. He is married and has two grown children. Mr. Calvert has an extensive entrepreneurial background as an operator, investor and consultant. 

Prior to his work with BioLargo, he had participated in more than 300 consulting projects and more than 50 acquisitions as well as various financing transactions and companies that ranged from industrial chemicals, healthcare management, finance, telecommunications and consumer products.  

Moderator: 

John Parker Esq,  

Partner at Sahn Ward Braff Coschignano; 

Second Vice Chair, Environmental and Energy Law Section, New York State Bar Association

John has served as an environmental regulator, advocate, legislative advisor, not for profit legal director, and is a private attorney.  He advises public and private interests on environmental and energy law issues.  He has focused on economic redevelopment of contaminated sites, and on clean water issues – ranging from waterways like the Hudson River to addressing PFAS and emerging contaminant issues in impacted communities. His work included a review of the Hudson River Superfund cleanup, and drafting and negotiating the first comprehensive brownfields legislation in New York State.   

He is a prolific commentator on environmental policy and legal issues.  John has authored numerous articles for The New York Environmental Lawyer, professional journals, law reviews and professional practice series on hazardous substances focusing on emerging contaminants, clean water, climate change challenges, and energy law – including solar, wind power and battery storage, among others.  

Panel 1: 

State and Local Perspectives

Senator Heidi Campbell- State Senator Tennessee 

Heidi Campbell was born in Nashville, Tennessee.  Senator Campbell earned a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University. Her career experience includes working as an executive in the music industry and owning a business.

Atam Dwan, Chief Strategic Innovation Officer New Jersey Institute of Technology

Atam Dawan is the Executive Director NJ PFAS – Partnership Initiative and Senior Vice Provost for Research.  He served as the Executive Director at the Center for Translational Research.

He is a distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Panel 2: 

Solutions to Meet PFAS Technical and Business Challenges

Tonya Chandler 

President 

BioLargo Environmental and Equipment Solutions 

Tonya Chandler is President of BioLargo Environment and Equipment Solutions.  Tonya has substantial experience delivering solutions for water treatment and odor control in the water and wastewater treatment industries. With more than 20 years of experience, she is a seasoned executive with a special focus on marketing and sales, having worked with Shaw Environmental, Veolia Water, and as VP of Anue Water. 

Tonya is respected across the water industry for her ability to build lasting relationships, uncover business opportunities and develop cost effective solutions to serve customer needs. She is recognized as a PFAS expert and water innovation champion.  

Mark Dodd

Senior Business Development Manager

Aquatech Environmental Services

Mark Dodd is part of Aquatech’s Environmental Services Division.  With over 17 years of experience in water and wastewater treatment, he leads the company’s PFAS partnerships, working closely with technology developers and prospective clients to build collaborative solutions.

Mark plays a key role in developing strategic agreements, including MOUs and joint development partnerships. He also brings more than 20 years of service in the U.S. Army, where he held roles in Battalion Command and as a Project Officer, supporting Aquatech’s federal contracting strategy.

Jeff Denholm

CEO & Founder 

Strongwater Technologies

Jeff Denholm
is an innovator, retired merchant marine, commercial diver and recently a USFS Engine Contractor. Jeff founded STRONG WATER out of an urgent need for innovation in the firefighting industry and to provide firefighters with better tools.

His experience battling catastrophic wildfires as a Region-6 USFS wildland Engine Contractor revealed to him critical failures of outdated toxic firefighting chemicals and the tactics that are tied to them. Witnessing the immense loss firsthand fueled his conviction: “We need to do better.”

Panel 3: 

Federal and Global Perspectives: Integrated Policy Approaches to Meet the Challenges at Every Scale

Introduction 

Audun Heggelund

Director

Norwegian Environment Agency

Audun Heggelund is Director of the Norwegian Environment Agency. He earned his PhD in organic chemistry in 2005.  He has about 12 years of experience with PFAS from the Norwegian Environment Agency.  Since 2020, Audun has coordinated the Norwegian efforts with the European Union restriction proposal for PFAS. Currently, he is about to switch his focus to regulation of industrial emissions, including PFAS.

Sally Gutierrez

former EPA – National Risk Research Laboratory

Advisor to BioLargo, Inc.

