 ICF International
Telephone: 303-798-5333
E-Mail: mvenner@icfi.com
Years experience in current field: 14
Position/Title: Principal
EDUCATION: Master of Public Administration, Master of Planning, Master’s Certificate in Policy Analysis; MBA Program in Real Estate Finance, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1998; Bachelors in Environmental Conservation and International Affairs, University of Boulder, CO
EXPERTISE: Endangered Species/Ecosystem Management and Wetlands/Water Resources
RELATED TOPICS/EXPERIENCES: Marie Venner is an experienced government manager and consultant in environment and transportation and process improvement, having worked at three state agencies. A substantial part of her career has involved bringing disparate interests together for mutual benefit, a skill that lies at the heart of successful planning and public service. As a consultant, Ms. Venner has worked primarily with public sector clients providing with technical and management assistance in systematically integrating environmental stewardship and management into multi-modal transportation planning, project development, construction, maintenance and operations. She is nationally recognized for her stewardship and streamlining accomplishments and commitment to the continuous improvement in the environmental performance of transportation organizations. She is active with several TRB committees and a frequently requested speaker at AASHTO, TRB, and environmental conferences. She has led six NCHRP projects and contributed to four others and assisted multiple DOTs in partnering/dispute resolution, best practice benchmarking, streamlining, and performance measurement endeavors.
Transportation Environmental Stewardship and Management
For the Ohio DOT Marie developed and facilitated workshop with ODOT and FHWA to work out issues and manage change relating to amount of project oversight and process for project review. For Caltrans she reviewed existing environmental management, commitment tracking and document management systems and benchmarked project delivery process improvement and information management for Caltrans environmental business process re-engineering. She led FHWA Federal Lands’ Highways national assessment of environmental commitment tracking systems. At the national level in her capacity as an AASHTO consultant, Marie has managed AASHTO’s Natural Resources ETAP program; updated organizational environmental stewardship practices from planning through maintenance; compiled a programmatic agreement library; performed state DOT EMS benchmarking and assisted in development of the AASHTO Environmental Management System Guide-Using An Environmental Management System (EMS) to Meet Transportation Challenges and Opportunities; assisted in managing and conducting the Center for Environmental Excellence by AASHTO EMS Workshop in 2003; and conducted the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Division of Maintenance Routine Highway Maintenance and Operations Environmental Performance Assessment and developed an Environmental Performance Improvement Implementation Plan. Informally, Marie coordinates information sharing among EMS managers.
Program Delivery Streamlining and DOT Organizational and Professional Development
At the Colorado Department of Transportation, Marie oversaw interagency agreements and streamlining projects, including the national award-winning (AASHTO and FHWA) CDOT Shortgrass Prairie Advance Mitigation Initiative. She initiated development of CDOT’s first environmental procedures guide along with innovative interagency partnerships and was headquarters’ representative on the I-70 Programmatic EIS. She led intradepartmental efforts to assess GIS needs and utilize best available data to develop more context sensitive solutions. In the area of professional development, he led the development and implementation of department-wide environmental training plans and curriculums. Also, she helped design training programs developed interagency personnel agreements and consultant on-call agreements to meet the environmental expertise needs that could not be met with in-house personnel.
NCHRP and SHRP Research Work on DOT Best Practice and Process Improvement
25-25 (04): DOT Environmental Stewardship Practices, Policies, and Procedures
25-25 (10): Alternative/Early Mitigation Strategies: Streamlining and Achieving Net Benefits
25-25 (13): FHWA-Approved Programmatic Agreements: Acceptance by Third-Party Agencies
25-25 (16): Strategies and Organizational Approaches for NPDES Phase II MS4 Compliance
25-25 (33): National Register of Historic Places Eligibility
25-20 (02): Research Needs-Quality of Highway Stormwater Runoff, NCHRP Report 521
36-05: Synthesis on Invasive Species Control
25-23 (02): Environmental Information Management and Decision Support
8-36 (61): Determining the Monetary Value Per Dollar of Investment in DOT Performance Areas
SHRP II C01: Developing a Collaborative Decisionmaking Framework in Planning & Proj. Dev.
SHRP II R15: Process Improvements in DOT and Utility Coordination
Natural Resources-Focused Work for AASHTO, FHWA, and State DOTs
As Natural Resources ETAP contractor for AASHTO, Marie drafted overviews of EMS progress and best practices for state DOTs; drafted regulatory analyses, opinions and comments for AASHTO and state DOTs; wrote, edited, and published regular policy analysis newsletter for state DOTs on issues, trends, state models, and federal judicial and regulatory developments related to wetlands, water quality, threatened and endangered species, and ecosystem conservation; and provided technical assistance to state DOT environmental managers. She developed briefing papers and presentations for DOT Chief Administrators and Environmental Directors regarding NPDES Phase II and provided briefings/consultation on a wide variety of issues for AASHTO’s Natural Resources Subcommittee. For FHWA via the Volpe Research Center, she drafted an interagency habitat conservation and connectivity guidebook, including regulatory analysis, and best practices and facilitated federal interagency habitat and connectivity improvement steering group meetings that ultimately led to the Eco-Logical guide published by 8 agencies. She has also drafted selected FHWA "Successes in Stewardship and Streamlining" newsletters on environmental management, water, and ecosystem topics. She has presented at AASHTO Construction meetings on environmental topics for the past three years. Work for individual state DOTs includes (Oregon) development of a national overview of programmatic consultations and recommendations for a programmatic approach to assist ODOT and contract in preparing Oregon Bridges Programmatic approach. For Ohio DOT she conducted an interagency partnering workshop and oversaw research and database development for a programmatic biological assessment for the Indiana bat for Ohio DOT.
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