Diane Baxter, LSP Board Chairperson
Ms. Baxter has more than 30 years of experience in assessment and cleanup of contaminated sites under Federal and State laws and regulations including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP). She has extensive experience in planning and management of complex site assessment and cleanup projects under CERCLA and has been an LSP since 2017.
Ms. Baxter is the Director of the MassDEP Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup’s Division of Federal Grant Programs. In that role she is responsible for overall direction and management of MassDEP’s Federal Sites program, RCRA Corrective Action program, CERCLA Pre-Remedial program, Brownfields program, and Leaking Underground Storage Tank program. She also serves as MassDEP’s BWSC representative on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Waste Management Officials Association (NEWMOA). Prior to joining MassDEP in 2019, Ms. Baxter served for many years as a consultant to U.S. EPA, the US. Navy, and MassDEP planning, implementing, and managing complex site assessment, cleanup, and long- term operation, maintenance, and monitoring projects under CERCLA.
Ms. Baxter has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Tufts University.
David Austin, LSP Petroleum Board Member
Mr. Austin was appointed to the Board on June 20, 2013. He has been a LSP since 1994. Mr. Austin has over 25 years of extensive experience in the environmental consulting business, specifically, managing assessment and remediation of contaminated sites, many of them related to petroleum, primarily in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and elsewhere in the United States. He also has close ties to the LSP professional association, the LSPA, as a member of its Technical Practices Committee. He is currently employed at AECOM in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
Gail Batchelder, Hydrogeologist Board Member
Dr. Batchelder was appointed to the Board on July 3, 1997. She has more than 25 years experience in investigating and remediating soil, ground water, and soil vapor at contaminated properties. As a hydrogeologist and geochemist, her professional activities have focused on identifying and delineating the nature and extent of contamination, developing site-specific conceptual models of contaminant fate and transport, and developing solutions that best meet project objectives. Her field of knowledge covers a vast array of contaminants, environmental media and hydrogeologic settings. She is employed by HRP Associates, Inc. in Farmington, Connecticut.
Gregg McBride
Mr. McBride is a Senior Principal with GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. He has been a LSP since 1997, and has more than thirty years of experience as an environmental scientist specializing in the impact of contaminants in the environment. In his work with industrial and power clients, Mr. McBride has directed projects in ecological and public health risk assessment, regulatory compliance, permitting and environmental investigations of subsurface soil, groundwater and surface water. He has also developed a number of clean-up strategies for large brownfield projects in Massachusetts which involved multi-faceted efforts where investigations, risk assessment and risk management decisions are made across state and federal regulatory programs. Prior to his association with GZA, Mr. McBride was with the USEPA Health Effects Research Laboratory and Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation (1980-1987) where he was responsible for public health impact assessments for utility and process industry development. Mr. McBride has also served in local government as a Conservation Commissioner for eighteen years and has been a Selectman in the Town of Norwell, Massachusetts for seven years.
Kathleen Campbell, LSP Board Member
Ms. Campbell was appointed to the Board on October 18, 2013. She has been a licensed LSP since July 1996 and is also a Registered Professional Engineer and LEED Accredited Professional. Her field of expertise is the assessment and remediation of small to large-scale Brownfields sites to bring them back to productive re-use. With over twenty-five years of experience, Ms. Campbell also has diverse experience in environmental compliance audits, hazardous building materials investigations, feasibility studies, conceptual site modeling, risk-based site remediation, wastewater treatment, and environmental permitting. She is President at CDW Consultants, Inc. in Natick, Massachusetts.
Kirk Franklin, Environmental Protection Board Member
Mr. Franklin was appointed to the Board on December 15, 1999. He is a principal at his firm Frank Corp. Environmental Service in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Frank Corp. is a United States government contractor in New Bedford, as well as Bristol, Massachusetts, and is part of the Environmental and Ecological Services industry.
