Environmental Justice, Air Quality, and Public Speaking with Chris Whitehead

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick!

On today’s episode, we talk with Chris Whitehead, Leader of ESI’s air compliance practice about Environmental Justice, Air Quality, and Public Speaking.  Read his full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form

Showtimes:
2:56  Nic & Laura talk about employment gaps
9:56   Interview with Chris Whitehead starts
18:49   Environmental Justice
24:30   Air Quality
28:53   Public Speaking

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Chris Whitehead at linkedin.com/in/chris-whitehead-054424a

Guest Bio:

Chris Whitehead is the leader of ESI’s air compliance practice. He has fifteen years of air quality compliance management consulting experience and has been a national client manager for multiple Fortune 500 companies across numerous sectors. Chris most recently has been heavily involved with environmental justice regulatory developments and has led the air teams for commercial offshore wind projects in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Over the past 17 years he has been published numerous times in various outlets on the topics of environmental justice, the New Jersey EJ law, and offshore wind project development.

He has an M.S. in Environmental Management and Policy from American Public University, a B.A. in Political Science from Loyola University of Chicago, and a Sustainability Program Management certificate through Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Chris lives in southern New Jersey with his wife and two young children, ages six and four. 

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Laura 
Hello, and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Nic and I talk about employment gaps and how to talk about personal challenges in the job search. Chris Whitehead returns to the show and we talk about environmental justice, air quality and public speaking. And finally, we all know that air is mostly gas, but it's not all gas. There are particles of things like dust and smoke called aerosols, but there are also living organisms in the air called Bio aerosols. Before you start worrying about monsters falling from the sky, trombone, please. It's just falling

Nic 
pretty funny. Yeah, I was like, what are this bioaerosol that's so cool. What an incredible term. And it's like pollen and fungal spores. You're like, oh, that's far less interesting. That'd be like Oh.

[NAEP Event News}

Nic
NAEP will be hosting their next advanced NEPA training virtually on Wednesday, October 25 2023, from 8am to 4:30pm. Central Time. The workshop will benefit those professionals who work in related Natural Resources disciplines who work with federal land management, or real estate transactions, federal agency projects for permitting and transportation or other infrastructure projects with a NEPA review component register@www.hp.org

Laura 
And now it's time for our sponsor. Ready? All right, you got 30 seconds to make us laugh and if you go over 30 seconds, then you only a copy.

Nic 
Okay, deal. All right. You have to tell me when to go Okay, folks, you all know works for now, which is just stop doing your job and you know, we tell you how to not do your job. And then eventually you get fired right but there's a new product on the market called works five now and that's right, we take an extra step and also start sending really mean and cool things to anyone you want. And that will get you fired faster. There you go. You're gonna have so many options. You can do it to your boss, your co workers, your friends, your family, whoever it is, we will send but mild insults that don't get our suit. And I'm telling you right now, if you do not want to do your job. Nobody works for now do works five now. That's right. It's one more number and that makes it better. That's how we all do these things. And seeing I don't know

contact Yeah, I want another crack at that.

[Nic & Laura talk about employment gaps]

Laura 
Let's get to we can talk about when I'm career coaching, a lot of times people will reach out because they have some sort of challenge that they need to get over in their career search, like, you know, health issue or something that kept them from working for a while working moms returning back to school and they really want to know how do I overcome that or how do I talk about it in my interview, they're afraid to talk about it. So a lot of times they try to hide it or not always try to tell them how you know you don't have to give all the details especially on like a health issue. Your personal information, but if you've been living with something that is challenging, and you're succeeding, like that really shows that you have grit and determination. Yes, that was not something that you should. Hello. Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet there's this brighter color saw that I

Nic 
thought oh wow, that's a huge Tyler. Okay. I Yep. And that was just in the room with you. You okay.

Laura 
Okay, that was courageous land.

Nic 
You've overcome adversity Laura. Single in the room, folks. It is still in the room. We do not know where it is. It is now gone. But

Laura 
he's been said for not from my face. So that's

Nic  
out of sight out of mind. I were all hoping Laura is okay whatever Yeah. Challenges. There you go. That was really like yeah. Wow joke. Oh, yeah, that was perfect timing. That was incredible timing. How did you Well, excellent work in the prop department.

Laura 
Okay, I guess we're doing this No. Yeah.

Nic 
So yeah. Anyway, from

Laura  
your perspective, Nick, have you encountered people who are trying to hide things or you know, haven't been able to speak about something like that very well? Or what advice would you just give to somebody who was interviewing with you?

