Stormwater is a source of water pollution that poses challenges for many communities. Faced with shrinking budgets, aging infrastructure, extreme weather events, and population growth, municipal separate storm sewer system permittees and regulators alike are looking for cost-effective solutions and innovative electronic tools to better manage stormwater and build long-term community resilience.

By supporting the work of technologists and entrepreneurs, The Nature Conservancy seeks to rapidly accelerate the development of tools that can create a more sustainable future. The Techstars Sustainability Accelerator in Partnership with The Nature Conservancy is an intense three-month program that helps entrepreneurs rapidly scale-up environmental technologies. 2NDNATURE—one of the companies to emerge from the accelerator’s 2019 class—provides cloud-based stormwater management services that help streamline and standardize field inspections and data collection as well as provide automated reporting.

In this webcast, join staff from the Nature Conservancy, Peter Kozelka from EPA Region 9, Seth Brown from The National Municipal Stormwater Alliance, Dominic Roques of the California Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Randy Neprash with Minnesota Cities Stormwater Coalition and Stantec Consulting Services, and Greg Gearheart of the California State Water Resources Control Board, as they discuss how new cloud-based tools—with examples from 2NDNATURE software—are providing an opportunity to digitally transform state regulatory stormwater programs, offering streamlined reporting and meaningful tracking of clean water progress.

Details

October 3, 2019
1:00 - 2:30 pm EDT

Speakers

Jessie Israel leads The Nature Conservancy’s work to clean up and restore Puget Sound and is an architect for advancing the Conservancy’s climate and urban waters work. Having spent time in both public and private sectors, Jessie has a twenty-five year track record of leading teams tasked with bringing together groups to invest in high-impact conservation, community and human well-being. She is a fourth-generation Seattleite, and has trained leaders from around the world on sustainable development and incubation of public-private partnerships.

August Ritter is the Program Director for The Nature Conservancy’s Sustainability Accelerator that is run in partnership with Techstars. Prior to the Accelerator August helped launch The Nature Conservancy’s India program. Previous to that, August managed the Conservancy’s Global Board of Directors.

Nicole Beck is the Chief Executive Officer of 2NDNATURE Software. She has a PhD in aquatic chemistry and a career mission to bring science to decision makers. Working as a consultant, she saw the opportunity to build science-based field protocols and analyses into software tools that could be used directly by city staff to extend their in-house technical capacity and eliminate programmatic inefficiencies. Over the years, she and her team have constructed an applied science experimental design vision that integrates scientific principles with practical data collection methods and accessible reporting formats.

Jason Yoho is the Chief Commercial Officer for 2NDNATURE Software. He believes technology enables superior value in impact markets and as such he is responsible for defining and delivering the commercial strategy, growth and profitability of 2NDNATURE. He spent the past 15+ years operating, providing strategy and executing the overall vision for technology companies in silicon valley. He is also a member of the Leadership Council at WaterNow Alliance a national water non-profit working to champion water strategies. Over his career Jason created one of the first enterprise cloud computing services, ran a $100M global line of business for a F500 company, founded 3 venture backed software companies and raised $55M in capital.

Greg Gearhart, PE, is a Deputy Director at the California State Water Resources Control Board. In his 26 years working for California, Greg has worked in a number of different program areas, including wetlands, watershed management, organizational development, and enforcement. Greg received a BS in Environmental Resources Engineering from Humboldt State University.

Dominic Roque manages the California Central Coast Water Board Stormwater Program. Dominic holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas, Austin, a master's degree from the University of California at Berkely, and is a licensed geologist in the State of California.

Seth Brown is the Principal and founder of Storm and Stream Solutions, LLC, a consulting firm providing a range of services from policy and alternative project delivery analysis in the stormwater sector to facilitation and training services focused on stormwater topics. He was the Director of Stormwater Programs at the Water Environment Federation from 2010-2015 and currently leads the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance, which is a 501.c.3 representing stormwater-focused organizations in 15 states across 8 of the 10 U.S. EPA regions. Seth has a Ph.D. in civil engineering from George Mason University with a research focus on socio-economic modeling of incentive-based investments of green stormwater infrastructure on private properties. He co-leads a graduate course in Innovative Water Partnerships at Virginia Tech and is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Maryland.

Peter Kozelka has been working on water quality issues, including stormwater, for more than 20 years at EPA Region 9. He has worked on impaired waters list, TMDLs and implementation, and joined the NPDES Permits Office in 2011. Currently he is working with California Regional Water Boards as they renew MS4 permits as well as the State Board’s efforts to promote stormwater capture and water reuse projects. As a trained biologist and Ph.D. chemist, Peter is often involved with evaluation of sampling results, monitoring programs, efficacy of BMPs, and interpreting policy and regulations for both wastewater and stormwater.

Randy Neprash is a civil engineer and stormwater regulatory specialist with Stantec consulting. Since 2002, Randy has been the sole staff for the Minnesota Cities Stormwater Coalition, an organization of about 130 of the cities in Minnesota that have MS4 Permits. Randy is also a founder and current Vice Chair of the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance, an organization comprised of state and regional-level coalitions of MS4 permittees around the United States.