Panelist Biographies
Opening Session
Integrated Restoration & Design Approaches
Jim Morris
JMT
Cockeysville, MD
Jim Morris is JMT’s Turnkey Ecosystem Services Design Lead with a focus in stream and wetland restoration, and specializes in cold water fisheries. He comes from a Design-Build restoration background, coastal hydrodynamic 2D and 3D modeling and design background. His cold-water fisheries background has focused on the upper Midwest, mid-Atlantic, and northeastern United States. He has designed contaminated sediment and associated habitat remediation for projects in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. When he isn't restoring streams, he enjoys working on his 45 acre farm in southern Pennsylvania, and taking daddy-daughter adventure trips with his 7-year old daughter.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-rhodes-iii-landscape-architecture-ecosystems/
Rich Starr
Ecosystem Planning & Restoration
Annapolis, Maryland
Mr. Starr has over 30 years of experience in watershed and stream assessment, planning and restoration. Currently he is the Office Manager for the EPR Baltimore Office where he is responsible for managing all aspects associated with budgets, workload, staff performance, product quality assurance, and office growth and development. He has led comprehensive and critical studies for major watershed-based ecosystem restoration projects and water resources development projects. He has extensive experience in project planning including developing project goals and objectives, identifying significant issues and project effects, developing project plan alternatives, and leading plan formulation and selection. He has developed, designed, and monitored plans for wildlife and fisheries habitat enhancement projects, stream restoration projects, stormwater management, TMDL reduction projects, and floodplain management projects. He has conducted numerous geomorphic watershed and stream assessments; implemented stream restoration and fish passage projects; provided construction oversight, developed stream assessment protocols and tools; produced technical and planning documents; and developed training courses on functional-based stream assessment and restoration.
Prior to EPR, Mr. Starr worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 16 years. As Chief of the Habitat Restoration Division, Chesapeake Bay Field Office, his responsibilities included leading and managing the Stream Habitat Assessment and Restoration Team, Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, and the Schoolyard Habitats Program. Before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mr. Starr worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District for nine years where he led complex water resources development projects.
Bob Siegfried
RES
Odenton, MD
Bob Siegfried has 35 years of experience in NEPA and 404 permitting, including design, construction, and monitoring of wetland and stream mitigation sites. As part of a large team, he led the stream design team that completed 70 miles of restoration and enhancement on the largest Permittee Responsible Mitigation site in the U.S. As a Sr. Project Manager at RES, he is currently working to change how stream mitigation is measured and monitored.
Joe Arrowsmith
Straughan Environmental
Columbia, Maryland
Joe Arrowsmith, PE is Deputy Director of Straughan’s Engineering department, responsible for oversight of the ecological restoration team. Mr. Arrowsmith is passionate about the protection, enhancement, and restoration of natural resources. His experience includes the design and construction of stream restoration, wetland restoration, and living shorelines. He holds special expertise with the implementation of restoration projects as part of approved TMDL Action Plans for MS4 Compliance. He is a “beaver-believer” and advocates for restoration approaches based on natural systems and methods.
Aarin Teague, PhD, PE, CFM, ENV SP
San Antonio River Authority,
San Antonio, TX
Aarin Teague is the Manager of Engineering Design & Construction and has been with the River Authority since the fall of 2012. She leads a team responsible for the River Authority’s delivery of design and construction projects including stream restoration, trails, parks, waste water utilities, and flood risk mitigation. She previously lead the Ecological Engineering team implementing projects to advance the River Authority’s Stream Restoration Program and natural resource protection efforts through hydrologic and hydraulic, flood prediction, and water quality modeling.
Aarin received her BS and MS from Texas A&M University in Biological and Agricultural Engineering and then earned her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Rice University. Prior to joining the River Authority, she held a post-doctoral fellowship with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development.
Jason Vogel
University of Oklahoma,
Norman, OK
For more than 25 years, Dr. Jason Vogel, PE has worked to facilitate and develop solutions for water issues throughout the Great Plains of the United States and beyond. He has served as Director of the Oklahoma Water Survey at the University of Oklahoma (OU) since June 2017. In addition to his responsibilities as Director, Vogel is a Professor in the OU School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science. Prior to joining OU, he held faculty and research positions at Oklahoma State University in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering and at the U.S. Geological Survey, respectively.
Vogel has developed an award-winning stormwater and stream management research and outreach program and is recognized as one of the leading academic experts in natural stream restoration and low-impact development stormwater management systems in the region. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has also led a team that has developed into the preeminent source for wastewater-based epidemiology in Oklahoma. Vogel has served the water sector at the national, state and local levels for a variety of groups, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, the American Ecological Engineering Society, and the Oklahoma Clean Lakes and Watersheds Association.
AJ Jones, PE, ESCM
Wolf Water Resources
Portland, OR
AJ is a water resources engineer with twelve years of experience in river and wetland restoration analysis and design. She has been the design lead on multiple process-based restoration projects featuring full valley reconnection Stage 0/8 techniques, side channel and floodplain connections, and large log jam implementation in various fluvial and estuarine environments. With a career primarily centered in restoration, AJ brings a well-honed and integrated knowledge of stream and floodplain processes, fish passage design, and construction methods
David Bidelspach
5 Smooths Stone Restoration
Livermore, CO
David has been “Beloved” since 1977 and desires on the good days to share this love with others. He has worked and played in streams since before 2002, when he was drafted by Greg Jennings at NCSU. Nomadically, his family has lived from bags, while traveling to distant lands to work with streams, rivers and mud puddles. David’s community desire is to train others, to share the gift of ecosystem restoration and to stay in wonderment and awe of nature. Mr. Bidelspach wants to encourage others to spring up among the ordinary green grass, like willows by flowing streams.
Greg Jennings, PhD, PE
Jennings Environmental
Asheville, NC
Greg Jennings, Ph.D., P.E., is a professional engineer with 33 years of experience in water resources engineering, specializing in stream restoration. He provides consulting services on ecosystem restoration planning, design, and implementation through partnerships with local governments, non-profit organizations, businesses, and landowners. Greg has provided technical support for more than 400 stream and wetland restoration projects in North Carolina and surrounding states.