Areas of Expertise
Land Use & Environmental, Public Policy Mediation, Workplace Mediation

In general if it is policy oriented, complex, and mixes science and laws and personalities, I’m in.  I have a great deal of experience in land use and environmental work, but I don’t feel confined to that.  And then at the other end of the spectrum I appreciate the intensity, intimacy, and comparatively quick resolution of workplace mediation. 

Land Use & Environmental
Spanning the range from water rights to water quality, quarry siting to transportation policy, and public access to air quality, much of my work consists of land use and environmental work.  My background in science and law makes this an ideal match.  Additionally, because so much of this work involves government, my experience working at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (regulatory and civil works, two years each) and the Oregon Division of State Lands has been very helpful. 

In the legal arena, one of the things I think I am good at is helping parties explore possibilities.  Sometimes it takes a lot of poking and probing.  Sometimes you run into a dead end.  But usually, if you are willing to gently shake the puzzle box enough, a path of common sense opens up.  In science, the result is similar—finding a path through what seemed like a maze.  But here I think the key is matching up people’s expertise—and by that I mean scientists and nonscientists—in a way that works for the group as a whole.

Thank you for all your hard work and incredible savvy in negotiation a settlement among the diverse parties involved in the Yachats '804 trail' issue.
— The Honorable John A. Kitzhaber

Public Policy Mediation
Public policy mediations address issues that affect a lot of people, more people than can come to the table.  Most public policy issues are complex scientifically, economically, culturally, or legally.

In the complex mediations I mostly do, there can be a core that is about interpersonal problems, and that can be as intense and as intimate as workplace mediation or neighborhood disputes.  But a dam reliscensing or highway siting has an additional layer of legal, scientific, or economic complexity.  Therefore, part of what is required in complex mediations is the ability to help the parties organize, share, and analyze information, as well as communicating constructively about the issue. 

Frankly, in many public policy mediations, I feel overwork is like a ghost at the negotiation table.  People are stretched so thin, and they tend to be consumed by crises.  Addressing policy should be the opposite of crisis management.  That means in some ways it is more important than the crises, and in other ways less able to compete for a busy person’s time.  So somehow the facilitator needs to dial down the outside stress enough that the people are fully present at the negotiation, make sure the meeting is as efficient as possible, find ways to engage people between meetings if that is more effective, and keep the process crisp and lean and interesting. 

The classic public policy mediation is “negotiated rulemaking.”  This can be the development of a legislative concept (such as the one I facilitated for recreational gold mining in scenic waterways), for guidance (Caltrans’ Indirect Impacts Guidance), for a contractual agreement or memorandum of understanding (such as the two NEPA/404 agreements I facilitated, one for Oregon and one for California), or the development of a plan (Lower Columbia River Estuary Program plan; Regional Sediment Evaluation planning process).  In these types of mediations, agencies (often many agencies), tribal nations, industry representatives, interest group representatives, and affected parties are represented.

I described public policy mediation as affecting people who are not at the table.  The desire is to have all the stakeholders represented.  Often that just can’t happen: either there are too many types of stakeholders or the affected people have other pulls on their time.  Maybe we don’t even know who they might be.  Also, the concept of representation can be problematic. For this reason, I am not completely satisfied with the classic “get 30 stakeholder representatives around the table” formulation.  With the web, computers, and modern survey techniques, it should be possible, and relatively inexpensive, to involve the public more directly.  This is partly pragmatic, and partly aspirational.  I feel that survey techniques (and by this I mean much more exciting options than the standard “disagree/don’t care/agree” scale) may offer hope for participatory democracy.
It can’t all be solved by technology.  Humans’ need to connect is more basic than that.  It is clear the the answer lies in old-fashioned approaches as well.  People have been resolving conflicts for as long as there have been people.  There are many forms that have worked.  Right now, 30 stakeholders around the table is not a bad foundation—but I want public policy mediation to be more versatile than that.

Workplace Mediation
I love workplace mediation.  It is intense, intimate, and moves quickly—especially by comparison with something like negotiated rulemaking, which can take years.  Along with neighborhood mediation—where what I call ‘barking dog’ mediations can be among the most challenging of issues—workplace mediation is an excellent place to hone conflict resolution skills centering around personality and communication.  If people come to the point of mediating a workplace dispute, they usually are highly motivated.  If leaving a job were a good option, they would have done that.  But they want to keep their job and know if they cannot resolve the dispute, their lives will continue being a living hell. 

The Oxford physicist Stephen Hawking speaks blithely about seven dimensions, with the last 6 dimensions ‘folded up so tightly that we don’t notice them.’  Sometimes that’s what workplace mediation people seem like when they begin a mediation—they are folded up so tightly they can hardly breathe.  So helping them unfold that conflict feels like real magic.  People’s understanding of the conflict can be one-dimensional—and certainly not the same dimension as the other person’s!  Helping restore a multi-faceted, nuanced, multi-dimensional perspective is so satisfying to all concerned.

"This was the most healing and forward-looking training we have ever had at the parish."
— Workplace mediation party in parish staff dispute.