Nic 
I think honesty goes a very long way.

There's a lot of humility and being that way. There's a lot of and you know, there's been times where we've had interviews and people talk about certain health things coming up. And you know, and that hasn't dissuaded me from you. Know, hiring people. And that's, it really just depends on the person and the situation. A lot of that is, you know, kind of,

I don't want to say it's case by case that's not really fair. Truthfully, I think if there's something that you are concerned about, and you think the it's better to talk about it than it is to hide it, I mean, if you you know, there's certain things you won't be able to hide, and there's sort of things that are easier to so it really is. If you think it's something that's going to affect your work. I think it's important to talk about it and be honest about it. If you don't think it is going to, you know, maybe not and you know everyone has comes from different places. Everyone comes from different you know, have different backgrounds and things are big or small. Sometimes the things that could affect you are, you know, related to specific events and if you have past trauma, for example, you don't necessarily I don't, I don't need to know any of that in an interview. But if there's a situation where you are experiencing something that is a bit stressful for you, then then just be honest with that. It's like, Hey, I'm having a hard time with this. And you want to say anything other than that, you know, it's like, hey, I need to I need some time. I need some space, whatever it is most me like good employers are going to be understanding. It's not something that I think is, oh, I'll put it this way too. If you're out of the industry for a while. There's a gap in employment you're going to get a good ask that no matter what, right? It's going, how come Why are you not working for this? XYZ months, years, whatever it is. So you need an answer. They might as well be honest, right? Because, you know good interviewers can also pick up when someone's not being truthful. So you might as well you know, be honest with you and just say, you know, it's like, hey, there's you don't have to give detail. It's just I had a medical issue and you know, it's fine. And that's that you don't have to, you know, go on in great detail. Or you can just say, you know, I took a break from employment. I'm trying to get back man, it can be that simple. You don't even have to say medical, but you just have an answer. Practice it. Because that's something's probably gonna make you really nervous. That's my advice. Anyway, just just be honest. Yeah,

Laura  
I think thing is, you know, is it gonna affect your work? Is it what are the like, for me, it's always what are the biases or the assumptions that the people the interviewers could make? So I see a gap and you don't have something to say they're going to infer whatever they want to so if you're like, Yeah, I took a break. And it's like, okay, what were you doing during that break? So I want to know, like, Why didn't you take any classes? Why aren't you still doing it volunteering? Why weren't you, like, furthering your knowledge, but if it was because you had a medical reason or if was because you had a family crazy, you know, you're taking care of your sick mom, like, it's better for you to tell me that then I understand why you were not. You know, now there's HIPPA laws and different things. You don't have to tell me your medical details, but just the reality and the nature of interviewing if you can't tell me why you weren't advancing your career in some way.

Nic
I'm going to just assume, you know that you weren't doing anything right. being lazy. Yeah. So I've always encouraged people to like if you're a stay at home, mom, we wanted to raise your kids just that's what I want. That's what I felt my priority was at that time, you know, and now they're grown. I'm ready. To come back to the work force and, and whatever, you know, right, because it happened.

Laura 
And if you are starting your hiatus with your kids to stay at home, which is totally fine. Take some classes, volunteer, do something. So when you come out of that break, you at least have can show that you've been interested and passionate about the environment the whole time?

Nic 
Yeah. I mean, it's funny, like there was an interview I conducted with someone who said, you know, I'm looking for the right job. That's the reason why I don't have any employment and I'm like, okay, so what have you been doing? Since, you know, for the past, you know, nine months and it's like, Oh, I've just been doing some interviews. Anything else? Oh, no, no, I'm just looking for the right opportunity. Okay. All right. That doesn't need to know. Okay. You know, it's one of those things. Yeah, you just, you can do something. You don't have to sit there and just wait for like, you know, applications to come out. You can go be proactive. That's how you'll get a job as

Laura  
simple as like I've been reading blog articles. I've been following the news. I know what's happening in White House like, what you have to be doing something. Yeah. Now if you told me you had a family crisis, and you were like, or you were deployed, your military deployed somewhere, of course, I get that but then you've told me that the thing for me with the critical gene is filling those gaps and not letting the interviewers and the hiring managers make assumptions, right. Because they will fill in any blanks. They don't know, whatever. They think and a lot of times they that's it, they don't know. That's what they come up with.

