Nate Jensen says he loves reading about American history, particularly its wars and the Wild West.
Still, it was a fictional character who spurred him to become a lawyer.
“I read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and fell in love with Atticus Finch,” Jensen said.
“It’s a noble, and should be an honorable, profession that is practiced among civil people who seek to meet their clients’ needs in as cooperative manner as possible.”
That love eventually led him to become the general counsel at Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (Nasdaq: CLNE), a Newport Beach provider of renewable natural energy with a $1.7 billion market cap as of last week.
During his tenure, he’s advised legendary entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens and crafted deals that attracted investments from giant corporations like Amazon and France’s Total SA.
Jensen was one of five honored the Business Journal’s 11th annual General Counsel Awards, held on Nov. 18 at the Irvine Marriott.
He was recognized as the outstanding GC of a public company. Clean Energy is Orange County’s most valuable publicly traded renewable energy firm.
“This nominee is known in the legal community as a no-nonsense, legal and business expert, someone who says what he thinks and addresses the problem head on,” said Mark Peterson, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, when presenting the award.
Football Lineman
Born and raised in Ogden, Utah, Jensen was active in sports, such as playing offensive lineman on his high school football team; he became an avid skier, saying Alta Utah is his favorite resort.
After he received a B.A. in history and then a JD, both magna cum laude from Brigham Young University, he headed west to San Francisco in 2000.
“It was the place to be for young lawyers,” Jensen said. “I principally was doing dot-coms.”
After that bubble burst, he traveled to San Diego, where he worked in a private practice on issues such as corporate mergers and venture capital.
One of his clients was Clean Energy, a company founded in 1996 by Pickens along with Andrew Littlefair, who is still the chief executive.
“I was really excited about the company and what it was doing,” said Jensen, who joined in 2011.
Pickens was on the board for several years before he died in 2019.
“It was just an honor to spend time with Mr. Pickens. I felt he was a great American. We got our start because Mr. Pickens and Andrew Littlefair had a vision.”
The Vision
That vision entailed being the first in the nation to convert methane gas emitting from landfills into fuel for long-haul trucks.
Nowadays, Clean Energy has 550 dispensing stations, making it the largest network of renewable natural gas (RNG) in the U.S.
Its sales of renewable natural gas have risen more than tenfold, from 13 million gasoline gallon equivalents in 2013 to 153.3 million gallons in 2020.
“Several billion gallons of this renewable fuel can be accessed in the United States,” Jensen said about the potential market capacity.
It’s also working to convert ships to become the first natural gas-powered container ships to service Hawaii.
Clean Energy earlier this year began a joint venture with British giant BP PLC to convert methane at dairy farms into more than 7 million gallons of RNG annually. Jensen noted trucking firms are getting tremendous pressure to reduce their carbon emissions created by diesel.
“If you have a 1,000 truck fleet that runs on diesel and you convert 200 to run on our dairy renewable natural gas—it would make your fleet net carbon zero,” Jensen said.
It’s one reason Amazon earlier this year invested in the company, in a deal that could ultimately make the e-commerce giant one of Clean Energy’s biggest investors.
“We believe in a future that has many fuels. We just don’t like diesel, which has been deemed a carcinogen. We need to get this country weaned off diesel fuel.”
Since Joe Biden was elected president a year ago, Clean Energy’s shares have seen some big swings, and have now settled around three times their price from November 2020.
“Generally, policies at the federal, state and local level that favor action to address global warming are beneficial to our organization,” Jensen said. “There continues to be a feeling that the Biden administration has a higher focus on the climate.”
No Regrets
Currently, Jensen oversees five employees in the internal legal department, as well as outside legal counsels, including many who he said were sponsors at the Business Journal event.
Most of his time is focused on corporate governance as a public company, including advising the board of directors and management. Jensen interacts with many regulatory bodies—“just about any agency that has to do with air quality.”
“At my core, I’m a business-minded lawyer. Foremost to me is doing everything I can to help my client meet its business objectives. I don’t want to be the Department of No, which is many legal departments.
“I have not regretted for one minute becoming a lawyer. It’s been a fabulous career.”
