Bloomberg BNA'S Environmental Due Diligence Guide Board of Advisors
Bloomberg BNA'S Environmental Due Diligence Guide
Managing Editor: Mary Ann Grena Manley
Charlie Bartsch is the Senior Advisor for Economic Development to EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, charged with promoting inter-agency and public-private financing partnerships to spur land revitalization and site reuse. Bartsch works closely with the EPA-DOT-HUD Partnership for Sustainable Communities, serves as the Assistant Administrator's representative on the EPA-wide green infrastructure task force and Hurricane Sandy recovery team, advises the Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization on financing strategies for area-wide project implementation and auto-sector community revitalization and is the EPA's point person in developing the agency's manufacturing revitalization strategy. Prior to his appointment at the EPA, he was a Senior Fellow at ICF International, where he served as ICF's brownfields and smart growth policy expert. Before that, he was Director of Brownfield Studies at the Northeast-Midwest Institute, a public policy center affiliated with the bipartisan Northeast-Midwest Congressional and Senate Coalitions. Over the past 25 years, his focus has been on brownfield and community redevelopment/reuse strategies and financing, and he is recognized as one of the nation's leading authorities on these issues. Bartsch also has served as chair of the National Brownfield Association's Advisory Board and chair of GroundworksUSA. More information about the EPA's work on brownfields is available on the web at http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/.
* Individuals noted with an asterisk also are principal authors of the publication.
Randall Bell, Ph.D., is an economist and appraiser with Real Estate Damage Economics LLC, in Laguna Beach, Calif. He served for 15 years as the CEO of Bell Anderson & Sanders LLC and founded and directed the property damages practice at Price Waterhouse and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds the MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute and specialized in valuation and expert witness testimony related to environmental, eminent domain, geotechnical, natural disasters and other detrimental conditions. Bell is the author of the textbooks Real Estate Damages (Chicago: Appraisal Institute, 1999), Real Estate Damages Second Edition (Chicago: Appraisal Institute, 2008) and Strategy 360 (Laguna Beach: Owners Manual Press, 2008). His assignments include the World Trade Center site; Flight 93 crash site; BP Oil Spill; Los Angeles Metro Mall landfill; Hurricane Katrina damage; Maui, Hawaii, oil spill; Northridge Earthquake; and environmental damages caused by nuclear weapons testing at the Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. His clients include the U.S. and Canadian federal governments; the Nuclear Claims Tribunal; and numerous state, county and city governments, as well as Chevron, Shell, Unocal, Gillette, Honeywell and other corporate clients. Bell has a B.S. degree in finance from Brigham Young University, an M.B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Ph.D. from Fielding University. More information about Bell is available on the web at http://www.realestatedamages.com.
Karl S. Bourdeau is a principal in the Washington, D.C., office of Beveridge & Diamond P.C., which has specialized in handling complex environmental matters since the founding of the firm more than 25 years ago. Bourdeau has practiced environmental law exclusively for 27 years, principally engaging in a litigation, regulatory, and transactional practice related to hazardous substance and hazardous waste issues. This practice has included extensive representation of clients at complex superfund and RCRA corrective action sites, and in connection with the full range of RCRA regulatory issues. Bourdeau also has advised buyers and sellers of contaminated properties on environmental issues and contractual and other protections to minimize liabilities associated with the transfer of such properties. This representation has involved advice regarding state brownfield programs, regulatory requirements attendant to the cleanup of contaminated property, and litigation over liability for contamination. Bourdeau graduated from Muhlenberg College with a B.S. degree and received his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he served as Federal Developments Editor of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. Bourdeau is a member of the District of Columbia and Federal Bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association Sections of Administrative Law and Natural Resources Law. More information about Bourdeau is available on the web at http://www.bdlaw.com.
