NEPA Training: Applied NEPA Process and Impact Analysis Workshop

Matt Petersen has a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries from Texas A&M University and an MS in Aquatic Ecology from Utah State University. He has 30 years of experience as a resource specialist and has managed, provided NEPA oversight, or worked as a resource specialist, for more than 50 large-scale EISs, including projects from Alaska to Vermont. His NEPA project experience encompasses agency resource management plans, mining, oil and gas, pipelines, transmission lines, wind farms, airports, and power plants.

He has and continues to use his experience to develop and teach real-world-based NEPA workshops and trainings for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Federal Aviation Administration, various Water Conservancy Districts, U.S. Department of Defense, and other federal agencies and industry clients. Matt is one of those rare instructors that both instructs NEPA and works on large-scale controversial NEPA projects on a daily basis. As an example, in the last 3 years Matt has managed the TransWest Express Transmission Line EIS (BLM, Western Area Power Administration, and USFS) and the Bald Mountain Mine Expansion EIS (BLM).

Additionally, Matt is currently providing NEPA management, oversite and/or alternatives facilitation on multiple EISs, including the Robinson Mine, the Gibellini Mine EIS, the Bears Ears National Monument Management Plan EIS, and the Willow Creek Oil and Gas Master Development EIS. Matt is also a regular contracted instructor for several NEPA classes for the BLM National Training Center (NTC). 

Bryan Klyse is a senior environmental planner with more than 20 years of experience supporting and managing NEPA projects for the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and other federal clients. He has supported or managed 17 large complex Environmental Impact Statement projects and several Environmental Assessment projects and prepared associated technical reports. He supported the development of 14 resource management plan projects, serving as a project manager on 5 of these projects. He has managed every phase of the NEPA and land use planning processes, from scoping through development of the decision. Bryan has led clients in identifying scoping issues, developing alternatives, analyzing environmental consequences, addressing public comments, and preparing legally defensible NEPA documents.

Bryan joined the SWCA training team in 2020 and has served as a lead facilitator for Bureau of Land Management NEPA courses offered as part of the National Training Center’s curriculum. In this capacity, Bryan draws on his years of experience and uses examples from past projects to ensure students understand the NEPA and planning processes and can effectively apply course concepts to both Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements.  

Jill Grams is a senior environmental planner and joined SWCA’s NEPA training team in 2018. She has more than 20 years of experience in environmental compliance, project management, landscape architecture and visual resource analysis, stakeholder group management, public participation, and meeting facilitation. She has managed multiple NEPA projects and is currently managing and implementing streamlining processes on a variety of projects including renewable energy and minerals EAs and EISs. Jill’s responsibilities include project management for Environmental Impact Statement projects and Environmental Assessment; visual resource assessment and impact analysis; and planning, coordination, and execution of all public participation and involvement activities, including public meetings for projects with a high level of public controversy. She is a trained facilitator and has wide-ranging experience in meeting planning and facilitation. Jill uses her facilitation practice skills to create an engaging and collaborative training environment where course attendees actively participate in discussions about real-world NEPA questions.  

Amanda Childs has more than 23 years of experience and has managed or contributed to more than 100 Environmental Impact Statements and Environmental Assessments to date. She has worked on NEPA projects with nine lead federal agencies and more than 10 cooperating agencies. This varied experience allows her to understand a particular agency’s protocols for implementing NEPA quickly and clearly. She is proficient in leading large-scale NEPA interdisciplinary teams, and through her project experience, she has direct involvement and knowledge of how the NEPA process interfaces with other processes such as Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the Wilderness Act, the Endangered Species Act, and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

As a NEPA facilitator, Amanda draws on her years of experience as a senior NEPA project manager. In delivering NEPA courses, Amanda emphasizes real-world scenarios and engages directly with students to complete hands-on activities. By managing mid- to large-scale NEPA interdisciplinary teams, Amanda has honed her skills in what can be one of the most challenging aspects of NEPA: helping resource specialists and ID leads focus on just the information that is essential for disclosure, rather than all the information that scientists often want to include. She does this by focusing them on issue-based NEPA to provide a truly meaningful analysis. Amanda provides a practical perspective on achieving a balance of scientific accuracy and NEPA adequacy. Rather than giving students the right answer, Amanda helps people in her courses build their skills so that they can make reasonable, informed decisions on their own—about the workshop exercises at hand and in their future work.

From her own ongoing NEPA projects, Amanda understands that NEPA compliance requires more than just knowledge of Council on Environmental Quality regulations; working in the NEPA arena requires staying up-to-date with all litigation related to NEPA. Amanda’s goal is for students to appreciate the dynamic nature of NEPA and how this law connects to the real world of resource management.

Amanda has designed and taught courses ranging from general introductions to the NEPA process to in-depth, hands-on workshops where students actively work on NEPA documents. She has been facilitating courses since 2011.

Jamie Young joined the SWCA training team in 2016 and also serves as a lead facilitator for Bureau of Land Management NEPA courses offered as part of the National Training Center’s curriculum. With COVID-19’s restrictions to in-person trainings, Jamie led SWCA’s conversion of courses into online modules to provide virtual training options. Since 2009, Jamie has worked on Environmental Impact Statement projects and several Environmental Assessment closely with SWCA’s other NEPA facilitators, including being project manager on controversial Environmental Impact Statements. This role involves managing interdisciplinary teams, leading cause-and-effect analyses (aka impact analysis planning) with consultant and agency team members, hosting public meetings, facilitating alternatives development workshops, authoring the NEPA documents, and coordinating resource fieldwork (as necessary).

She has spent the majority of her career working on natural resource planning and compliance projects. She has managed or assisted with more than 100 NEPA processes ranging from categorical exclusions to EISs. During the past 17 years, she has compiled NEPA documents for numerous federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Jamie has exemplary interpersonal and NEPA facilitation skills.

Amanda Nicodemus is an SWCA project manager who works remotely in Gillette, Wyoming. She has 21 years of technical experience related to biological research, study design, conducting field studies, and technical writing. She also has 9 years of consulting experience, providing project management and technical expertise for various industries, such as oil and gas development, surface mining, power transmission and generation, and transportation. Amanda’s areas of expertise include wildlife ecology and compliance with the ESA, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and NEPA. As a project manager, Amanda has extensive experience with planning, coordinating, implementing, and finalizing projects according to client needs and within established budgets. She routinely coordinates and manages project staff, trains project staff on project requirements, and maintains open communication with interested parties including the client, federal and state agencies, tribal leaders, landowners, and other stakeholders.