history

Riggs Eckelberry and his brother Nicholas founded OriginOil in 2007, twelve years after they had first talked about starting an environmental technology company. But back in 1995, oil was $16.75 a barrel and “green” was not yet an industry.

The time wasn’t right, and so they went on to work in parallel, Riggs to learn from the disruptive world of the dot-com era; and Nicholas to invent.

By 2006, Riggs had helped take a small company public as its Number Two and had backers to launch another as its CEO; and Nicholas had helped author a patent for generating micro-bubbles efficiently. This experience would eventually inspire OriginOil’s own first patent invention.

One of the inventors of the Company’s breakthrough technology, Riggs Eckelberry brings his veteran technology management skills to the alternative energy sector. As President and COO of CyberDefender Corporation from 2005 to 2006, he was instrumental in building the company and its innovative product line, helping to achieve initial funding and a public company filing. From 2001 to mid-2005, he helped launch and turn around technology companies as founder and President of TechTransform, a technology consulting firm. In 2004, he was a key member of the team that commercialized YellowPages.com, resulting in its sale for $100 million to SBC/BellSouth. In 2003, he helped make Panda Software a key player in the US market as the General Manager of its US unit. During the high-tech boom of the 1990s, he was responsible for the global brand success of the software product, CleanSweep; as Chief Operating Officer of MicroHouse Technologies, he drove record sales and a modernization of the company’s technology, helping to achieve a successful sale of the company to Earthweb; and as VP Marketing of venture-backed TriVida, he was a key member of the team that commercialized the company’s technology and achieved the sale of this technology company to BeFree, Inc. (now part of ValueClick: VCLK).

For the fifth year, Biofuels Digest has ranked Riggs Eckelberry one of The Top 125 People in the Advanced Bioeconomy, as nominated and voted by the readers of The Digest and the publication’s editorial board. The Los Angeles Business Journal has named him to the Who’s Who in Los Angeles Business for 2015.

 Petro

Based on OriginOil’s proprietary Electro Water Separation™ (EWS) technology, the EWS Petro™ process is designed to efficiently remove organics, such as crude oil, suspended solids and bacteria from process water such as produced or ‘frac flowback’ water.

EWS Petro technology has been shown to treat 1,000 barrels per day in continuous, low energy, and chemical free operation. Systems as large as 10,000 barrels per day are now available.

The Solution