Abbi L. Cohen is a partner in Dechert LLP's environmental law group and a member of the finance and real estate and corporate and securities groups. Her practice concentrates on evaluating environmental liabilities associated with corporate, financing, and real estate transactions and providing state and federal permitting and regulatory compliance advice. She has assisted clients in siting and permitting of industrial facilities, including resource recovery and cogeneration facilities as well as power plants. Cohen also negotiated one of Pennsylvania's first prospective purchaser agreements with the state environmental agency. She has assisted one of the leading U.S. rating agencies in developing environmental assessment and insurance criteria and evaluating the potential impact of environmental conditions on mortgage-backed securities in numerous transactions involving portfolios consisting of multiple properties. She has participated in supervising environmental consultants throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Cohen is participating on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America in the EPA's negotiated rulemaking on the “All Appropriate Inquiry” standard for the federal superfund statute. She graduated from Barnard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. More information about Cohen and Dechert is available on the web at http://www.dechert.com.
Amy L. Edwards is a partner in the Public Policy and Regulation Group of Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C., where she heads the firm's environment team. Edwards has been practicing environmental and energy law for more than 25 years. She has counseled corporations, developers, and lenders about the environmental aspects of real estate transfers and corporate transactions, conducted compliance audits and environmental management system audits for clients, and represented companies in enforcement proceedings. She is a member of the ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) E-50 Committee, where she chairs the ASTM Task Group on Activity and Use Limitations (Institutional Controls) and serves on the ASTM Compliance Auditing, Environmental Site Assessment, and Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA II) task forces. She also is an observer/adviser to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in its efforts to develop a model Uniform Covenants Act. Edwards received her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School and her A.B. from Smith College. She is a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and American Bar associations. More information about Edwards and Holland & Knight is available on the web at http://www.hklaw.com/.
Derek Ezovski is the president of Outsourced Risk Management Solutions (ORMS), a West Hartford, Conn.-based company primarily focused on helping lenders, real estate owners and other financial companies understand, evaluate and manage the risks presented during the real estate transaction process. Ezovski has spent his professional career helping companies create best practices to manage their risks, with a focus on environmental risk management and remediation of real estate. Before founding ORMS, Ezovski served as managing director at Environmental Data Resources, a national environmental information company. His previous experience also includes management positions with Marsh USA, where he was an insurance risk management professional; FleetBoston, where he served as the environmental risk manager for the bank's Small Business Services Division; and Travelers, where, as an engineering manager, he helped resolve complex environmental cases. Ezovski plays a lead role in developing desktop environmental products that simplify the due diligence process for lenders. As a resource to the Small Business Administration, he uses his expertise to make due diligence for SBA loans easier to manage. Ezovski recently was elected to the Board of Governors of the Environmental Bankers Association, an organization dedicated to promoting environmental due diligence best practices for lenders and their service providers. He also serves on the Connecticut Chapter of the Real Estate Finance Association and Greater Hartford Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Ezovski received his undergraduate degree in civil/environmental engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and earned his MBA from the University of Connecticut. More information about Ezovski and ORMS is available on the web at http://www.orms.com.
Michael R. Goldstein established The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm P.A. effective Jan. 1, 2012. The firm is a legal and consulting service focusing on brownfields redevelopment, sustainable reuse, environmental economic incentives, contaminated site investigations and remediation, and renewable energy as well as traditional legal matters related to environmental transactions. From 2003 to Jan. 1, 2012. he was a shareholder with the law firm of Akerman Senterfitt, practicing exclusively in the areas of environmental law, policy, legislation, and litigation for a broad range of clients, including public and private corporations, developers, landlords, local governments, and lenders. Over the past 17 years, his practice has focused on helping clients navigate the environmental regulatory and third-party liability risk issues associated with building on or otherwise reusing properties that have been directly or indirectly impacted by soil, groundwater, sediment, and/or marine contamination. Goldstein was a founder of the Florida Brownfields Association and served as president for the first four years of the organization's existence. He also served as chair of the Miami-Dade County Brownfields Task Force from its inception in 1996 through its dissolution in 2005. In 2007, he created the Goldstein Brownfields Foundation to provide scholarships to minority law students studying for careers in the environmental arena. More information about Goldstein and his practice is available at http://www.goldsteinenvlaw.com/.
