Liberator CEO Addresses Stop Work Order

It was a little more than a year ago that Sky Huddleston, the chief executive officer of Liberator Rocket Heaters, addressed the Bourbon Board of Aldermen for his vision of a growing business on Old Highway 66.

Huddleston had his eye on what is known as the “Proctor building” to produce pellet stove heaters and provide 20 full-time jobs in fabrication, machining and skilled welding.

The long-abandoned factory, Huddleston said, would be cheaper to rehab than build a new facility.

He requested a tax abatement from the board of aldermen to overhaul the 27,000 square foot building. 

The company would eventually receive tax abatements through the Crawford County Enhanced Enterprise Zone.

Around the time Huddleston was pitching the city, the Bourbon Fire Protection District was in the midst of rolling out new occupancy and building permits.

The fire district is requiring businesses doing new construction or remodels to apply for permits.

Several business owners spoke out against the new codes last summer and Huddleston was one of them.

In November, Fire Marshal Corey Rice placed a stop work order on Liberator, which has resulted in litigation. The order was placed due to a broken sprinkler system.

(Ed. note: Huddleston said the litigation is not about the fire codes or the building)

Since then, the Independent News has published several updates, which have mostly been that there’s no update.

The Independent News published a story on March 9, with Huddleston and Chief Financial Officer Nathan Chou saying they were still unable to comment.

The day after the story came out, Huddleston contacted the Independent News to address what he said were factual errors regarding the entire situation.

Huddleston said the previous occupant was Ocean Recycling, which had “a very large thermoplastics operation” that was susceptible to catching fire.

Huddleston said that the vapor/offgassing of thermoplastic recycling is “exceptionally dangerous.”

He said Rice was wrong that a sprinkler system was required under the Ocean operation.

“There was no code requirement to have a sprinkler system in place,” Huddleston said. “That is something Ocean Recycling installed on their own volition due to their specific industry and insurance requirement.”

Huddleston also addressed his comments in April 2021 that part of a possible tax abatement would pay for fire suppression.

Liberator was pursuing a $1.5 million Department of Energy grant to develop the next generation of wood heater/electricity generation technology.

“We never requested a subsidy for a sprinkler system,” Huddleston said. “We requested a subsidy to meet the Department of Energy’s 20% non-federal funding source requirement requirement outlined in their (funding opportunity announcement.”