Sally Gutierrez has been a career senior executive for the EPA for over twenty years. She has held key positions within the EPA, primarily within its Office of Research and Development (ORD). She has held the title of Director for numerous offices within the EPA’s ORD, including the Environmental Technology Innovation Cluster Development and Support Program, the National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL), and the NRMRL Water Supply and Water Resources Division. She also served as a Senior Water Advisor for the ORD Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response and the Acting Director of the Water Permits Division within the EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management in Washington, DC.

Devesh Mittal

Vice President and General Manager

Aquatech Environmental Services 

Devesh Mittal is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in the energy and industrial solutions sectors. Currently serving as Vice President & GM of Aquatech Energy Services and Vice President of Industrial Solutions (Americas) at Aquatech International Corporation since December 1995, Devesh has held several key roles including Director of Sales for North America and Regional Sales Manager.   Since November 2009, Devesh is a Business Partner at Chyten Education Services, Southhills, PA.  His prior experience includes serving as Regional Sales Manager at Thermax from 1988 to 1995. Devesh holds an MBA from Rice Business – Jones Graduate School of Business (2004-2006) and a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from Banaras Hindu University (1984-1988), complemented by a high school diploma from St. Thomas College.

About the Sponsors

BioLargo, Inc.

BioLargo, Inc. (OTCQX:BLGO) is a cleantech and life sciences innovator and engineering services solution provider. Our core products address PFAS contamination, achieve advanced water and wastewater treatment, control odor and VOCs, improve air quality, enable energy-efficiency and safe on-site energy storage, and control infections and infectious disease. Our approach is to invent or acquire novel technologies, develop them into product offerings, and extend their commercial reach through licensing and channel partnerships to maximize their impact. See our website at www.BioLargo.com.

About BioLargo Equipment Solutions & Technologies, Inc.

BioLargo Equipment Solutions & Technologies, Inc. is a subsidiary of BioLargo, Inc., focused on developing and deploying innovative equipment-based solutions to address critical environmental challenges, including PFAS contamination in water.

22nd Century by Design Solutions

Children born today will walk into the 22nd Century- How are we building their future?

22nd Century by Design Solutions Inc. is an Arizona-based C-Corp that scales innovation and game-changing technologies aligned with the 17 UN SDGs. Our subsidiaries develop and manage verticals and strategic partnerships to focus resources and talent across the globe.

We engage Tribal Nations, Rural America, Urban, and Global South communities as partners in enterprises and in workforce development to further community wealth and capacity-building.  We are a Social Impact Holding Company…..We Secure and Manage Impact Funding.

Keynote Address 

June 11, 2026 

Dennis P. Calvert

CEO and Chairman

BioLargo, Inc.

Ambassador Huitfeldt, distinguished guests, friends — thank you. 

And thank you, Norcham and Idar Voldnes and, of course, thank you Norway, for opening this house to look into a problem that doesn’t carry a passport and doesn’t respect a border.

I want to begin with a small confession. I’ve spent a little over twenty years of my life in the innovation business. Which means …I’ve spent a little over twenty years asking a two-word question that has cost me ….and a number of very patient shareholders — a considerable amount of money. The question is: “What.. if?”

My accountant has a different favorite question….. “Why?” even better, ….What were you thinking?

The two of us have had a long and productive marriage.

But here is what twenty years has taught me. Every meaningful thing on the agenda today — every technology, every company, every solution — began as somebody’s slightly inconvenient question, “what if.”

What if we could clean water where the old chemistry said we couldn’t? 

What if “forever” wasn’t actually forever?

Curiosity is the cheapest ingredient in innovation. It’s also the one we quietly skip. We’re trained to admire the answer and ignore the question. But the question is the asset. The “what if” is the seed of everything that comes after it — and most of the time, it shows up disguised as a nuisance. The best ideas almost always sound, at first, a little unreasonable.

Curiosity points you at a problem. Then the unglamorous part begins: the deep dive. You go and study the gap.

Not the crowded market everyone is already fighting over — the gap.

The place where the need is enormous and the solutions are thin. As an innovator, you learn to fall in love with gaps, because a gap is just opportunity that nobody has claimed yet.

For me, the PFAS gap didn’t begin with a spreadsheet or a lab report. It began, of all places, with a movie. Some of you have seen Dark Waters — the story of how a class of “forever chemicals” quietly made its way into the blood of, …essentially, …all of us.

What that film captured — more vividly than any data set I’d ever seen — was the visceral reaction: that moment you realize a contaminant has become this widespread, this permanent, and that someone, somewhere, has to decide to fix it.

These are molecules we engineered to be nearly indestructible — and they did their job a little too well.