Nic 
Right? Yeah, I saw it there. I think I saw a great point and you know, that's a good place to stop. I think that's plenty of advice for now. And, yeah, let's get to our interview. Sounds good.

[Interview with Chris Whitehead starts]

Nic
Hello, and welcome back to EPR. Today we have Chris Whitehead returning to the show, he is the air Practice Lead with ESI and we are happy to have him back. Welcome back, Chris.

Chris Whitehead  
Thank you, Nick. I'm happy to come back. I've actually had fun last time we tried this.

Nic  
Yeah, absolutely. So tell us how have you been? It's been about a year since we talked. So what's going on with you?

Chris Whitehead  
Very busy year. I think I mentioned this on the last day, but I've been getting environmental justice policies extensively. And I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to try to go after work on topics I'm passionate about, and was given a chance to embarrass sciences to build up a group from scratch, essentially. And that takes a lot of time at the beginning and a lot of essentially striking out and building things. up but things are starting to hit like Apple wildfire this year and I couldn't be happier.

Nic 
So yeah, how do you go about setting that up? What are the some of the challenges you faced in getting it going?

Chris Whitehead 
Sure. That's a great question. For those who don't know, our company is super small. We we have about two people or so based in may vary the building goes throughout the country and occasionally around the world as needed. But almost no one else at our firm doesn't have the stuff I do so we really live work again, name out there more and the general model I've been using is taking a large research project every year, the paper on it gets published, in fact collaborator that make a lot of sense, and pitched that same project to various conferences throughout the country. I've been doing that for the last three years that should work very

Nic 
very well. Wow, that's really great. And we also learned that you are on the editorial board for the air and water waste management association. So what does that role entail and how is it tied to what you're doing?

Chris Whitehead  
Sure, yeah, I'm involved with a number a number of professional organizations but Aw, may have been longest by far. I think I've been with them for, I don't know 1012 years. But as part of being an editorial advisory board, I help with their monthly and quarterly magazine and help them plan various special issue topics. And I was put in charge of the environmental justice one earlier this year, and decided to actually put that together based on the general idea that the issues themselves will get further and we'll see more environmental benefits and transparency and things like that. Before well and actually listen to different perspectives on these issues, and have uncomfortable conversations that absolutely took off and I was thrilled and we actually ended up building that magazine out into a conference and Camden New Jersey last week.

Nic 
Wow, that's incredible. Out of the conference go.

Chris Whitehead  
I couldn't have been happier to be honest. It was a great idea as of one in our program committee had at the chapter level. I was able to actually do connections I made through various groups at the Chamber of Commerce has stopped 32 came up with records and records university and have them hosted and we actually gave each author of the magazine a chance to lead a session and help them invite speakers here there. If needed. We ended up with nine sponsors, 83 attendees 16 panelists. I mean, it couldn't have gone better. So that's the first time I've been involved putting something together like that from start to finish and to be able to take something from the basically rod concept and character like this and have people basically come up to us for half a dozen times after the event and actually asked for more of those types of sessions. I couldn't have asked for it tomorrow.

Nic 
It's really great to hear. So how do you find panelists and pull that together?

Chris Whitehead 
Well, I'm very active on LinkedIn. That's the first way to do it. I always kind of joke that if I ever gave a TED Talk it'd be on how to use LinkedIn properly. I don't want to say aggressive with it, but I've always gone about the general idea that if people were asking there, they either open to collaborating with you or they want to share their thoughts on various topics. So I try and engage anyone who likes things that I do and start conversations patients about that. can obviously do a lot of reading and know what other people are working on. And just honestly make a phone call and ask if they're interested in being an analyst or what are their thoughts on some regulation here there and a lot of times I found that it's something that they work on, day in, day out, they're probably gonna be pretty passionate about it, and want to talk about it. And a lot of people are trying to install but at times, find a platform to voice their opinion and get their own names out there. So I've found that if you have a good idea and are willing to actually put time in to help develop that other people will generally tell you

Nic 
man it just totally true it. I couldn't agree more. And so Okay, so you get an idea. You have an idea for who you want to go after what are some of the topics that you covered at the conference?

