For all the unease that has followed it, Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy president and CEO Mike Jerke said he now looks at President Donald Trump’s visit to the Council Bluffs area roughly a year ago as a defining moment.

“We’ve seen few ups and lots of downs since President Trump visited,” Jerke wrote in an op-ed piece for the Des Moines Register. “I’m choosing to look on the sunny side, and I think that the renewable fuels industry will recover and that ethanol’s best days remain ahead of us. If the past year taught us anything, it is that our industry and workers will always go above and beyond to serve our customers and our community in ways previously unimagined.”