William McGehee

William McGehee is a Baton Rouge-based entrepreneur turning industrial waste streams into valuable products across energy, agriculture, and materials. He is the founder and CEO of Novalign, which converts waste lignin — a byproduct the paper industry burns by the millions of tons each year — into biodegradable nanoparticle delivery systems for agriculture and renewable aromatic chemicals for specialty manufacturing. He is also co-founder of Encore CO2, an LSU-born startup that uses proprietary electrolyzer technology to convert waste CO2 into acetate, ethanol, and other high-value carbon molecules, backed by NSF SBIR and FUEL funding. Before both ventures, William owned Tin Roof Brewing in Baton Rouge, where a conversation about the brewery's own CO2 emissions with LSU chemical engineering professor John Flake became the spark for Encore. Across each company, his focus is the same: finding the technology that turns an overlooked waste stream into a genuine business.