Chris Whitehead 
Sure. That's a great question. We actually broke it down into four different panels, the legal perspective, industrial, we actually had a youth and student panel which I was extraordinarily excited about. I was also a professional, having a role and bettering the local communities panel, which I actually spoke on as well. And the idea being ended building it like that is again, to have everyone in the audience actually be willing to listen to potential ideas and concepts on these topics that might make them a little uncomfortable at first, and bring in as many community members as we possibly can to gauge what they want to hear what their thoughts are on all these topics. And basically call us out if we're not doing anything right, and how they want to actually engage with us going forward. And I put that environmental professionals panel last because I wanted to kind of open your eyes a little bit because that's the wrong term but show that this is what environmental ethical work. Looks like. All of us up here have been doing this for decades, if not more, we want to try and help you but no average person and community who hasn't had training in the stuff can be expected to understand and have it so we've had a lot of requests for building up capacity in

Nic 
those areas. So if you have you got, you know, four different panels, you've got four different tracks here. We'll touch on the environmental stuff in a second, but like the topics when you dive into them, like your panelists, are you looking for multiple perspectives? How do you say you find people on LinkedIn, but what were you looking for when you were finding these people? Is it people in the community

Chris Whitehead 
as well? And I was actually also joking largely about just going to LinkedIn. Of course there are other ways but I wanted to try to get as much of a diversity of perspectives as we possibly can but also give this session leads the autonomy to build out their own panels, how they saw fit. So we had people come in from California to Missouri, from all over the country, but then also try to move in as as many of local nonprofit community of people actually working on the ground as we possibly could. And I want to thank again, those volunteers who have supported this program because by doing that, we were able to offer drastically lower admin admin rates. For people are traveling the public or people come from working from zoos, nonprofits, and if we didn't do that, in my opinion, I don't think we would have gotten the type of buying and the type of strong attendance that we did. A lot of times that cost point is a barrier to entry that people don't initially think about it he actually value that perspective and want to hear from these people. You didn't have to understand that paying 150 bucks for a conference. It's just not plausible.

[Environmental Justice]

Nic 
You know, of course, understood. Yeah, I totally agree. And it actually kind of leads me right back to talking about, you know, the environment when it comes to environmental justice. You're talking about, you know, low income communities in particular, you know, environmental stewardship is sometimes not on the community's mind because they're doing their priorities are different because of what the situation that they are in is that something you cover? Is that something that you had feedback? I

Chris Whitehead 
don't even agree with that. But I agree with the general concept that there are other constraints that force you to have to think about other things. You can't necessarily go as far as you want to have environmental topic. If you have to worry about whether foods coming on pavement, but there are certain hyperlocal issues that we're seeing a lot of that things like the rain gardens are doing community events, or there's a lot of action obviously now New Jerseyans environmental justice law that came out and actually trying to hold the guys more accountable and actually get them to close and do everything they can to reduce their environmental impacts. So I would say that there is a lot of interest and all of these topics and there are certain groups around the country and obviously local each state trying to assist however they can but again, capacity in each one of these groups tends to be punitive issue. So things like funding from various foundations from private companies, and obviously the federal government. Certainly comes into play a lot and definitely helps.

Nic 
Yeah, okay. Yeah, for sure. So the conversation is it was a good back and forth on environmental with the community.

Chris Whitehead 
That was overall a lot of it from members of Camden's local talents who did come. They wanted to tell their own personal theories they wanted to tell how their family members were affected by these things, how long family members had asthma or various cancer problems that popped up. And there was a lot of raw emotion, honestly, that came out. But at the end of all this, we had, again, a lot of people come up to us and saying because honestly because they said it was the first time at one of these events that they actually felt like they were heard and believed that people wanted to actually continue engaging with them and try to help these issues. Understandable. There's been a lot of kind of lack of a better term here and broken promises and has and just too much but on top of each other. I think I mentioned this in my last talk with you guys. Basic idea of environmental justice, is that it's not necessarily any one individual site that's doing something incorrectly or operating poorly. It's the fact that he has so many different industrial sites on top of each other and then multiple sources from Highway isn't Forex. And after you put it all together, it is a man's man's hotspot, elevated PM 2.5 and Knox, things like that and not surprising that if you walk and find an area that has been numbers that they're going to be corresponding health impacts things like elevated asthma rates, unfortunate things like pelvic cancer that, again, not necessarily tied to any one individual is tight, but there's just too much together. So I actually really applaud. Watch the states like New Jersey I've been trying to actually do a punch board, she will have impact analysis models to try to start untangling and these plates that have strong environmental management and have their controls in place are probably not going to be affected as much but the ones who hadn't been keeping up. We'll definitely have an impact there.