Jennifer L. Hernandez is a partner in Holland & Knight's Government Practice Group in their San Francisco office and co-team leader of the National Environment Team. Her practice focuses on all aspects of natural resource and environmental transactions, regulatory and legislative development, complex project permitting, and compliance counseling. Hernandez represents clients in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors in land-use and environmental project permitting, compliance, litigation, and public advocacy work. She also teaches environmental and land-use law at Stanford Law School and the University of California. Hernandez graduated with honors from Harvard University, completed her legal education at Stanford University, and is a member of the California Bar. She is a founding member of the Environmental Section of the California State Bar, an officer and co-founder of the Environmental Law Forum, and a member of the board of directors for Sustainable Conservation as well as the Bay Area League of Industrial Associations. More information about Hernandez and her practice is available on the web at http://www.hklaw.com.
Laura Leonard* is a partner with the Environmental Practice Group of Sidley Austin LLP, an international law firm. Leonard focuses her practice on transfers and allocations of environmental risk in a variety of settings. On the transactions side, she has extensive experience identifying and managing sources of environmental risk. This includes coordinating diligence and advising on contractual allocations in a wide variety of merger and acquisition and venture capital transactions on behalf of buyers, sellers, and lenders; providing structuring advice to minimize successor environmental liability; monitoring real estate securitization disclosures; assisting with SEC environmental reporting; and counseling on brownfields redevelopment and environmental insurance. She also has advised both creditors and debtors on environmental aspects of bankruptcy, including the discharge of environmental claims, and the sale or purchase of assets out of bankruptcy. Sidley Austin's environmental practice group consists of more than 40 attorneys in four domestic offices who also serve the firm's international offices in Europe and Asia. Leonard is based in Chicago. More information about Leonard and the firm are available at http://www.sidleyaustin.com.
Christopher J. Olson is senior partner and director of business development at JMM Management Group LLC, an environmental firm focused on asset management and compliance solutions. He has more than 29 years of experience in the petrochemical industry. He previously was a senior consultant, land asset management for Cardno ENTRIX, an environmental and natural resource management firm. From 2004-2009 Olson was manager of real estate reuse for BP, where he was responsible for working with remediation managers and BP's businesses to develop and implement effective repositioning strategies for BP's environmentally challenged surplus land holdings. Olson's career with Amoco and later BP after the company merger, has taken him across a wide spectrum of roles and responsibilities from domestic and international oil and gas exploration, to directing worldwide environmental compliance and management system audits, to developing environmental management systems, permitting strategies, and automation and drives support for BP's pipeline business. For more than a decade Olson has been actively engaged in environmental remediation project management and working with a wide range of stakeholders: a role that ultimately led to his involvement with reuse options and redevelopment strategies for discontinued operating sites. He holds a bachelors and masters degree in geology, is a certified professional geologist, and an active member of the National Brownfield Association. He also serves on the advisory board of RTM Communications Inc. More information about JMM Management Group is available on the web at http://www.jmmmgt.com/.
Richard Opper is a partner in the San Diego law offices of Opper & Varco LLP. His practice concentrates on the redevelopment of contaminated properties, hazardous waste cleanup and environmental cost recovery, land use, business and real estate transaction and regulatory support for environmental issues, and underground storage tank issues. He represents public and private clients throughout the state of California on brownfield matters. He received his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. He also received a masters in Public Administration from Harvard University. More information about Opper is available on the web at http://www.envirolawyer.com.
Lindene Patton is the global head of Hazard Product Development at CoreLogic, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider. In her current position, Patton is responsible for leading development and research analytics for natural hazard and climate risk products and solutions. Previously, she served as the chief climate change product officer for Zurich Insurance Group and senior vice president and counsel at Zurich Commercial Markets, part of Zurich North America, where she managed both the Risk Management and Underwriting Counsel groups and directed and managed the Risk/Cost Engineering Services provided in support of underwriting to architectural, engineering and environmental clients. She currently serves on numerous government and non-governmental advisory boards, including the National Academy of Science Committee on Risk-Based Methods for Insurance Premiums of Negatively-Elevated Structures in the National Flood Insurance Program, as well as the National Institute of Building Sciences Council on Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate. She is an attorney licensed in California and the District of Columbia and an American Board of Industrial Hygiene-certified industrial hygienist. She holds a bachelors degree in biochemistry from the University of California at Davis, a masters in public health from the University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law. More information about Patton and CoreLogic is available on the web at http://www.corelogic.com.
