Principal Scott McCreary heads up a strong interdisciplinary team of Associates and Affiliates at CONCUR. We pride ourselves on our dual expertise in the substance of environmental science and policy and the process skills of negotiation and mediation.  CONCUR’s work began in 1987, and has involved all regions of the United States, as well as cases in Eastern and Central Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the South Pacific.

To complement our strong Associates, CONCUR increased its capacity and ability to field teams of highly qualified professionals by launching our Roster of Affiliates in 2010.

We have particularly deep subject matter expertise and experience in water resources and land use planning, coastal and marine resources, and public infrastructure design and implementation. Important new areas of focus are renewable energy and climate change adaptation, sustainability, ocean policy, and linking research innovation to public and private sector investment.

Scott McCreary is the Managing Principal at CONCUR, serving as senior facilitator and mediator specializing in multiparty deliberations of complex natural resource management issues. He has facilitated 100 multiparty environmental policy negotiations involving integrated water resources management, ocean and coastal management, fisheries management, transportation and urban infrastructure, and land use planning (among others) and a wide spectrum of state and federal agencies, NGOs and private organizations. Scott’s professional work focuses on finding effective ways to bring research and analysis into the environmental decision making process. He has dual experience in science and policy and in the full range of facilitation and mediation processes for collaborative resource planning and management. Scott has extensive experience in stakeholder assessment, convening, process design, and strategic planning. Building on 32 years of work as an environmental planner and 28 years of experience as a facilitator and mediator, Scott has facilitated deliberations among diverse agencies, businesses, community groups, and conservation organizations. His project experience has focused on building consensus agreement on a broad range of policies, projects, and regulations. These projects have ranged from very site-specific cases to broad policy initiatives that span multiple states and international transboundary regions.

Scott earned his PhD at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning with a focus on environmental policy and dispute resolution.   He holds a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture/Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley (emphasis on use of technical information in planning); his B.A. is from UC Santa Cruz with a double major in Environmental Planning and Biology.

Click here to view Scott McCreary’s CV.

Email: scott@concurinc.net

Bennett Brooks, Senior Affiliate  is a highly experienced practitioner who specializes in mediating and facilitating a wide range of public policy disputes. Bennett is adept at working with senior policy makers, and he puts a premium on structuring dialogues that forge understanding among parties with diverse viewpoints and backgrounds. He is teaming with CONCUR to develop new initiatives in the areas of fisheries and oceans, water resources management, food systems, and climate change adaptation.

Bennett’s work has encompassed a wide array of projects – from fisheries, water resource conflicts and transportation, to ecosystem restoration, military base reuse issues and economic development – and he has led or co-facilitated more than three dozen stakeholder dialogues ranging in length from single-day meetings to multi-year deliberations. For the past five years, Bennett has facilitated a series of consensus agreements among fishermen, conservationists, researchers, biologists and others on a suite of actions intended to reduce the incidental bycatch of marine mammals in several U.S. commercial fisheries. He has also co-facilitated a series of high-profile, high-stakes expert panels intended to resolve controversial issues related to water conservation potential, agricultural water measurement and public finance.

Bennett is based in New York City and currently works as a Senior Mediator with the Consensus Building Institute. He served as a Senior Associate with CONCUR from 1998 to 2012. Bennett is a member of both the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution’s Roster of Mediators and the Roster of Senior Mediators maintained by the Oregon Dispute Resolution Council. Bennett earned his Master’s Degree in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tufts University.

Rebecca Bryson, M.P.P.  Rebecca has played a key role in many of CONCUR’s most important cases over the past 13 years – most of them involving watersheds and water resources – and served as an instructor in over a dozen training courses. She and Scott previously co-facilitated the Guadalupe River Flood Control Project Collaborative, which produced a settlement agreement and Record of Decision to enable completion of the flood control project, restoration of salmon habitat, and creation of a major recreational corridor. She has continued to work with the group’s Adaptive Management Team to monitor the project’s impacts 10 years post-project. Rebecca also co-facilitated the Santa Clara Valley Water Resources Protection Collaborative, in which representatives from 15 cities, the county, the local water district, and several environmental NGOs jointly developed and agreed to implement a set of county-wide standards for water resource protection in the heavily developed Silicon Valley area. She co-facilitated the Clean Estuary Partnership, a partnership between the Regional Water Board, industry dischargers and several environmental groups designed to improve water quality in the San Francisco Bay. She and Scott McCreary worked together to facilitate a high-level stakeholder group in Lake Tahoe to provide input on a controversial 20-year regional land use and environmental restoration plan for this highly sensitive watershed, which spans two states and five counties. She also co-facilitated a 30+ member stakeholder group effort to advise the Port of Oakland on the on the Maritime Air Quality Improvement Plan, which was adopted by the Board of Port Commissioners. Rebecca also contributed to a project known as Sharing Water, which was aimed at building capacity in international river basin governance for the Okavango River, including three nations in Southern Africa. In addition, Rebecca co-facilitated a convening an independent scientific review process for the North Coast Regional Water Board. The project examined the relationship between timber harvesting by Pacific Lumber company and impacts on beneficial uses in five watersheds in Humboldt County impaired by logging and human settlement patterns. The results of the analysis were used to create the first Watershed Wide Waste Discharge Requirements in the state. At CONCUR, Rebecca has also developed and taught training courses on mediation, negotiation and facilitation for public audiences, PG&E, and the State and Regional Water Quality Control Boards.

