Ellen Garvey

Environmental Consultant

Qualifications

 

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As an independent environmental consultant, Ellen Garvey focuses on air quality and global climate change policy and technology issues.  Ms. Garvey was formerly Executive Director of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, where she had responsibility for 350 staff, and a region of 7 million people, 5.5 million cars, 22 transit providers, and 11,000 permitted industries.  Prior to this she held a variety of management and engineering positions in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in the environmental field.

 

Ellen Garvey has more than 25 years of experience in air quality, with more recent experience also including global climate change.  Ms. Garvey has served as an officer of several California and national environmental policy boards. She was appointed by the Governor as an environmental advisor during the 2000 California energy crisis.

 

Education

B.S., Environmental Engineering, 1978, Pennsylvania State University

Certificate, Business Administration, 2000, UC Berkeley

 

Employment History

• Environmental Consultant, 2003 – present
• Executive Director, Bay Area Air Quality Management District 1996 – 2002
• Director, Technical Division, BAAQMD, 1993 – 96
• Senior Engineer/engineer, BAAQMD 1981 – 93
• Engineer, NJ Department Environmental Protection, 1979-81
• Engineer, Penn State/PA Dept Environmental Resources, 1977-79

 

Summary of Relevant Work Experience

 

Policy

• Goods Movement:  Provides expert advice on air quality issues relating to goods movement in California, including: work with ports, truck fleets, rail, regulatory agencies, and communities.

 

• Global Climate Change:  As a consultant, advises clients on opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and harmonize approaches with air quality improvement and diesel particulate emission reduction.

 

 

• Voluntary and Market-based Air Quality Improvements: As a consultant, prepared Voluntary Air Quality Plans for two regions in the bay area.  Plan contains voluntary, market-based measures to improve air quality and is designed to build on the regulatory work of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

 

• Attainment Plans for Ozone: Directed the preparation of two federal and one state ozone attainment plan; including environmental documentation (CEQA), transportation conformity analysis, community meetings, air quality modeling, emission inventory, control strategy, and attainment projections.

 

• Air Quality:  As  Executive Director of the Bay Area  Air Quality Management District, advised the Board of Directors on the meaning and intent of the Federal and State Clean Air Acts, and recommended policies that upheld the Act and furthered improvement air quality.  As a consultant, advises clients on Clean Air Act requirements and provides compliance strategies.

 

• Clean Fuels:  As Executive Director of the BAAQMD, oversaw efforts with 22 transit providers to implement the State’s directive for clean-fueled fleets.  As a consultant, advises clients on clean diesel alternatives, regulatory compliance, and federal and state incentive funding opportunities.

 

 

 

 

Technical

• Energy:  As advisor to the Governor during the energy crisis, developed policies to streamline the permitting of new power plants while maintaining strong environmental controls.  As an engineer, led the agency’s power plant group and worked with the CA Energy Commission to permit hundreds of megawatts of cogeneration.  Work involved baseload plants, peaker plants, BACT, offsets, community meetings, in-stack monitors, fuel storage, and coordination with Regional Water Quality Control efforts.

 

• Distributed Generation: As a consultant,  evaluated various technologies designed to meet CA Air Resources Board’s 2007 Distributed Generation standards.  Technology review conducted for: turbines, microturbines, fuel cells, and reciprocating engines.

 

 

• Monitoring network deployment:  As Executive Director, oversaw the installation of the fine particulate monitoring network.  Work was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.  As an engineer, designed and installed the first continuous ambient air monitoring network for criteria pollutants in New Jersey.

 

 

 

Legislative

• Incentive funding: Directed legislative work to establish incentive funding programs in California to promote clean vehicles. As a consultant, advice potential recipients on the value of this program, and the application process.

 

• Utility regulation: As Chair of the ALAPCO Energy Committee (national committee of local air directors), directed national efforts to influence federal regulation of utilities, including multi-pollutant strategies, Clear Skies Initiative, and other Senate and House bills.

 

• CA legislature: As a consultant, provide expert advice on legislative language on a variety of environmental issues.  As Executive Director of the BAAQMD, sponsored and recommended Board positions on hundreds of pieces of legislation regarding air quality, transportation, smart growth, funding, and enforcement.  Provided testimony in Committee on these bills, and testified at special hearings.