NEPA Workshops: Meet Our Speakers

Aimee Frappied

Instructor
Sapphos Environmental, Inc.

Ms. Frappied has over 10 years of experience in the environmental consulting field. Her analytical experience includes program and project management and compliance, NEPA document preparation, and strategic planning support. Project experience includes transportation, recreation, trails, and open space, renewable energy, education and infrastructure, and entertainment.

Work with Federal Agencies include; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, Department of Housing and Development, and Federal Railway Administration. Work with delegated authority agencies include; California High Speed Rail Authority and Caltrans. 

Aimee's Special interests: NEPA :) , distance running, boating, hiking, traveling and trying new foods.

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Brian Calvert

Instructor
Vice President, ICF

Brian is the Lead for ICF’s Southern California Transportation Practice with 30+ years delivering National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance services and 23 years focused almost exclusively on delivering NEPA documentation for transportation infrastructure projects in California. He has delivered and/or managed the delivery of environmental compliance documentation for more than 150 transportation projects in California. 

Brian is an instructor for courses/workshops regarding NEPA and/or environmental compliance at University of California Irvine and Riverside campuses and presenter at various California Department of Transportation District offices on topics including; Air quality conformity, Preparing environmental documentation for design-build projects, Delivering environmental documentation for transportation projects. 

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Chris Holdridge

Instructor
NAEP Member
Impact Assessment Practice co-lead, HDR

Chris is a Senior NEPA Project Manager with HDR, Inc. He focuses on NEPA and environmental due diligence documents for the Department of War and Department of Homeland Security. He has over 30 years of experience in NEPA and related planning studies, environmental due diligence, restoration, and environmental compliance. He has managed a wide range of NEPA projects for Federal agencies that range from complex EISs to EAs and CATEXs. 

Chris is HDR’s Impact Assessment Practice co-lead responsible for company-wide development, coordination, monitoring, and improvement of the technical competencies of over 150 impact assessment professionals. He has developed NEPA training materials for the Department of the Air Force, Defense Logistics Agency, and U.S. Coast Guard.
He has been a member of NAEP since 2014 and served as an At-Large Board Member during 2022-2025. He has a M.S. in Environmental Assessment from Drexel University and a B.S. in Environmental Science from Kutztown University.

Outside of work, Chris is spending time with his wife and daughter, making home improvements, or walking his energetic goldendoodle. 

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Chuck Nicholson, Ph.D.

Instructor
NAEP Board Member, Chair NEPA Practice Group
Senior Environmental Planner/Scientist, HDR

Dr. Nicholson has been a NAEP Member for over 10 years and is an elected NAEP Board Member and chair of the NEPA Practice Group. Chuck has 43 years of professional experience in the environmental and natural resources fields and 23 years as a NEPA compliance specialist. He has extensive experience in the preparation of EIS, EA, and CE documentation for a wide range of actions. Chuck earned his Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2004, an MS in Wildlife Management from the University of Maine in 1978, and a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1975. 

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Dan Cecchini

Instructor
Senior Program Manager, Stantec Government Services.

Dan is a senior program manager with Stantec Government Services. He retired from federal service in 2025 as the Environmental Director of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC). He was the Environmental Planning and Terrestrial Resources lead for the Office of the Secretary of the Navy from 2014-2023, where he reviewed and approved all Navy and Marine Corps EISs and developed Department-wide NEPA policy, which included new NEPA regulations in 2020. He served as the Joint Guam Program Office Environmental Director from 2012-2014, where he oversaw environmental compliance for a $9B Marine Corps relocation to Guam. He served as a NEPA and conservation SME, project manager, and program manager for NAVFAC Atlantic from 1989-2012. He is a graduate of the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment NEPA certificate program. 

Dan loves spending time in the outdoors with his family. He graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Forestry & Wildlife. 

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Courtney Arena

Instructor
NAEP Regional Chapter Representative
Principal Environmental Scientist, Gannett Fleming, Inc.

Courtney Arena is responsible for leading, managing, marketing, and executing a variety of environmental services for energy, water resources and transportation infrastructure projects. Her expertise includes National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documentation, Project Development and Environment studies (PD&E/NEPA) for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) with public involvement participation, air quality and traffic noise studies, contamination screenings, wetland identification and delineation, and protected species and habitat assessments. Her water resources background and project experience includes working with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the South Florida Water Management District. Courtney’s expertise extends to solar site development, ecosystem restoration, protected species monitoring, and regulatory permitting with federal, state, and local agencies.