Dr. Jonathan Raab, President of Raab Associates, Ltd., is an experienced mediator, facilitator, consultant, and trainer. He is a national leader in applying consensus-building processes to energy, environmental, and regulatory issues, and authored Using Consensus Building to Improve Utility Regulation (ACEEE). Dr. Raab is on both the mediation and arbitration panels for the PJM Power Pool, the mediation panel of the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool, and on the dispute resolution rosters of the US EPA and the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution.

Dr. Raab has served as lead facilitator/mediator for many cutting edge energy and environmental related stakeholder processes, including Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), New England Demand Response Initiative (NEDRI), Cape Wind Stakeholder Process, Renewable Portfolio Standard rulemakings, Energy Efficiency System Benefits Charge (SBC) Collaboratives, and the greenhouse gas stakeholder processes for Maine, City of Boston, and Rhode Island (which received US EPA’s Outstanding Climate Protection Award in 2005). Dr. Raab was the lead consultant/facilitator for Tennessee Governor Bredesen’s Energy Policy Task Force and for Alberta’s Electricity Market Participant Rules Committee. He was also retained by California to evaluate the stakeholder process used to implement its landmark Marine Life Protection Act.

Prior to starting Raab Associates, Dr. Raab was the Assistant Director of the Electric Power Division at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. He has a Ph.D. from MIT (Energy and Environmental Policy, and Resource Economics), an M.S. from Stanford’s Civil Engineering Department (Infrastructure Planning and Management), and an A.B. (distinction) in Social Sciences also from Stanford. Dr. Raab has taught the Energy Policies for a Sustainable Future course at MIT for 5 years, and has run the New England Electric Restructuring Roundtable for over 15 years. For further information, see raabassociates.org.

Peter Bluhon brings deep experience in urban planning and design, and coupled with extensive facilitation expertise to CONCUR’s Affiliate Roster. He has worked with CONCUR for 15 years on projects involving Delta water supply and habitat restoration, marine spatial planning, coastal land use planning, urban park design and programming, and university investment in climate change education and research.

In his 20 years of practice Peter has applied consensus building and negotiation principles to resolve complex urban and environmental planning projects in California and Europe. He is both a practicing urban designer and facilitator. His practice, Bluhon Collaborative Solutions, provides public involvement, facilitation, and mediation services to public agencies in site planning, land use planning, and urban development. Peter has applied his design expertise in facilitating many public design charrettes and workshops. He has also lead strategic planning sessions for city- and regional-scale policy initiatives, such as infrastructure funding and biodiversity protection. Mr. Bluhon was process designer and facilitator/mediator on a series of site-specific projects and policy initiatives – all constructed or implemented. These include a new 36-unit Habitat for Humanity affordable housing project in the municipality of Redwood City, California; design and programming of Kaiser Permanente’s new $350 million Oakland Medical Center; an $80 million sales tax initiative for multi-modal transportation funding along Highway 101 in Marin County, California. He was also engaged in process design and convening for the Danube River Strategy in Budapest Hungary, as part of the eight-nation EU Strategy for the Danube Region.

Mr. Bluhon maintains a separate landscape architecture practice. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Pomona College and a Master’s in Landscape Architecture at U.C. Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Dr. Eileen F. Babbitt is Professor of International Conflict Management Practice, Director of the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program and co-director of the Program on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Tufts University. She is also a Faculty Associate of the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School. Her research and policy interests include identity-based conflicts; coexistence and trust-building in the aftermath of civil war; and the interface between human rights concerns and peacebuilding. Her 20+ years of practice as a facilitator, mediator, and trainer has included work in the Middle East and the Balkans, and with the United Nations (UNDP, UNHCR, UNAMI), U.S. government agencies, regional inter-governmental organizations, and international and local NGOs.

Before joining the Fletcher faculty, Professor Babbitt was Director of Education and Training at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. She has also had extensive experience as a facilitator and trainer in U.S. environmental and public policy disputes, working for Endispute, Inc. on facility siting and regulatory negotiations.

Professor Babbitt’s latest publications include Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in Context: Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland (2009), co-edited with Ellen Lutz and published by Syracuse University Press; and Negotiating Self-Determination (2007), co-edited with Hurst Hannum and published by Lexington Books. Dr. Babbitt holds a a Ph.D. from MIT and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from UC Berkeley.

Michael DeLapa/DeLapa Consulting is an independent consultant who specializes in managing public and private environmental initiatives. In 2005-6 DeLapa and CONCUR collaborated on the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, which established the first network of marine protected areas in the United States. His more recent assignments include interim chief operating officer of New Leaf Paper, the leading distributor of recycled paper; interim vice president of marketing for the Cleantech Group, a cleantech research firm; and executive coach and facilitator to Mal Warwick Associates/Donordigital, an online direct marketing and fundraising firm. Previously, he helped launch and manage a number of business and nonprofit ventures, including the California Fisheries Fund, a $5M revolving loan fund to support sustainable fisheries; the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, a “community foundation” for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary; and Sea Studios Foundation, a nonprofit natural history television production organization.

Michael received his Master of Business Administration degree and Public Management credential from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and its Public Management Program. He also holds Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in biology from Stanford University. For further information, see www.mdelapa.com.