Nic 
Okay. Yeah. Which makes total sense. So, which brings me to you know, there's so we have communities we've got companies, corporations, have companies, for example, benefit from instilling some of the EJ fundamentals that you've seen at the conference and work?

Chris Whitehead 
That's a great question. And as I as I've been traveling the country the last couple of years, trying to convince people one of the first actions to tell everyone that the new revenue model was gonna get legs and start impacting other states was essentially a brain I've been talking about ever since. And the fact that if you plan ahead on this and instill things that improve transparency, that should work to minimize your environmental impacts, almost doesn't even matter if your state has a compliance program on not tied to environmental justice. You have the building blocks, police are ready to have a history of actually working and engaging on these issues with local partners, which is absolutely invaluable. You're not going to trick anybody on this bill know if you care about it. We don't know if you're putting skin in the game and talking to them longer and at different times. They don't necessarily have to. I could go on forever on this but the care model themselves is by nature. Transactional, we give people 30 days to comment, and at most a couple minutes to get up and actually vent their frustration. But that hasn't worked. And I think people are still starting to come around to the fact that there's a better way.

[Air Quality]

Nic 
Yeah. So what are the changes you'd like to see? Because I mean, I agree, I think you're right, that isn't necessarily great public engagement. It's like you have a very specific short window and that's it. So what do you suggest?

Chris Whitehead 
Well, I got a couple of basics here is actually improving transparency. You have to show and find a way actually rather to give a patient as to how your site is performing and environmentally. There are many ways to do that. A popular one I've seen from a couple of our lions understand information to continuous emissions monitoring info on their websites. So any local member who wants to find out how their site is performing at any given time, can log in and check out that form as against the permit threshold. tangible thing is easy to read. Basically, if it's other it's green, if it's not a threat that you don't have to have and not the Battenfeld background to understand that. You have to make things easier folks, and also can be very, very honest. Cut through some of the misinformation that is out there. Well, we're seeing that and I don't know if it's intended or not, but there are a times this stats that are brought up during these comment periods that are just not accurate. So a great way to try to combat that and actually give a fair representation of the impact and individuals is having.

Nic 
Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned stats because I think that's another one. Numbers don't lie. But if you use the wrong numbers, you can say a lot of different things. And that's a really challenging thing for people to even don't even don't even mean to do it. Sometimes they just accidentally are comparing, for example, census data is a great example of this right where you have to compare the 2010 census to a five year average. Those aren't those aren't the same thing. So we're looking at two different numbers. So they're not quite the same thing. So

Chris Whitehead 
in other words, a lot is actually potential to emit first actual emissions. What people think that potential climate is what each plant is spitting out when almost always adds I'm gonna have what actually happened. And I'm not being a part of this industry at all right? There are obviously impacts there steps to take to get better at this. And there are unfortunately, many states who are not doing the right thing. So there's room here.

Nic 
Yeah, so how do you how do you it's it's like it's one of the things that air quality is a lot of stats, a lot of numbers. How do you kind of convey that to people who are maybe not familiar with how to use that, that data and how to interpret it?

Chris Whitehead 
Well actually give you another one. It's something I actually agree with also Nick Yardley, in the sciences, people are actually relatively uncomfortable speaking to the public and actually relaying their points. There are plenty of people I know who are extremely strong technically, but if you put them in front of a microphone or put them in a public hearing it's like deer in headlights. I think I said in the article actually for AW Ma, that doesn't fit in an Excel spreadsheet. Some people I know just uncomfortable. Yeah. And you have to get away from that a little bit and be willing to actually engage and try to actually relate a great way that I do it. Actually, any environmental justice or climate change talk. I've actually given the last couple of years. I started off with a picture of my children on a viral load. I do that because important to come and validate. There's a lot of times I hear people again just terrified of doing public hearing stuff. Everyone's heard stories about the members of the community come in to screaming at the people and apparently nothing gets accomplished. But if you'd understand that that person's as upset as they are, because they're thinking about their children, they're thinking about their futures. That's what they're passionate about. And obviously, it's also what I'm passionate about and why I do the work that I do. So if you start on that point, and go forward and try to actually understand why that raw emotion is actually there. What potentially caused it and what if anything, you're just like can do about it to try to be a better neighbor. I think we help each other out.

