Samuel Hoffman/The Journal Gazette Randy Cole, left, and Michael Kelly are co-founders of ForeverGreen, a New Jersey company that plans to build a hydrogen plant in DeKalb County.

Michael Kelly never got over waiting in line for gas.

He remembers sitting in his Cadillac Eldorado, waiting for his turn to fill up at Los Angeles gas stations during the 1970s. A few times the convertible ran out of gas, forcing Kelly to push the heavy “beast of a car” as the line inched toward the pump.

Now 49, Kelly still can’t shake his annoyance at those gas shortages three decades ago. That lingering feeling of irritation pushed the retired stockbroker to propose an alternative energy plant in northeast Indiana.

The company Kelly co-founded, ForeverGreen Enterprises Inc., plans to invest more than $100 million in a hydrogen plant and office complex in DeKalb County. The Clifton, N.J.-based company will employ about 150 locally and produce 14,000 to 20,000 kilograms of hydrogen a day at the plant ForeverGreen intends to build in Butler.

The two men behind the project hail from a financial background, rather than a scientific one. Kelly and ForeverGreen co-founder Randy Cole met in the early 1980s while working at Waterhouse Securities Inc., a discount brokerage now known as T.D. Waterhouse Group Inc.

Both men served as first vice presidents for the brokerage firm, according to T.D. Waterhouse. Cole, an Angola native, worked there seven years, developing and managing the electronic trading division before he left in 1994, he said. Cole then went to work as an information technology consultant for financial service firms, including a stint in Silicon Valley.

The two company leaders complement each other, said Mack Hanan, an author and business consultant who is working with ForeverGreen. Kelly brings financial expertise to the hydrogen company. Cole also has a financial background, but he has an analytical thinking process that helps with the engineering aspects of the project, said Hanan, the author of “Consultative Selling.”

Kelly retired in 1997 after 11 years with Waterhouse Securities, according to T.D. Waterhouse. Before that, he worked as a stockbroker at E.F. Hutton.

After his retirement, Kelly started investing in environmental businesses, including one researching hydrogen fuel cells, he said. He later founded a company called E-Vestor Services Corp. to serve as an investment vehicle for environmental businesses. He hired Cole, who was working as a consultant in the information technology field, as senior analyst.

Kelly and Cole began thinking the company would figure out ways to make environmental businesses work in an economical way, Cole said. E-Vestor then planned to sell equipment and technology to green businesses.

As the two men researched hydrogen, market conditions shifted and made their idea too valuable to sell to others, Cole said. Natural gas costs soared, making traditional hydrogen production methods more expensive. Instead of manufacturing hydrogen using natural gas, ForeverGreen will charge a fee to dispose of hazardous waste such as old paints and inks and then manufacture hydrogen from the waste.

“There’s a lot of money to be made solving environmental problems, and we have a terrific solution,” Cole said.

The idea of destroying waste and making a profitable industrial gas at the same time seems too good to be true, but Hanan said he studied the technology before agreeing to work as a consultant for ForeverGreen. Hanan is convinced the project will be successful.

“It seems like one of those situations that was a dream…” he said, “but we thought we could make it a reality.”

Some hydrogen industry insiders aren’t familiar with the company or its technology. Patrick Serfass, spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association, said he was surprised he had not heard of ForeverGreen. Based in Washington, D.C., the trade association has more than 100 members, ranging from General Motors and Chevron to small startup firms.

ForeverGreen’s founders tried to keep a low profile while they were developing their technology to give them a head start in the industry, Kelly said. He and Cole have spent about 3 1/2 years researching the project. The Butler facility would be the company’s first plant. Kelly said he expects the plant and ForeverGreen’s business model to inspire “a great deal of competition” worldwide.

ForeverGreen hired engineers to supply the scientific expertise needed to make the project work, Cole said. The company turned to OnCallPSN LLC, a Fort Wayne management company, for advice on the best way to run a manufacturing plant.

“It made it very easy to figure out how to build a plant,” he said. “I just have to ask the experts.”

ForeverGreen’s staff is providing the expertise on manufacturing hydrogen while Master Group designs the building to house the equipment, said Gerry Bollman, president of the Fort Wayne design and build company. Master Group is determining the best way to organize the equipment in the plant so it functions efficiently, he said.

About 70 people attended a forum on the ForeverGreen project at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center on Dec. 7. The audience included potential customers, investors and companies interested in selling goods or services to the Butler plant.

Cole is returning to his Hoosier roots to build the plant. Cole, 45, was born in Angola while his father was attending Tri-State University. He grew up in Tippecanoe County and graduated from Wabash College in 1983 with a degree in modern language.

ForeverGreen is headquartered in Clifton, N.J., in the metropolitan New York area. The company set up its headquarters there because it was close to Kelly’s New Jersey home, Cole said. The corporate headquarters will remain there, but research and development and informational technology functions will likely move to the office complex ForeverGreen plans to build in Auburn.

With a northeast Indiana location, the plant will be close to customers who will use the plant’s disposal services and buy its hydrogen, Cole said. Manufacturing firms in Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis are within an easy drive of the proposed site, the Butler industrial park on County Road 61.

Cole attended the Northeast Indiana Business and Industrial Conference at Pokagon State Park in June to get a feel for industry in the area, he said. He met Master Group’s Bollman and Rob Drummond, president of OnCallPSN, at the annual event, which is designed to draw businesses to invest in the area.

Indiana Northeast Development, a private economic development organization and one of the conference’s hosts, counts landing ForeverGreen’s plant as one of the biggest achievements of the conference, director Lincoln Schrock said. The leaders of ForeverGreen are resourceful and have strong financial backing on Wall Street, he said. The company has a bright future.

“It’s very much a next-generation kind of project which has sweeping implications and could ultimately breed a brand-new business cluster in northeast Indiana,” he said.

ForeverGreen wants to draw other hydrogen industry companies to the area, Cole said. The project could encourage fuel cell research companies and hydrogen storage and distribution firms to locate nearby, generating additional jobs and investment in the area.

The hydrogen plant will receive state funding once the company begins building and hiring employees, said Jon Myers, northeast regional director for the Indiana Economic Development Corp. The state agency has offered the company up to $4.6 million in tax credits and training grants over 10 years, but ForeverGreen must show progress to qualify for the money, he said.

ForeverGreen plans to start producing hydrogen by the end of 2006. The company’s visionary leadership has made rapid progress toward making the Butler plant possible, Kelly said.

“It wasn’t very long ago you hadn’t heard of us and now we’re everywhere,” he said.

jglenn@jg.net