Kathy Robb* is a partner on the environmental team of Hunton & Williams in New York and has specialized in environmental law and litigation for almost 20 years. That work has included civil litigation; all phases of administrative litigation before federal regulatory agencies; advice to buyers, sellers, and lenders regarding the environmental aspects of business transactions and proceedings under state and federal environmental laws; and compliance and permitting advice. She graduated from the University of Texas and obtained her J.D. from the University of Virginia. More information about Robb and the firm is available on the web at http://www.hunton.com.
Lawrence Schnapf is an environmental attorney based in New York City. He has more than 20 years of national environmental experience with Fortune 500 corporations and a number of major New York-based law firms. He also is an adjunct professor of environmental law at New York Law School where he teaches “Environmental Issues in Business Transactions.” Schnapf concentrates primarily on environmental issues associated with corporate and real transactions, commercial lending, and securitizations. He has extensive experience with brownfield redevelopment and financing, negotiating environmental insurance policies for business and real estate transactions, performing environmental due diligence for complex business transactions, and preparing environmental disclosures for SEC and private placement offerings. Schnapf has written numerous articles on various environmental law issues. He is the co-chair of the New York State Bar Association's Hazardous Site Remediation Committee and chair of the Brownfield Task Force of New York. He also has served as a member of the ASTM E1527 committee and is co-chair of the legal subcommittee of ASTM's vapor intrusion task force. More information about Schnapf is available on his web site at http://www.environmental-law.net.
Dean Jeffery Telego* is president of Risk Management Technologies Inc. (RTMI) and RTM Communications Inc. (RTMC). RTMI performs environmental risk and insurance management consulting for business and real estate transactions, strategic market planning and government affairs and association management. RTMC creates and produces conferences, publications and webinars on environmental risk and financial management issues affecting corporate business and real estate, banking and other financial transactions. Telego also develops customized training for the financial services industry in the U.S., Asia and eastern and central Europe and is the managing co-editor of RTMC's “Environmental Risk Management—a Desk Reference.” Telego has been in the environmental risk management field since 1978 and is on the board of advisers of four internationally recognized environmental risk management publications, including two Bloomberg BNA publications. He is the co-founder and served for 21 years as the executive co-director of the Environmental Bankers Association, a financial services industry trade association created to serve as a networking and clearing house for environmental risk management policies, procedures and best practices. Telego also was a member of the EPA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee on “All Appropriate Inquiries” from 2003 to 2005. He received his formal education and training in human physiology and biophysics and business administration from Georgetown University and Olivet College. More information about Telego and RTM is available on the web at http://www.rtmcomm.com.
William Thomas is counsel and head of the environmental, health and safety practice of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in Washington, D.C. He advises companies, developers, financiers and other enterprises on all aspects of environmental law, including issues arising in connection with transactions and projects, formulation of management and legal compliance strategy and EHS litigation and disputes. Thomas regularly counsels clients on matters with a foreign or global environmental dimension, including risks and opportunities arising under regional and international environmental agreements, emerging EHS legal regimes and related international standards and codes of conduct and the legal aspects of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Thomas is a member of the American Bar Association's Sections on Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) and International Law (SIL), having previously served on the governing council for both sections, as well as past chair of the International Environmental Law committees of both SEER and SIL. Thomas serves as a member of several other bodies, including the Strategic Advisory Council of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise (a partnership between the School of Natural Resources and Environment and Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan), External Advisory Board of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan, Advisory Committee to the Carbon Disclosure Standards Board and the U.S. Advisory Council to the Carbon Disclosure Project. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and his B.A. from St. Olaf College. More information about Thomas and the firm is available on the web at www.Willkie.com.