[Public Speaking]

Nic 
Oh, totally agree. Of course. Absolutely. Yeah. And very well said, public speaking is not for everybody. It's not easy, but it's also something that you know, takes practice and you can get better at and I think that's a really good message to anyone reminder just helps me you know, it's like everyone, you have good and bad days at work. You can have good and bad days in public and you'll still be okay. You can have it you know, a great talk and and okay talk and then you can go back and have a great talk right after that. Do you have any other advice for public speaking

Chris Whitehead  
and it's funny too, because I grew up with the stuttering problem, child. Obviously didn't probably hear it every now and then now and especially after that a couple of times. To get past that was a huge, huge struggle. And I decided at one point you let this thing damage you and put you down or you get past it, you live your life and actually try and do this type of work and have some impact. So that's definitely route I chose. And that's what I really encourage everyone to also try because no matter what your exact path in life and if you happen to have an affliction or you don't have a lot more life than we're not, and I think all of us ideally same basic passion that we want to actually leave the world a better place than we've given to us. Again, why I'm passionate and the topics that I work on now with Eric compliance with EJ, especially lime at risk now, which is insanely taken off but yeah, what keeps me going every

Nic 
day. So yeah, I really appreciate the words and that's great to hear. Because it's I'm sure that's not easy to to handle on to manage. But you know, being able to do overcome that and be a good public speaker is fantastic and it's just proof you can put your mind to something and move forward and

Chris Whitehead 
apparently, people like me, which I still don't understand.

Nic 
Yeah, you know, and it's like, you know, that humor, I think is part of it. You know, it's just always you don't take yourself too seriously and you'll be alright, you know, I try to be genuine. Yeah, because that's all it is. It's just that's how people connect. And I love that. So we've got a lot of stuff coming out, you know, proposing new environmental justice regulations or requirements, new or updated climate requirements. Can you kind of tell us what's new in the air quality in air quality from a regulation standpoint, if we had any big changes in the last year?

Chris Whitehead 
Well, there's a lot of different stuff I'm not going to walk you through of everything, but generally how EPA handles it, is they do what's called new source performance standards for various sectors. And they look at those on a regular basis and identify what's actually best available control technology and best practices at that time. And then basically walk and see if we have any books, okay, or are we identifying potential areas that we have to look at this again, oftentimes, they'll go back to content and things up a little bit. We saw this recently in particular matter standards, pulling it back from from 12 million to eight I think it is, and just that one small change, has a corresponding health impact, about saving about four times as many lives as men lives. And that's what those comes back to and what traditionally, we haven't been great at identifying health impacts and the obvious personal and economic benefit detriment that they have, and actually been trying to get models and standards in place to shore that up and be as aggressive as we can, but almost on a sustainable basis.

Nic 
So what's the future of air quality regulations? Are we going to see more changes? Are we going to level out? How do you see these things changing in the future?

Chris Whitehead 
That was actually I love I told you this story neck but I was very lucky to learn from a guy who had been doing this business for over five years or so at the time and he was the first guy to put emission controls. coal fired power plants in Michigan, as well and that that was seven years. Yeah, absolutely different time but he said throughout his whole career and we'll stay through mine will have job security because there's always going to be changes and it's going to be you'd have to inform your mind and try to minimize surprises wherever you can and tell them how much things are going to cost. So obviously things in the news now there's a huge push to get off fossil fuels is a push to do things like offshore wind was carbon capture projects. There's so many things going on once but I think at times you also have to get a dose of reality that these are all large scale infrastructure projects that don't just happen overnight. Yeah. There are certain steps we could take to get them to come through faster and to not sacrifice public engagement in doing so. But again, I've been involved in offshore wind a ton and trying to do some more. These are large, large projects that the public doesn't understand that's been relayed properly. Almost a decade of study beforehand, and extensive approvals before anything can get done. So, again, it's not going to happen overnight, but I think we're definitely headed that way.

Nic  
And that's right. Yeah, that's good to hear. And yeah, totally right. There's always going to be a job and especially when it comes to air quality. It's a very, it's something that's not many people understand. And so there's always going to be a need for people to know when it relates to offshore wind. What do you work on for offshore wind and related regards to air quality?

