What excites you about your new position?
The thing that excites me the most is the team I am about to lead. It is a group of passionate professionals determined to make an impact on the world’s future environment and economy. They combine exceptional talent and a commitment to do good with acute insight into how to embed sustainability into business practices that enhance the profitability of our clients. As a result, the SECC team has built a culture of quality and successful client service that makes WSP a preferred provider in a marketplace that is undergoing a dramatic transition and associated expansion.
Where sustainability had, for a long time, been a “nice to have” that was driven by an organization’s environment, social and governance commitments; today it is becoming integral to business operations, profitability and risk management in the private sector and is increasingly driven by regulation and statute in the public sector.
WSP specializes in applying our sustainability insights in a bottom-line focused, value-added manner. As a result, we have growing opportunities to support our colleagues in the infrastructure-focused sectors of the company and to broaden the scope of services delivered to our commercial clients by bringing the acumen from the other sectors of WSP—Property and Buildings, Transportation and Infrastructure, Energy and Advisory Services—to bear on behalf of our clients.
Describe your clients.
I collaborate with a number of forward-thinking business leaders who work in a variety of industries. My clients include global financial institutions, global information technology companies, large government transit agencies such as the California High Speed Rail Authority, municipal utilities and consumer products companies.
What are some of your current WSP projects?
I am facilitating the Climate Adaptation Implementation Committee for the California High Speed Rail program. This committee is reviewing multiple climate stressors—such as intense precipitation, sea level rise, flooding, temperature increases, drought, wildfire—and their impacts on critical assets, including rail lines, stations, maintenance facilities, and electric infrastructure.
Water resiliency is at the heart of the projects I work on, dealing with either too much water, water scarcity, or water availability that has been time shifted outside of the useful and historic boundaries. I am currently supporting the development of a climate risk and opportunity disclosure for a Fortune 100 financial institution, and I am supporting an important climate vulnerability risk assessment for a Fortune 100 information technology company.
Currently, I am also the U.S. lead for WSP’s Future ReadyTM Program, and since Fall 2015, I have served as director of a virtual program management office for the firm’s Urban Futures Initiative.
Tell us a little bit about your background prior to joining WSP.
After graduating with a master’s degree in public policy (with a specialization in regulatory policy) from Georgetown University, I joined SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) as an energy industry specialist in September 1993, where I worked until joining WSP 20 years later.
During my years at SAIC, I served as a senior energy analyst, program manager and assistant vice president for Climate Change Services, and vice president and senior policy analyst for more than four years. My final role was as a solutions architect for sustainability after the firm became known as Leidos.