Dr. Joseph Fiksel is Vice President of Battelle's Life Cycle Management group, which helps clients achieve both sustainability and profitability by incorporating life cycle thinking into their business processes. Currently, this group is leading a major project sponsored by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, called Toward a Sustainable Cement Industry. Dr. Fiksel has over 20 years of consulting experience in a variety of industries, including chemicals, electronics, automobiles, consumer products, and energy. Previously he was the founding director of the Decision and Risk Management group at Arthur D. Little, Inc.

Dr. Fiksel holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University, a graduate degree in applied mathematics from La Sorbonne in Paris, and a bachelor's degree in Electrical Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a recognized expert in environmental risk analysis, he has testified before Congressional and White House committees. He has published extensively and is the principal author and editor of Design for Environment: Creating Eco-Efficient Products and Processes, distributed worldwide by McGraw-Hill. Dr. Fiksel has been active in a number of professional organizations, including the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO 14000 and the IEEE Committee for Environment, Health, and Safety. Currently he serves on the editorial board of the Journal for Sustainable Product Design.

For more information on Dr. Fiksel's qualifications and expertise, please contact him at (614) 424-5730, fiksel@battelle.org.

Dr. Ronald Thom, who leads coastal resources research at the Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim, Wash., has over 25 years of professional experience as an algologist, wetlands ecologist, and fisheries biologist. Dr. Thom's research includes benthic primary production; the effects of pollution on nearshore marine systems; habitat construction and restoration of marine and estuarine systems; effects of climate change on estuarine systems; and ecology of fisheries resources in nearshore systems. His recent work for the Washington State Department of Transportation on the effects of ferry terminals and conditions of light, depth, and disturbance on eelgrass was selected by the Federal Highway Administration for the "Environmental Excellence Award." Earlier, Dr. Thom managed the design, planting, and monitoring on the Gog-Li-Hi-Te. The project was a 10-acre wetland constructed as mitigation by the Port of Tacoma and became a national wetlands demonstration site for the Waterways Experiment Station, U.S. Corps of Engineers. Recent programs have also included an evaluation of habitat restoration projects across the country for the Corps of Engineers Institute of Water Resources.

Dr. Thom is currently a member of the King County, Wash., Nearshore Technical Committee, which is looking at nearshore habitat and endangered species recovery issues and recommending studies of the nearshore environment to determine needed nearshore preservation, acquisition, and restoration projects. Dr. Thom has recently been appointed to the Technical Advisory team that is developing a framework to be used by the Salmon Recovery Funding Board for prioritizing nearshore and estuarine salmon habitat restoration projects. Dr. Thom also serves on the Nearshore Puget Sound Synthesis Model (PRISM) working group. The objective of PRISM is to develop and sustain a dynamic and integrated understanding and description of the environmental and societal factors that will shape the Puget Sound region as it moves into the 21st century.

For more information contact Dr. Ron Thom at (360) 681-3657, ron.thom@pnl.gov.