Chris Whitehead 
Yeah, actually, I'll be very honest, I ever since I moved over environmental sciences, we haven't been able to get a working offshore wind, because although there are certain steps being taken now to improve this. It's not really conducive for a small business at this time in my life. We've taken some steps to get ourselves out there. I've got a lot more people know our company and talking about giving us proposals for various things. But my experience in offshore wind was actually earlier at larger firms and I was fortunate enough to actually run the air emissions profile and work for one of the biggest offshore wind developments off the coast of Massachusetts but that was at the town's Mayflower when it was close now. So obviously try and still develop that work still highlight the fact that our company can do all the things that big companies can, but it's difficult at times because the developers understandably want to go to a source they know that they can trust that has come through as much as possible and House is trying to streamline all of this, which is something that they should try and do. I would encourage them to also take the chance to look out and develop programs to actually help foster small businesses because in this it's been it's tough time for offshore wind over the last 18 months or so. And if there's not more focus to drive on addressing Bob Bom next now, I fear that a lot of small companies are just going to drop out of the industry.

Nic 
Wow. That's interesting. That's interesting to hear. Yeah. Well, hopefully, you know, maybe there's going to be some incentives for small businesses in the future. I think it's it's unfortunate if that is the case, but hopefully, maybe that'll change.

Chris Whitehead 
And actually, this is another thought on that. I would encourage anyone who does want to get into offshore wind business or any type of renewable development. Keep in mind a few things that obviously again, these are large scale projects that do take quite a while. So you're not going to get the immediate payback that you might be expecting, but the best thing in my opinion that you can do to get your name out there. It's kind of marketing events, publish wherever possible, attend the conferences, and they'll be afraid to ask questions if he would have left them because all of us just have pom poms on for offshore wind, renewables development, that doesn't gain that much at all.

Nic 
100% And that has been some conversations about you know, the New Jersey the offshore wind and right whales and how those are all intertwined. And, you know, there's not a tell me if I'm wrong, but I think the answer is we're just trying to figure out what the impacts are. But if there are any, that changes a lot of how they do it. Is that right?

Chris Whitehead 
Is it isn't I'd say it's a little more accurate that every study done to date has shown that there is no impact whatsoever. Have to sonar scanning, I've been done. Bugs, we don't know for sure going forward as things change and just scientific process itself. It isn't. It doesn't just stop and keep looking at things. Keep studying the chance. 10 years might have we might have a better answer. But all you can do now is go with the best information available. And I honestly get a little upset when I read a lot misinformation that's out there. And the public because it doesn't show an understanding of again the time that goes into all these different processes. And these specialists who focus on one small aspect of each project and are experts in that field and decades of research, but we're not going to actually buy what they're telling us within actually put our staff in something that we hear other stuff. No, we actually hear on the radio. I should read that alive. That doesn't make any sense. But that's all anyone who has been exposed to it. They don't want to necessarily believe it at first, eventually over time, that's going to have an effect.

Speaker 2 
Yeah, I mean, he's like a subconscious thing almost like when you hear this several different places and while it's gotta be true, I've heard it three different times four different times or whatever it is. Yeah. Which is we could probably do an entire show on just misinformation but

Nic 
since I want to you know, keep selling your free time for you

Oh, tell me about it, man. I totally agree. But I was gonna say like, what do you have other any other like fun stories from working on your projects, any other projects you want to highlight? I could say we've got a little bit more time but yeah, what else you have going on Project wise? Yeah, a

Chris Whitehead  
lot. Actually. Probably almost a dozen different clients. Now. One of the biggest ones actually were working on a Superfund site, doing air monitoring and sampling work in New Jersey, and trying to scope out it actually remediate a site that's had just 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of tons of acid guitars sitting there for decades, for decades, and that's why it was best available practice, focused off where they did and put water cap on it. But not all I have and since I'm happy to be a part of a project that's trying to address that and try and actually turn that land into something that's usable and safe for local environments and, and local people. But, again, these are long projects. And what I'm actually talking about in particular is probably going to be conservatively are seven years. So

Nic 
seven years, probably. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. So Akash How do you manage a project for seven years long?

Chris Whitehead 
Well, it's a big team of people and just just keep moving forward and lots of different calendars and trying to meet upcoming metrics. Honestly, you scope things out long term and good ideas, what you want to do, whether or not you want to can actually meet that schedule and importantly meet that budget it need not long term goal if you can mute the role that the month out and just keep doing all that.

Nic 
Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, so one foot in front of the other basically. Exactly. Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, it makes that makes total sense. It just kind of fun, large scale like that. It's like the end, the finish line might seem very far away. But yeah, actually

Chris Whitehead 
also to its being open to actually bring in different technologies in various parts of this project. That might be better at certain aspects that are holding you Well, if you can save time, and one area that might be worth the cost to bring in a better technology and having that conversation over and over seems.

