Betty Dehoney

Ms. Dehoney specializes in managing complex, controversial projects, balancing the needs and requirements for multiple stakeholders, and developing workable compromises when programs have competing demands. Her project experience includes conducting baselines studies, assessing impacts, preparing mitigation programs and monitoring construction activities for compliance with regulatory approvals for major infrastructure programs. Focusing on creating solutions to some of our most complex natural resources challenges, Ms. Dehoney has worked on projects as diverse as land creation proposals in the Gulf, Bay Delta Conservation planning efforts in California, restoration along the Truckee River in Nevada, coastal restoration projects in several lagoon systems in California and conducting environmental assessments on hydropower project in the Mekong Delta.

Ms. Dehoney was tapped to teach at both the University of California San Diego and University of San Diego. She taught the applied environmental sciences class for USD’s environmental studies program for over a decade and several classes for UCSD extension program for coastal resources and the regulatory program.

David Boyes

Project Manager with nearly 40 years of experience managing and performing oversight for all aspects of environmental programs to include NEPA, Natural and Cultural Resources, RCRA, CERCLA, P2, EPCRA, SPCC and SWPP planning. Established GIS Enterprise for Rhode Island ARNG and guided the leadership in Sustainability initiatives. Mr. Boyes served on the Environmental Advisory Council for the National Guard Bureau and in that capacity also served as the Chairman of the ARNG NEPA Committee. In more recent years Mr. Boyes has expanded on his wealth of NEPA expertise by attending International Impact Assessment workshops where he has focused on Cumulative impacts at the Strategic level as well as providing for the true integration of Social, Economic and Health concerns into the Impact analysis process. He has actively engaged with representatives of the major lending Banks as they seek to meet the mounting challenges of performing impact analysis in the highly informed societies of the digital age.

He assisted the World Bank in a capacity building exercise in Latin America for the off-shore oil and gas industry where US consultants instructed Uruguayan officials in offshore emergency response measures and the U. S regulatory framework. Mr. Boyes has received training from the International Center for Hydropower, the International Hydropower Association, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the IFC on Social Impact Analysis and the sustainable development of Hydropower and Mega Infrastructure in Latin America. Most recently he presented on Dam Safety requirements in the United States and Strategic Alliances & Investing for Success in the Latin American hydropower industry to a group of International practitioners attending an ICH workshop in Argentina.

Cheryl Schmidt

Dr. Schmidt has 35 years of experience providing technical, project and program management services for U.S. federal agencies including USDA (USFS; APHIS), DOI (BLM, NPS , USFWS), DoD (Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy), and DHS (USCG and CBP), as well as commercial clients in the U.S., the Government of Vietnam, and the Inter-American Development Bank (BID). She has presented results of this support, in coordination with the respective clients, at professional venues such as the Sustaining Military Readiness conference, the USAF ESOH Training Symposium, and international conferences/workshops.

Dr. Schmidt has conducted multi-taxonomic field work in a wide variety of localities ranging from throughout the coterminous United States to central South America, Hawaii and Guam. She has also provided technical oversight on projects in these countries as well as Vietnam and Colombia. While Dr. Schmidt's current emphasis is on ecological resources, habitat management, and environmental planning and monitoring, her background in molecular biology and veterinary pathology enables her to critically assess information relative to species in the field and to relate impacts on populations in the field to population genetic consequences. During her 13 years in academia, she authored 17 peer-reviewed, scientific publications and a variety of education/training manuals and technical reports. She has presented research results at numerous professional meetings and served as Managing Editor for the Transactions of the Missouri Academy of Science, as well as editor or peer reviewer for the Journal of Mammalogy and the Southwestern Naturalist. Dr. Schmidt uses this experience to convey scientific information in a format that is readily understood by the general public during scoping meetings/hearings associated with NEPA, EIA/ESIA, and other processes.

Fiona Goodson

Fiona Goodson HDR is the Western Canada Lead for HDR’s Environmental Sciences and Planning Group. An environmental planner and biologist by background, Fiona has split her professional career working on projects in both Canada and the US. Fiona brings perspective from working on projects both north and south of the border.

Janine Ralph

Janine Ralph manages HDR’s Environmental Sciences and Planning Group in Canada. HDR, geographically spread across Canada, supports a wide variety of clients and project types from oil and gas, to energy infrastructure, solid waste and rail projects. Janine brings perspective from working on large complex projects, guiding these through the federal and provincial regulatory and permitting processes in Canada.

Juan Carlos Páez Zamora

Juan Carlos Páez is a civil engineer with a master's degree in Infrastructure Planning. He has been a project manager and environmental auditor certified in ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001. He has more than 25 years of professional experience in public and private project management; socio-environmental management; execution of socio-environmental studies; conception and execution of hydraulic, civil and road projects; public procurement; socio-environmental audits; and management of modernization of the state, social and agricultural development programs, among others.

He was the Director of the Environmental Advisory Program for the Andean region with Fundación Natura, perhaps the most important NGO in Ecuador at the time. He served as Vice-Minister of Environmental Management at the Ministry of the Environment of Ecuador, and since 1998 has been an officer at the Inter-American Development Bank Group, managing public and private projects in almost all Latin American countries. He is currently a Principal Environmental and Social Officer at IDB-Invest, the IDB Group's private window.

During his career he has published four books on topics such as environmental management, environmental impact assessment and cumulative impact analysis. He is member of the International Association of Impact Assessment.