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
Sr. Project Manager, HDR

Mr. Holdridge has over 25 years of experience in NEPA and related planning studies. His experience is primarily on military projects but also includes other government and commercial projects. Mr. Holdridge has managed, reviewed, and authored more than 100 NEPA documents and 300 environmental due diligence documents. Mr. Holdridge is HDR’s Impact Assessment Practice co-lead and as such is responsible for company-wide development, coordination, monitoring, and improvement of the technical competencies of over 150 impact assessment professionals. He also serves as the Quality Control Lead for HDR’s military NEPA group. 

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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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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 Thoemke, Barge Design Solutions’ Senior NEPA Specialist, has over 40 years’
experience as an environmental scientist. Kris’ career began as the first manager of the
Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. He transitioned to environmental consulting
in 2005 focusing on permitting and resource monitoring in the coastal zones of Florida and
Louisiana. Over time he began conducting National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
assessments and has focused on NEPA work for the past 15 years. He has prepared EAs and
EISs for the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), Tennessee Valley Authority, Federal Aviation
Administration, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. The Corps has selected him to serve as an expert panel
member on 13 Independent Environmental Peer Review (IEPR) panels assessing major Corps
public works projects requiring an EA or EIS. He also 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. He is a Certified
Environmental Professional by the Academy of Board Certified Environmental Professionals.

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Marie Campbell

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

Matt Marino, M.A., RPA

Instructor
NAEP Member, TAAEP Board Member
Cultural Resource Coordinator, Ardurra

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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