Nic 
Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. And like, Okay, I'll still have one more question for you then. Speaking of technology, right? It's grown immensely and lots of different ways. Over the last you know, even no matter what time period you take, like the last five years, last 10 years, last two months, it seems like something new is coming out to help us do our jobs better. So for air quality, what are we talking about? What's what have been like the technological advances that have really helped push forward just even understanding what we're putting out in the atmosphere?

Chris Whitehead 
Well, there's a lot of things I can answer there, but I'll go back to environmental justice for a minute. I think last time I checked, there are 18 different states that have environmental justice screening tools, identified where potential overburden areas are, and we asked for drivers that are causing the problems. In each state that critically important. Many federal agencies passed without comparable tools and comparable guidance now as well, but stuff that I've been working on for the past year is a cumulative impacts model. And for anyone who does environmental justice, work that kind of unicorn I wouldn't be chasing after that, trying to do this right. Because identify the different sources of contamination that are actually causing these issues, and manage the large data sets, you can start to inform policy better so we put together a project in South Jersey and Philadelphia actually looks at crosstab cumulative impact analysis of small scale development projects that tend to use one phone is a Sim City model and actually put different sites and with different emissions profile that we've put together in different parts of the state. And what happened is if we put five of these here, or these here, what's that actually look like over time? What we found is that although there have been comparable gains, and better quality lower NOx and pm 2.5, and it was a lot of comments coming up on the actual horizon, there's an offshore wind, a lot of that might be slowed down if we don't think about development properly. And think about changes before zoning and the impact that highways have as an example, we found that that's a big one. In our study, while we focus on Camden, New Jersey, and there's elevated impact by order of about point percent, as to where the contaminants could be, as opposed to not over certain areas, and that's only as small scale development, assuming that everything else stays along the same general path and no big changes in this world of things like worker vehicles or state pollution. Essentially, if we stay on the same track for a while. Gotcha.

Nic  
Yeah, and that's all fascinating stuff. I can say that's, maybe that's another episode to just back again. Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, for sure. So yeah, so we are getting close to the end of the time. I was gonna ask you if you have any hobbies, but I think this is your hobby, right? That's kind of

Chris Whitehead 
hard. Go. I spent. I'm actually a Cub Scout leader for my son. Oh, yeah. And it's just, I kind of joke I, I kind of actually feel something you might actually relate to also, Nick. I'm just a caretaker for a money. I bring in and tends to go out almost immediately. Actually, my son had major class. Oh, yeah. Money, my daughter's soccer. Club scouts. So every day is allocated to something.

Nic  
Right? For sure. Very well said. Well, Chris, before we get you go, let you go ask you one more question. Anything that we didn't talk about that you want to bring up?

Chris Whitehead  
Great question. I always like to end on positive notes. So I'll just say quick out. Hopefully that's kind of like a Hallmark card here. Think about the individual impacted. You have any own operations in your own everything lives and how can you improve and be be more environmentally friendly? So that if you help run any type of industrial companies just understand that there are answers out there and you don't have to be afraid of environmental justice. It's not coming from Gotcha. That allowed demonization and us versus them mentality out there that I think is extraordinarily unnecessary. And occasionally at times I feel my role comes in as a mediator. stones have commonalities that a lot of us do have and that even if I want to actually add end up shows, I do want to be talking to them and have a productive talk. Were actually genuine about bringing down environmental impacts and a new local area and those are the people that are going to actually affect the change. I think gain admission control. If you can get better practice on that large industrial site. That's how the air quality is going to be better. I mean outside of a lot of people buying electric cars and that's not happening. Back and a lot of people who are actually trying to drive EVs and actually push out while I'm all for it. I'm just skeptical. It's gonna happen as bad as you think it is, or actually hope it is.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah. I think it's very well said and it's a great way to end now. If anybody wants to reach out to you and ask you any more follow ups or connect with you in any way. What's the best way for them to do that? Sure. I'm

Chris Whitehead 
very active on LinkedIn so you, probably out there, or if you want to send me a quick email to Whitehead at psi n v.com. And I honestly am extremely active on presentations and stuff. So if you look at an agenda for an upcoming event, there's a good chance I'll probably be on it. It's

Nic 
like, hey, yeah, I totally hear you. So, thank you, Chris, so much for being here. It's great to catch up with you again. So glad things are going well, and we'll see you again sometime.

Chris Whitehead 
Thanks. Thanks McAfee though.

Laura 
That's our show. Thank you, Chris, for joining us again today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye.

Nic
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai