Kevin Kautzky, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

Kautzky advises the Risk and Environmental Analysis group on strategy and execution for PNNL's stakeholder engagement, environmental assessment and risk capabilities with key sponsors and collaborators. He helps identify and act on opportunities in the areas of environmental justice, consent-based siting, and other related areas. He is an experienced facilitator and coalition builder, adept at stakeholder engagement and consensus building. Each day he strives to be an ally and vocal champion for others.

Mark Triplett, PNNL

Triplett has more than 30 years’ experience supporting remediation of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. Triplett applies decision analysis methods to support strategic and mission planning activities for the Hanford Site. Since 2013, Triplett has led PNNL’s broad support to decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. He is also supporting several Japanese organizations working to revitalize the communities affected by the nuclear accident in 2011.

Seth Kirshenberg, Energy Communities Alliance (ECA)

ECA is the national non-profit organization of elected local government officials adjacent to defense nuclear facilities in the United States. Kirshenberg oversees the daily activities of the organization and ensures that congress, the administration, Department of Energy (DOE), DOE National Nuclear Security Administration, DOE Office of Environmental Management, industry, and others understand and address local issues and integrate them into policy decision-making. Kirshenberg specializes in the public-private partnership of federal, state and local government assets for developers, financing entities, states, cities, universities and federal agencies and assists communities with the development of former federal property.

David Reeploeg, Tri-Cities Development Council and Hanford Communities & Hanford Communities

Established in 1963, the Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council, today known as the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC) was organized for the purpose of growing and diversifying the economy of the communities surrounding the Hanford Site. TRIDEC is also the designated Community Reuse Organization for the Hanford Site and is currently promoting an energy park on surplus Hanford land. The Hanford Communities organization represents four cities, two counties and one port in the Tri-City area on matters relating to cleanup of the Hanford Site. In addition to responsibilities with both these organizations, Reeploeg has also hosted many delegations of leaders from the communities affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 and shared strategies for community revitalization.

Michael Houlemard, Consultant

Houlemard is the former executive officer for Fort Ord Reuse Authority. The Authority oversaw, planned and implemented the Monterey Bay regional conversion to civilian reuse of the closed Department of Defense (DoD) Fort Ord Army Base. DoD declared that work to be a national model for military base reuse conversions, which included a privatized $100 million munitions removal program and numerous lead, asbestos, PCB, and other remediation requirements. In 2019 Houlemard received the John Lynch Leadership Award from the Association of Defense Communities for his work.

Kevin Kautzky, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

Kautzky advises the Risk and Environmental Analysis group on strategy and execution for PNNL's stakeholder engagement, environmental assessment and risk capabilities with key sponsors and collaborators. He helps identify and act on opportunities in the areas of environmental justice, consent-based siting, and other related areas. He is an experienced facilitator and coalition builder, adept at stakeholder engagement and consensus building. Each day he strives to be an ally and vocal champion for others.

Karen P. Smith, PNNL

Smith is an advisor at PNNL. Prior to her joining in 2020, she worked at Argonne National Laboratory for 30 years as an environmental scientist. Her work focuses on energy and environmental policy development supported by integrated impact assessment, stakeholder engagement, and collaborative decision-making. Karen serves on the steering committee of IAEA's Network on Environmental Management and Remediation, providing input on ways to promote capacity development in IAEA member states related to environmental remediation

Nicole Nelson-Jean, Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Environmental Management (EM)

EM’s Progress under the Justice40 Initiative

As associate principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE-EM Field Operations, Nelson-Jean has the overriding responsibility to support the 16 EM field sites. Throughout the nation, these sites are working to clean up and safely disposition large volumes of nuclear waste, safeguard nuclear materials, deactivate and decommission several thousand radiologically and chemically contaminated facilities, and remediate surface and groundwater contamination. Nelson-Jean is also responsible for leading efforts in EM related to the Biden Administration’s Justice40 Initiative. 

Prior to this position, Nelson-Jean served as the manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration Savannah River Field Office providing oversight for management, nonproliferation, and national security missions for the site. 

Nelson-Jean has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Grambling State University, a master’s degree in liberal arts from St. John’s College, and a master’s degree in strategic security studies from National Defense University.

Larry Douchand, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Land and Emergency Management

EPA Directions Related to EJ and Superfund Actions

As director for EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management's Superfund office, Bouchard oversees EPA’s national implementation of remedial cleanups under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. Prior to coming to EPA, Douchand served (2006 – 2021) as the assistant commander of Environmental programs for the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC). In this capacity, he was responsible for the execution of a full spectrum of environmental products and services to Navy and Marine Corps installations worldwide. He was responsible for leading the NAVFAC Environmental Community of Practice and was the Navy’s senior ranking environmental engineer.

Prior to serving as assistant commander of Environmental programs, Douchand served in several other NAVFAC positions, including Supervisory Base Closure manager at NAVFAC’s Southwest Division. He has also held positions at the Army Corps of Engineers. Before federal service, he worked for private industry in environmental consulting and taught math and science in an Oakland, CA, public school district.

Douchand holds an master's in environmental management from the University of San Francisco, and a bachelor's in nuclear engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Maryland.

Amy Fitzgerald, City of Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Environmental Justice Considerations in Superfund Communities

Amy Snyder Fitzgerald serves as a senior manager for the City of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. As the Government Affairs and Information Services director, she manages the City's Information Services department, which includes intergovernmental and public relations and overseeing the city's information technology services. She directs the development and implementation of the City's state legislative agenda and supports the city's review of state and federal policies that may impact Oak Ridge. She serves as one of Oak Ridge's board members to the Washington, D.C.-based Energy Communities Alliance and is a member of the DOE Environmental Management Advisory Board.  

Fitzgerald has held research positions at the University of Texas's Energy, Environment and Resources Center and the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies and is the author of several book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellowship, and has served on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University, teaching courses in public management, research methods, and environmental policy. Fitzgerald is the recipient of the International City/County Management Association's 2019 Program Excellence Award for "Securing the Future of the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee." Fitzgerald holds a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University, and a master's degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in political science, both from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.  

David M. Anderson, PNNL

Best Practices and Emerging Methods for Environmental Justice Assessments

Anderson is PNNL’s senior subject matter expert in environmental justice assessments. He has conducted over 19 separate environmental justice assessments for new or relicensed nuclear power plants and several additional such assessments for DOE projects around the complex. In addition, he has developed agency environmental justice guidance for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and DOE. He has given expert testimony on environmental justice matters before the NRC. He recently completed an 8-year term as PNNL’s Energy Economics team leader, managing a team of energy economists across a wide set of technical domains.

Andrea McMakin, Communications Consultant

For more than three decades, McMakin has provided award-winning communication expertise and consultation for businesses and nonprofits, including risk communication and public involvement training, research, and implementation. She has worked at three nuclear power plants. McMakin co-authored the book, Risk Communication: A Handbook for Communicating Environmental, Safety, and Health Risks, which has been used by practitioners, professors, and students in more than 20 countries. McMakin holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Eastern Washington University and a master’s degree in communications from Washington State University.

Rebecca Kreuzer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Kreuzer is a geochemist and geologist specializing in hydrogeological processes, groundwater geochemistry, and environmental tracers for site characterization, environmental assessments, remedial investigations/feasibility studies, and assessments of corrective measures. Kreuzer has supported numerous federal and state-regulated soil and groundwater investigations at coal-ash impoundments and landfills across the southeast United States. She received a bachelor’s degree in geological and earth sciences from SUNY Genesco and a Ph.D. in geochemistry and structural geology from the University of Rochester.

Peter Booth, Hylton Environmental

Booth draws from his 30 years of consulting and training experience in the nuclear industry, working with site operators, regulators, and other stakeholders in more than 20 countries as well as the U.K. He shares some key principles for potentially enhancing the success of engagement programs relating to decisions about environmental remediation, waste management, and the setting of site end states. 

Booth is a self-employed consultant working through the auspices of his own company, Hylton Environmental. For the past three decades, he has supported the assessment of contaminated land, setting of site end states, radioactive waste management, nuclear-related stakeholder engagement work, training, and peer review. His international work has included projects in Austria, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, China, Ukraine, Unites States, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Estonia, Central Asia, Brazil, and Romania. He served as the chair of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s network on environmental management and remediation for eight years and still resides on the Steering Committee. Booth holds a bachelor's degree in geology and environment from Oxford Brookes University.

Ellen Kennedy, PNNL

U.S. federal regulations require agencies to consult with American Indian tribes when considering the effects of remediation and other activities on historic properties. Kennedy draws from her 25 years of practicing cultural resources management to explain how tribes are not another stakeholder group because they have unique legal and cultural status as sovereign nations, which requires government-to-government consultation. Best practices for tribal consultation can result in a participatory decision-making process that fosters co-decision-making, which can also be adapted for working with other stakeholder groups to enhance social equity.

Over the past two decades at PNNL, Kennedy has provided National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 and National Environmental Policy Act compliance expertise to federal clients including the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She has managed and led compliance activities for complex cleanup projects entailing cultural resource field assessments, National Register of Historic Places evaluations, development of agreement documents, and facilitation of tribal and stakeholder engagement. Kennedy has conducted oral history and ethnographic interviews with American Indian tribes and local community members and elicitation interviews with scientists and policy experts. She has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and historic preservation from University of Mary Washington and a master’s degree in anthropology from Western Washington University.

Eric Roberts, EHI Consultants

The diverse members of Site-Specific Advisory Boards provide information, advice, and recommendations about remediation for eight DOE sites. DOE consultant Eric Roberts holds leadership roles for these boards at the national level, as well as in Kentucky and Ohio. He describes how the boards operate to influence cleanup decisions. He also shares their stated best practices, areas for improvement, and a look into the future.

Roberts is a program director with six years of federal services and business management experience in both the public and private sector, with key emphasis on infrastructure management, technology improvements, staff development, vendor management, and program management. Roberts manages the DOE Paducah, Kentucky Citizen Advisory Board and the Portsmouth, Ohio, Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board. At the national level, he facilitates the DOE Environmental Management Advisory Board Chairs' meetings and initiatives. Roberts holds a bachelor's of science degree in chemistry from Lambuth University.