VeraSun Energy Names Mark Dickey Vice President and Assistant General Counsel

BROOKINGS, S.D., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VeraSun Energy Corporation , one of the nation's largest ethanol producers, today announced that Mark Dickey has joined the company as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel. All together, Dickey brings more than 20 years of legal experience, including 14 years in private practice.

"We are pleased to have Mark join the VeraSun team," said John Schweitzer, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for VeraSun. "His experience and expertise fit well with our strategy for growth."

Prior to joining VeraSun, Dickey served as Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary at Gateway, Inc., where he was responsible for handling all legal affairs for the corporate, finance and operations functions. Prior to Gateway, he worked at Hartzog Conger & Cason where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, and private placements of equity and debt securities, tax planning, financing and commercial transactions, licensing and joint ventures.

"VeraSun has become a leader in the renewable fuels industry in a very short period of time," said Dickey. "I look forward to working with the management team to continue this leadership and deliver value to its shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers and communities."

Dickey earned his law degree from the University of Oklahoma, his Masters of Business Administration from Wake Forest University, and his bachelor's degree in Finance from Oklahoma State University.

About VeraSun Energy Corporation

VeraSun Energy Corporation , headquartered in Brookings, South Dakota, is a leading producer of renewable fuel. The Company has 450MMGY of production capacity through four operating ethanol production facilities in Aurora, SD, Fort Dodge, IA, Charles City, IA and Linden, IN. Five facilities are currently under construction in Hartley, IA, Welcome, MN, Reynolds, IN, Albion, NE and Bloomingburg, OH. Upon completion of the new facilities, VeraSun will have an annual production capacity of approximately one billion gallons by the end of 2008. The Company also has plans to extract oil from dried distillers grains, a co-product of the ethanol process, for use in biodiesel production.

The Company markets E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline for use in Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs), directly to fuel retailers under the brand VE85(TM). VE85(TM) is now available at more than 110 retail locations. For more information, please visit VeraSun's websites at http://www.verasun.com/ or http://www.ve85.com/.