They’re in our water, our soil, and …in us. 

We’re the first generation able to measure them down to parts per trillion, which makes us the first generation that has to decide what to do about them. 

My company decided to be one of those “someones.” That is a gap worth a career.

And that brings me to the third word. 

Courage.

Because studying a gap is interesting.

But committing your life, your reputation, and other people’s capital to closing one — that is something else entirely.

Every founder in this room knows a particular piece of geography. We call it the valley of death. It’s the distance between “the technology works in the laboratory” and “the world will actually pay for it.” It is where good ideas go to quietly… not make it.

It’s a crowded valley — full of brilliant technologies that were absolutely right, and absolutely alone. Because a breakthrough with no bridge is just an expensive opinion. Courage gets you to the edge of that valley. It does not, by itself, get you across.

Let me make that personal, because I have lived in that valley.

One of our companies, Clyra Medical, has spent nearly twelve years — and a great deal of precious capital — carrying a breakthrough in infection control and wound healing toward the market. The technology worked… really well. And that, it turned out, was the problem.

Because the objection we heard most often wasn’t “it doesn’t work.” It was: 

“This is too good to be true.” We were effective enough that being effective became suspicious. And clearing that one objection — satisfying even the regulators — cost us an additional three and a half years of work and investment. Three and a half years to overcome the crime of working too well.

But we went the distance and came out stronger and more determined to make change for a greater good. And today Clyra is in early market adoption, launching with global partners and industry leaders finally taking up the cause.

Which brings me to the two questions every innovator in this room will recognize. The first you’ve just heard: “Isn’t this too good to be true?” The second is even better: “And who the heck are you?”

As if real innovation were reserved for the upper echelons of academia, or a handful of super-scientists in lab coats. That’s the myth I most want to retire today. 

Innovation isn’t a credential — it’s a commitment. 

It’s the discipline to ask the “what if,” the patience to do the deep dive into the gap, and the courage to go the distance when everyone — including the regulator — is telling you to stop. That’s the whole secret. There isn’t a second one.

But here’s the lesson that took me twenty years to learn: courage gets you across the valley — partnership is what lets you scale on the other side.

With PFAS, we made a deliberate choice early on. 

Not just to build a technology that works — but to build a strategy around it: strategic partnerships that let a proven solution scale at a global pace. Because political winds ebb and flow, budgets tighten, administrations change — but the need for a better solution only gets clearer.

And that strategy is why we now get to watch a technology once waved off as “too good to be true” being adopted around the world and scaling at the highest level — with partners standing alongside us.

Just recently we formed a strategic alliance with Aquatech — and it’s a textbook case of what I mean. Two organizations, different strengths, but mutual incentives that line up perfectly to go after the same gap. Because a problem of this scale isn’t solved by a lone hero in a garage. It takes an army of committed innovators and scaled partners to do it right. And happily — you’ll hear from one of those partners in just a moment: Aquatech’s CEO, Devesh Mittal, is right here on this panel.

So partnership at that scale isn’t just a company strategy. It’s a national one. Which is the reason we’re standing in this particular building today.

I have the privilege of serving on a U.S. federal environmental technology trade advisory committee, where we argue — politely… mostly — that the job of good policy is to shift from punishing what’s dirty to enabling what’s better.

From compliance to enablement. 

Easy to write in a memo. Very hard to do. (I should mention at this moment that all my comments are my own and I am not authorized to speak on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce or the US Government.)

And then I look at Norway, and I realize they’ve quietly been doing the very thing the rest of us keep writing memos about. Norwegians are far too modest to brag about it — so allow an American to do it for them.

Norway didn’t subsidize the world’s largest fleet of electric ferries into existence. It bought them into existence — it used its own purchasing power as an innovation engine. When the government agreed to be the first customer, the valley of death suddenly had a bridge. And its agencies don’t just fund the science; they help underwrite the terrifying middle — the first full-scale deployment private capital is too sensible to finance alone — and, unlike most of us, they actually coordinate with one another.

And then there’s the remarkable project. Norway built the world’s first full-scale system to capture carbon dioxide and lock it permanently beneath the seabed. The government covered roughly two–thirds of the cost, and it began storing carbon just last year. Do you know what they named it?…

Longship. … Of course they did. Because a thousand years ago, Norwegians climbed into open wooden boats and rowed toward a horizon they had no way of seeing. The boat, I’ll grant you,…. has gotten considerably more expensive. But the instinct is exactly the same: point yourself at the unknown — and commit.