Courtney has 25 years of experience in Florida and the southeast region. She studied Marine Biology at UNC Wilimington, where she earned her B.S. She earned a M.S. in South Flolrida from Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center.

Courtney currently serves on the NAEP Board as the Florida Chapter Representative. She also serves a reciprocal role on the FAEP Board as the NAEP Chapter Representative.

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Emily Gulick

Instructor
NAEP Elected At-Large Board Member
Environmental Planner, Jacobs Engineering

Emily Gulick (she/her) is an Environmental Planner/Scientist at Jacobs. She specializes in implementing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) including writing and preparing EISs and EAs for federal agencies such as NASA, DoD, and NSF. She also has experience in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), working on transportation- and infrastructure-related projects. Emily currently leads the NAEP EJ Working Group Lead.

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Fred Wagner

Instructor
NAEP Elected At-Large Board Member
Principal Environmental Advisor, Environmental Solutions, Jacobs

Fred Wager focuses on environmental and natural resource issues, associated with major infrastructure, mining, and energy project development. Fred was appointed Chief Counsel of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) during the Obama administration. Fred began his career as a trial attorney in the Environment Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Misdemeanor Trial Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Prior to joining Jacobs, Fred spent more than 25 years in private practice in two national law firms, focusing on all aspects of environmental and natural resources law. He routinely defended project permits and approvals in federal court, including at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jack Allen

Instructor
NAEP Member
Environmental Planner, Avenue Consultants

Jack Allen has 38 years of experience in the field and is a national resource in transportation NEPA and known for unprecedented depth of knowledge, leading to best-informed project decision-making. His timely delivery of balanced environmental policy compliance 12 state DOTs illustrates an ability to meet client expectations immediately. He has led all facets - from process strategy to agency and public outreach to impact analyses to primary author. His successful experience on contentious, high-profile projects exemplifies a diplomatic, outside-the-box approaches when needed. Jack has been responsible for many “firsts” in the industry including: 

• FHWA legal sufficiency considered the EIS completed in 29 months one of the best submitted to the agency at that time 
• Successfully designed and implemented first partnering application to the EIS process at the DOT level 
• Primary author of state DOT’s first “reader-friendly” hybrid format EIS; elements of which are now considered as portions of the state DOT’s NEPA document templates 
• Provided Design Builder with strategic assessment on ATCs leading to $450 million in savings on project of national significance 
• Applied innovative approaches to purpose and need justification and alternatives development and screening at the project level 
• Successfully led first efforts to implement NEPA/404 Merger Process at the project level 

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Kris Thoemke, Ph.D., CEP

Instructor 
NAEP Elected At-Large Board Member
Senior NEPA Specialist, Barge Design Solutions, Inc

Kris began his career as a marine biologist doing research, resource assessments, and monitoring, and environmental permitting on projects in the coastal zones of Florida and Louisiana. Over time, he shifted his emphasis to preparing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents and has been doing this full-time for the past 15 years. He has prepared CEs, EAs, and EISs for the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), Tennessee Valley Authority, Federal Aviation Administration, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, several state Departments of Transportation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Kris has been selected by the Corps to serve as an expert panel member on 12 Independent Environmental Peer Review (IEPR) panels assessing major Corps public works projects requiring an EA or EIS. 

He is a part-time faculty member at American Public University System, teaching graduate-level classes in NEPA, Environmental Policy, Regulation and Law, Conservation Biology, and Restoration Ecology. Kris is a current NAEP Board member and has been a Certified Environmental Professional by the Academy of Board Certified Environmental Professionals since 2005

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Marie Campbell

Instructor
NAEP Elected At-Large Board Member
President, Sapphos Environmental, Inc.

Michael D. Smith 

Instructor
Senior Vice President and National Practice Leader, Environmental Process and Policy
WSP USA

Dr. Michael D. Smith is a nationally-recognized leader in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance with over 29 years of experience in project and program management, technical analysis, policy development, and training/education for a wide range of public and private sector clients. He is currently a Senior Vice President and the National Practice Leader for WSP USA's Environmental Policy and Process Group. He has managed and provided compliance review for some of the nation's largest, most complex, and highly controversial projects, including major energy, transportation, and water infrastructure projects.