Patrick Herron
Patrick Herron is Executive Director of the environmental advocacy nonprofit, the Mystic River Watershed Association (“MyRWA”), located in Arlington, MA. During his tenure with the organization, Mr. Herron has worked to establish collaborations across the watershed and ensure that science guides the work of the organization. Under his leadership, the organization is actively involved in water quality monitoring, the siting of green infrastructure, restoration, climate resilience planning, environmental education, and an improvement of the Mystic Greenways. He serves as co-chairperson of the EPA Mystic Steering Committee and was awarded the EPA Merit Award in 2012. Prior to joining MyRWA, Mr. Herron completed an undergraduate degree at Colgate University in Geology, and earned a doctoral degree in Plant Ecology at the University of Connecticut in 2007. He has also held postdoctoral positions at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and the Rowland Institute at Harvard University.
Environmental Protection Board Member
Vacant
James N. Smith, Labor Organization Board Member
Mr. Smith was appointed to the Board on September 6, 2013. After ten years of performing assessment and cleanup of contaminated sites under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan as a consultant, he joined the City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development in 2011, as Senior Environmental Compliance Manager. In this role, he assesses and oversees remediation of Brownfields sites acquired by the city of Boston with the goal of bringing the sites back to productive use. He also oversees Massachusetts Contingency Plan compliance issues for the City. Mr. Smith is a member of the Service Employees International Union Local 888. His office is located in downtown Boston.
Craig Ellis
Craig Ellis has nearly thirty years of experience as an environmental engineer and consultant. He has been a licensed LSP since 2008. During his career, he has directed assessment, remediation, and due diligence projects throughout New England for municipalities, developers, lenders, law firms and retail petroleum clients, in accordance with the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (“MCP”). His experience includes preparation of Phase I through V reports, Immediate Response Action (“IRA”) plans, Imminent Hazard Evaluations, Release Abatement Measure (“RAM”) Plans, Response Action Outcome (“RAO”) Statements, and Activity and Use Limitations (“AULs”). Additionally, he has served as LSP of record on emergency response actions and implemented ASTM Phase I and II site assessments, underground storage tank closures, remedial construction, vapor intrusion evaluations, hazardous material surveys, and the preparation of construction specifications.
Significantly, Mr. Ellis was associated with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (“MassDOT”) bridge construction project in Medford and Everett, Massachusetts. Specifically, he prepared the hazardous material bid specifications and plans to manage the soil, dredge spoils and hazardous materials generated during the construction/repair of two bridges along a major roadway in Medford, Massachusetts. In that role, he directed the subsurface investigation on Route 16, in a proposed wetland restoration area and within the Malden River in association with the planned construction activities. He also advised the design consultant and MassDOT on the environmental related construction issues for the project, which included construction of a wetland restoration area on a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (“MassDEP”) listed site contaminated with metals and PAHs and providing design considerations.
Mr. Ellis has been a volunteer sampler for the Neponset River Watershed Association for the past six years.
Paul McKinlay
Paul McKinlay has over twenty-five years of experience working primarily with the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (“MCP”) conducting response actions in the commonwealth. He has been a licensed LSP since 2006. Mr. McKinlay is also a licensed Professional Geologist in New Hampshire.
He has been an active member of the LSP community for more than a decade first serving as chairperson of the LSP Association’s (“LSPA”) Loss Prevention Committee, and then as LSPA President during the 2014-2015 term. In that capacity, he participated in periodic review of Notices of Non-Compliance issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (“MassDEP”).
In his current position, Mr. McKinlay assists both public and private clients with assessment and cleanup of contaminants including Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) and has extensive experience with construction support.
It is noteworthy that Mr. McKinlay has significant experience as a hydrogeologist specializing in the assessment and remediation of fractured bedrock media and serving as lead hydrogeologist in charge of several large-scale dynamic emergency responses involving the sudden release of petroleum products ranging in size up to more than 35,000 gallons released.