Webinar Series- Speaker Biographies

Session 1
Susan Stein
As the Open Space Coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service, Washington Office, Susan’s responsibilities include managing the Forests on the Edge project. Project goals include making data on the importance of forests and the impacts of forest development, available to a broad audience. Previous positions during Susan’s 20-year tenure at the Forest Service have included National Forest Stewardship Program Manager, National NEPA Coordinator, and International Agroforestry Coordinator. Special assignments have included helping to coordinate a White House Interagency Ecosystem Management Working Group; leading a similar group for USDA, and serving on a USDA Environmental Justice Task Force. Prior to joining the Forest Service, Susan worked on forest conservation in East and Central Africa. Susan’s degrees include a Masters in Forest Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

 

Session 2
Craig Diamond
Craig Diamond is an environmental economist, He currently provides consulting services to environmental non-profits and local government in the fields of land use, water resources, and stakeholder coordination. He served as Florida's Chief of State Planning and led greenways and urban redevelopment initiatives for the City of Tallahassee. Mr. Diamond has over twenty years experience teaching graduate environmental studies and economics and was Senior Associate at Florida Atlantic University-Florida Atlantic University Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems. He holds an MS in environmental engineering / systems ecology from the University of Florida.

James Schwab
Jim Schwab, AICP, works with the American Planning Association in Chicago where he serves as a Senior Research Associate and Manager of the APA Hazards Planning Research Center. He has almost 25 years of experience in the field of urban planning, with a background that includes a masters in journalism as well as urban and regional planning. He has combined these skills in his writing, using the analytical skills of the planner and the narrative skills of the journalist to probe major social, economic, and environmental issues facing American society. Since 1990, he has been co-editor of Zoning Practice, a monthly APA publication. Jim's newest publication is Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning, a 2010 APA Planning Advisory Service Report, for which he served as project manager and general editor. Other recent APA reports have included Planning the Urban Forest, in the same capacity; and Planning for Wildfires, of which he was lead author and project manager. He is a past President of the Society of Midland Authors (1997-99), and has served in many capacities including as SMA's membership secretary and vice-president. He is also a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the American Institute of Certified Planners (a subsidiary of APA), and the Society of Professional Journalists. Jim is currently planning a book about the 1993 and 2008 Midwest floods, and what we, as a nation, learned from both experiences.

 
Session 3
Dwight Barnett
Dwight Barnett is an area forester and arborist with the Tennessee Division of Forestry. He has been working recently in participation in city, county and regional planning as a natural resource representative, and a promoter of planning for a more sustainable basin in the future. Dwight began his career as a watershed protection specialist with the USDA Forest Service in Oregon, where his research resulted in two wilderness areas and cessation of hot summer slash burning on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. He moved to Tennessee in 1985 and worked for 20 years as the Education/Information Staff Forester. He transferred into his current field job in 1986. One of his current objectives is to get more Division foresters to value not-game wildlife and to actively promote its conservation. Another goal is to get these environmentally balanced foresters involved in local planning.


Michael Briggs
Michael Briggs is a Transportation Planner for the Metropolitan Nashville Planning Department where he has integrated the Mayor’s Complete Streets Executive Order into the recently adopted Major & Collector Street Plan. Before joining Nashville, Michael was the County Planner for Sumner County, Tennessee, where he managed the development of the county’s first comprehensive plan in over 30 years. This plan examined land use, transportation, and natural resources in a high-growth suburban setting. Previously, he spent four years at the Mid-America Regional Council, the greater Kansas City area’s MPO, as a Transportation Planner integrating safety into the metropolitan transportation planning process. This work was recognized as a 2007 Roadway Safety Award best practice for program planning, development, and evaluation by the Federal Highway Administration. He began his career with the Barren River Area Development District in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Geoscience from Western Kentucky University. Michael is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.


Session 4
Steve Smutko
Steve is the University of Wyoming's Spicer Chair in Collaborative Practice and a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics and the Environment and Natural Resources Program. Smutko has worked for nearly 20 years in the discipline of public policy decision-making. He has designed, convened, and facilitated numerous public policy decision processes on natural resources issues in the Rocky Mountain West and Southeastern United States. Dr. Smutko also conducts research in collaborative decision-making and teaches negotiation analysis to University of Wyoming students.