Congratulations to Dr. Adrienne Tremblay, Senior Cultural Resources Team Lead out of our Phoenix office, on being named the Lawrence S. Semo Scientific Achievement Award winner for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Since joining SWCA in 2006, Adrienne has exemplified our core values by being a trusted advisor to colleagues and clients, and the cultural resources go-to expert on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 projects. She is renowned for producing high-quality work, upholding professional ethics, and is celebrated for her performance as an inclusive team player and leader. Adrienne does not hesitate to address and correct situations when standards are not met, embodying the #NeverSettle mindset.
SCIENTIFIC EXCELLENCE AND LEADERSHIP
Adrienne’s commitment to scientific excellence and leadership is evident through her academic and professional achievements. Never one to leave a task unfinished, Adrienne defended her dissertation and earned her PhD in 2007, proving her expertise in Maya hieroglyphs. At SWCA, her focus quickly shifted to southern Arizona archaeology, where she served as principal investigator on large survey and excavation projects.
One of the most memorable moments in her career occurred while documenting a petroglyph site near South Mountain in Phoenix. Adrienne recalls, “I spent a lovely morning documenting a petroglyph site near South Mountain in Phoenix. It was a beautiful day, and I remember a flock of ravens croaking and making a ruckus. It started off cool but as it warmed up, the hive of bees that had made their home in the rock began waking up. Pretty soon they chased me off!”
Adrienne also became the go-to compiler and organizer of large survey datasets. She started with Camp Navajo (25,000 acres) and later expanded her efforts to projects like the Northern Arizona Uranium Mining Withdrawal (over 1,000,000 acres) and the Class I for the in-progress Colorado River Post-2026 Guidelines Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) spanning four states. She found these projects particularly rewarding for their purpose and scale.
Her experience with large, NEPA-driven projects has made Adrienne SWCA’s expert on NEPA analysis of impacts to cultural resources and its coordination with National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 review. Her preparation and presentation of the “NEPA: How to Write Cultural Resources Sections” training in Dayforce is a testament to her expertise and leadership skills in this role.
TEAM BUILDING
In 2023, SWCA’s Arizona Cultural Resources team reorganized, and Adrienne was promoted to Senior Cultural Resources Team Lead, with supervisory responsibilities for team members who are or who have been on a technical track. As a leader, she has brought renewed engagement, enthusiasm, and focus towards building cultural resources technical expertise as a career development path in Arizona.
Adrienne has shared her expertise through her Dayforce Training and has collaborated with staff in other offices on EIS and Environmental Assessment (EA) sections, expanding the breadth of SWCA’s NEPA expertise, particularly related to cultural resources. #OneSWCA
Adrienne’s advice for those pursuing a technical career is, “Crosstrain whenever you can. Along with my regular cultural resources work, I have spent the last 15 years working on NEPA projects with planners and other resource folks, which has helped me stay open to new things and skills. Do not be afraid to try out new types of analysis, approaches, or skills. You need to figure out what works for you, what’s interesting to you, and how you can improve. Do not be afraid to fail but always learn from what went wrong!”
The quarterly Lawrence S. Semo Scientific Achievement Award rewards individuals for demonstrating passion, creativity, and scientific excellence in a manner that advances SWCA’s purpose, mission, vision, and values. The award is in honor of Larry Semo, who began working as a biologist for SWCA in Austin in 1993 and transferred to Denver in 1999. A respected and widely published ornithologist and all-around naturalist, Larry had an insatiable desire to learn and a great love for the outdoors until his untimely passing in 2011.