Albert Douer

I’m an industrialist. It’s a word people don’t use much anymore, but it fits. I like making things. Always have.Forty years ago I left Wharton and chose a factory floor over an investment bank. I joined Darnel Group and grew it into a global packaging and construction materials business. Somewhere along the way I became the person who keeps saying “yes, it can be done” when everyone else says no. That stubbornness has cost me plenty. It has also built things I’m proud of.The pattern has been the same throughout my career: find a real problem, find a technology that can solve it at industrial scale, and then do the hard work of making it real. I pioneered recycling PET bottles back into food packaging across the Americas when almost nobody was doing it. Today I invest in companies turning wood waste into virgin wood (Daika Wood), making biodegradable polymers from organisms (Biotic), manufacturing earth magnets in the USA, and creating recyclable packaging solutions (Melodea).My most exciting innovation is UBQ Materials, where I serve as Chairman & CEO. We convert unsorted household waste - including all the organics, the chicken bones, the dirty diapers - into a climate-positive thermoplastic that replaces oil-based plastics. No green premium. Drop-in compatible with existing machinery. Running today at industrial scale in the Netherlands. Not a pitch deck, not Disneyworld, but a working plant.Outside of business, I own FC Naples. This is another “they said it couldn’t be done” project! I have served on the Board of Endeavor for nearly 20 years, coaching entrepreneurs in developing countries. A lifelong belief that the world’s hardest problems are solvable if you refuse to quit.