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Nicolas Frederick

Moderator
NAEP Treasurer
Jacobs

Nic Frederick has over 12 years of experience managing environmental projects, including NEPA, Natural Resources, and public involvement. He is an at-large board member with NAEP and heads the communications committee. As a member of the board, he has helped spearhead the initiative to broaden the scope of services offered by NAEP. He is also the cohost of the NAEP podcast, Environmental Professionals Radio. As the former Director of Conservation and Planning at DAWSON, he was responsible for the development of DAWSON's core competencies related to environmental policy. He has provided general Conservation and Planning services to a wide variety of federal and state clients and has been an integral part of the development of these services for DAWSON.

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Peter A Liebowitz, AICP

Instructor
Senior Vice President, Technical Fellow

Peter Liebowitz has been involved in the preparation of hundreds of environmental and planning assignments over his 40-year career. His practice involves directing and managing environmental impact assessments for infrastructure, transportation, and development projects and a wide range of development and planning services. Mr. Liebowitz is a national business leader for WSP focusing on environmental impact assessment and a WSP Technical Fellow. Peter is an approved faculty member for NHI training courses for NEPA and Planning Environmental Linkage (PEL). Mr. Liebowitz is a full member of the Urban Land Institute and has served in leadership roles on both the national and district council levels.

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Rich Walter

Instructor
NAEP Member
Vice President, Environmental Planning, ICF 

Rich Walter has 32 years of experience in environmental planning, compliance strategy, permitting, and mitigation development and implementation. He serves as project director/environmental lead for environmental planning for large-scale infrastructure projects for public agencies and private clients including rail, road, water supply, natural gas, flood control, port, telecommunications, and energy infrastructure . He has worked with a wide variety of federal agencies on NEPA compliance including FRA, FTA, FAA, NPS, BLM, USACE, USFWS, and FERC. Rich has also led a climate action planning practice since 2006 which has developed climate action plans, greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories for hundreds of communities across the U.S., general plan policies for climate change, cost-benefit analyses of emission reduction strategies, climate adaptation studies (including sea-level rise), as well as numerous California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents addressing GHG emissions and adaptation. 

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Scott Phillips, MA

Instructor
NAEP Member
Senior Technical Director, SWCA Environmental Consultants, Inc.

Scott Phillips is a subject matter expert in heritage preservation and cultural resources management, including as it intersects with environmental planning. As Senior Technical Director at large, he provides this expertise nationwide on behalf of SWCA Environmental Consultants, where he has been since 2001. Scott began his career in cultural resources management in 1990. He received his M.A. in Anthropology (cultural focus) from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Ted Boling

Instructor
NAEP Member
Partner, Perkins Coie

Ted Boling served as the country’s top National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) attorney as an associate director at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President. He also served at CEQ, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in Democratic and Republican administrations. Ted currently advises leaders on transportation and energy development projects, agencies that must hire outside counsel, and the environmental professionals that support them on the development of renewable energy, resource development, transportation, and infrastructure. He has drafted NEPA guidance on mitigation and monitoring, cumulative impacts analysis, and the development categorical exclusions from detailed NEPA documentation. He advised the White House on the establishment of numerous national monuments, including the first marine national monuments in the United States and the largest marine protected areas in the world. He also assisted in briefing three U.S. Supreme Court cases. Ted has handled matters involving energy development on the outer continental shelf, including offshore wind power development, and the fast track for solar and wind energy projects on public lands. 

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Ward Marotti

Instructor
NAEP Elected At-Large Board Member
Director: Land and Water Resources, Spangler Environmental, Inc.

For more than 30 years, Ward Marotti has completed hundreds of public and private environmental compliance and permitting projects, including CWA 404/401 Individual and Nationwide permits, NEPA and SEPA EAs and EISs, water quality variances, Endangered Species Act Section 7 and 10 impact permits and conservation plans, protected species relocation plans, and watershed use re-classifications. Ward is the Past President of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) North Carolina Chapter. He served on the recently affiliated South Carolina Chapter’s inaugural board. In January 2023 Ward was elected as an at-large member of NAEP’s national Board of Directors and currently serves on its Education and Conference Committees and chairs its Chapters Committee.

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