So here is the whole arc, in four words.

Curiosity, to ask the question.

Rigor, to study the gap.

Courage, to commit when no one can promise you it will work.

And partnership — the infrastructure, the policy, the patient public WILL — to build a bridge across the valley so the courageous don’t have to cross it alone.

Which is exactly why we’re here this afternoon. The technologies you’re about to hear about on this next panel are not science projects. They’re real, working solutions to PFAS — built by people who asked “what if,” studied the gap, and found the courage to commit. What they need from the rest of us — policymakers, partners, capital — is the bridge.

So here’s the one thing I’d ask you to carry out of this beautiful room. Innovation doesn’t fail in the laboratory. It fails in the gap — between a technology that works and a market that’s ready.

Closing that gap is not an accident. It’s a choice. And it’s a choice every single person in this room has some power to make.

It’s my honor to introduce a group of people who have made that choice — and the solutions they’ve built.

And, a very special thank you to Dr Cynthia Phillips of 22nd Century by Design for creating this awesome event and making this day a reality!

“If there’s one lesson I carry, it’s this: keep 

returning to the question, then commit to the bridge. Curiosity, rigor, courage—and partnership. Thank you—over to the panel

______________

Dennis P. Calvert

Chief Executive Office and Chairman

BioLargo, Inc. 

Linked In:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennispcalvert/

Interview July 2, 2026

Jeff Denholm

CEO & Founder

Strongwater Technologies

Participant:  Panel 2: 

Solutions to Meet PFAS Technical and Business Challenges

Jeff Denholm is an innovator, retired merchant marine, commercial diver and recently a USFS Engine Contractor. Jeff founded STRONG WATER out of an urgent need for innovation in the firefighting industry and to provide firefighters with better tools.

His experience battling catastrophic wildfires as a United States Forest Service, Region 6 wildland Engine Contractor revealed to him critical failures of outdated toxic firefighting chemicals and the tactics that are tied to them. Witnessing the immense loss firsthand fueled his conviction: “We need to do better.”

__________________

What motivates you to develop an innovative approach to fire suppression and firefighting that avoids forever chemicals? 

I was first inspired by my experiences serving on a U.S. Forest Service engine crew as a wildland firefighter. Over time, it became clear to me that existing aerial firefighting tactics and the widely used suppression chemicals were not effectively slowing the progression of wildfires before they developed into major conflagrations.

Most aerial firefighting strategies rely on a single long-term chemical retardant called Phos-Chek. While retardants are valuable as a defensive tool, they are typically delivered by large fixed-wing aircraft that require significant time to reload and often must travel long distances from permanent air bases. These operational limitations can allow a fire to grow substantially before suppression resources arrive.

In addition, the U.S. Forest Service has faced multiple lawsuits over the use of Phos-Chek, including high-profile cases alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. It was the combination of these operational and environmental challenges that inspired me to develop our suppression technology, one centered on non-toxic formulations and rapid, direct-attack firefighting tactics designed to stop fires while they are still small and controllable.

What are your thoughts about the technical challenges in developing your technology? 

Like most chemical innovations, developing a new product takes time. You have to find the right partners with expertise in the specific chemistry you’re pursuing, and there is inevitably a fair amount of trial and error throughout the development process.

That said, the biggest obstacle has been funding. Most venture capital firms and sophisticated private equity investors tend to shy away from companies focused on the government sector. Adding to the challenge, our company was positioning itself to compete against a single, large, deeply entrenched incumbent. Those factors made raising capital significantly more difficult than it would have been in a typical commercial market.

You recently participated in a PFAS Forum in Washington DC that brought together leaders and innovators dealing with this chemical.  Please share your thoughts about the challenges of bringing innovating technology to market to avoid the use of these forever chemicals? 

I think the biggest challenge is that PFAS are found in so many different products and classes of chemicals that the scope of the problem is daunting. There is also the influence of lobbying, as some of the largest chemical companies spend significant resources advocating for policies that preserve the status quo.

This challenge will not be solved without meaningful support from government leadership, which is one of the reasons I feel compelled to speak out on the issue. Both government leaders and the public need to recognize the full scope of the problem, and those of us who understand the risks have a responsibility to raise awareness and advocate for meaningful change.

_______________

Jeff Denholm

Chief Executive Office and Founder

Strong Water Technologies and Home Dome Wildfire

Linked In:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-denholm-748a4238/