Regional Regulatory Manager

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain effective professional relationships and promote RES reputation with Federal, state and local agency staff. Develop mutual respect and trust with agency staff.
• Coordinate with Federal and state agencies to obtain approval for RES projects; coordinate with operations staff on construction permit compliance and adaptive management; manage monitoring and performance criteria reporting; and support project close-out with agencies and RES project management. Coordinate with RES project manager and clients as appropriate to obtain information to support agency feedback.
• Collect and coordinate information and prepare regulatory documentation for submission to regulatory agencies or to Clients and advise on the submission strategy. Ensure all regulatory requirements are met throughout the development process. Includes, but is not limited to, submittal of applications for and obtaining Corps of Engineers Clean Water Act Section 404 permits, state Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certification, and Clean Water Act Section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Construction Stormwater Runoff permits and any reporting required per the permit. Coordinate on issues relative to the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and various other state and Federal regulations. Coordinate with RES project manager and clients as appropriate to obtain information to support agency feedback.
• Manage/schedule field monitoring events and review staff work products and reports. Manage/coordinate agency field site visits. Maintain regulatory files/database and chronologies in good order. Establish and maintain a system for documents submitted to agencies or partners and all revisions to submitted documents.
• Support RES project managers and work effectively with sales, operations, engineering/design, land, legal, and financial teams to drive positive project outcomes for RES projects. Support sales team with proposals, presentations, and interviews. Coordinate with land team and landowners on the buying and selling of properties and explain the nuances of owning/maintaining a mitigation site per the approved permit(s). Coordinate with operations team on design, construction compliance, maintenance and adaptive management. Assist PM with the development of budgets, scope and project timelines. Work with PM to ensure projects are delivered on-time, within scope and within budget.
• Be well versed and proficient in Federal, state and local regulations that pertain to that region and affect RES and RES’ clients’ projects. Review changes to existing regulations and SOPs to define requirements for regulatory submissions. Participate in research and regulatory issues and dissemination of regulatory information to Operations, Land, Sales, Legal, Corporate, Government Affairs, Marketing and the Regulatory Staff. Review advertising and marketing material for appropriateness and compliance to regulatory requirements as necessary.
• Support RES Regulatory Director and Government Affairs on Federal and regional policy and regulatory issues and initiatives, including monitoring development of new regulations and providing comments for submittal to agencies on draft regulations issued for public comment. Support feedback on federal policy, such as species habitat mitigation, interagency coordinated agreements on mitigation, and regional interpretation of guidance/memoranda such as USACE RGLs. Drive development of new state and local regulations in states that have not yet developed off-set solutions for new regulatory policy analysis. Support information submittal to Congressional and/or agency headquarters staff as necessary.
• Successfully manage and mentor staff as needed to support these activities at a regional level. Review staff work products and reports.
• Participate in conferences, trade groups, and other external leadership roles.

Qualifications

• BA/BS Biology, Environmental Science, Engineering, Geology, Hydrology, Agricultural Science or similar Science
• 10 or more years of Regulatory, Water Resources or Environmental consulting experience
• At least 5 years’ experience working with section 404 permitting or other relevant state or federal permitting
• Experience independently drafting and compiling permit documents and reports and supporting information without supervision. Advanced competency in scientific writing and document preparation. Experience training others to complete reports.
• Advanced understanding of and experience with relevant environmental regulations and permits/approvals (e.g. CWA 404/401, NWP/IP, NPDES, ESA), and credit release schedules.
• Advanced experience using on-line search resources. Advanced experience independently accessing state and federal databases to extract specific information. Advanced experience entering data into relevant system(s) using excel or other general data collection systems. Advanced experience interpreting and communicating results of data collected. Advanced experience incorporating information into regulatory documents such as monitoring reports, permits and comment responses. Experience teaching/training others in data analysis and manage data analysis outcomes.
• Advanced understanding of restoration design principles, approaches, and supporting technical information such as engineering design plans, functional calculations, and ecological data and strong ability to communicate this information through written project deliverables with support from the project team. Experience teaching / training others on restoration design principles/approaches.
• Advanced experience reading and interpreting project maps and design plans and extract information from these documents to support permitting/regulatory deliverables. Strong familiarity with GIS capabilities and functions. Experience teaching / training others to interpret design plans and maps and lead the regulatory team in applying this information to project deliverables.
• Experience creating and delivering a presentation in PowerPoint or similar program and preparing to /lead regulatory meetings to support the project team. Recognized for ability to effectively communicate all aspects of the work proposed by RES to regulatory agencies. Experience as the primary point of contact for the project and ability to effectively communicate to the internal project team the needs of the client.