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Staff

Principal

Daniel J. Grosse
(B.S., Natural Resources, University of Michigan; M.S., Ph.D., Fisheries Biology, University of Washington) is co-founder and president of TerrAqua. His recent focus has been aquaculture and agriculture development. He has developed farming studies and projects for clients ranging from small, distressed traditional communities to a Fortune 500 company. These projects often encompass cultural, environmental and economic preservation. Earlier, he advised clients—government agencies, environmental law firms, universities, Fortune 500 companies—on sustainable development issues, and on the fate and transport of environmental contaminants and assessment of ecological and human health risks in marine and aquatic ecosystems. He developed a conference series on marine pollution effects on fisheries and ecosystems, and its significance to environmental managers. He evaluated global climate change, international ocean issues, water quality issues, coastal protection, aquaculture and the fishing industry at the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Navy. He has worked as a farmer on Israeli agricultural collectives, and currently grows oysters commercially in Chincoteague, Virginia. He is also a senior associate with the Arlington, VA-based Ocean Associates, Inc., a NOAA Fisheries contractor, and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College Graduate Program in Environmental Management.

Consultants

Anthony D. Battaglia
(B.S., Psychology, Tufts University; MBA, Finance, Columbia University) is a principal of ADB Capital LLC in Aspen, Colorado, an investment vehicle that provides growth-stage funding and mentoring to small businesses, and a Partner with The Partnering Group, a global consultancy providing operational and strategic services to consumer product marketers, retailers and wholesalers. From 1985 until 2000 he held Executive Vice President and President (of Diversified Foods) positions with Chiquita Brands International and became chief architect of the Company's diversification strategy with full P&L, balance sheet and development responsibilities for the Company's principal non-banana activities. He started his career at Chiquita as EVP, Worldwide Banana Sales, Marketing, Quality and Technology. Prior to joining Chiquita, Mr. Battaglia held senior management positions with The Direct Marketing Group (the country's largest independently owned direct-response advertising agency), General Host Corporation (a highly diversified food, agriculture, hospitality and specialty retailing Fortune 500 Company) and Arthur Young and Company.

Robert S. Kallen
(B.A., History and Economics, University of Illinois; M.A., Economics, J.D., Washington University) provides expertise and capital to small and growing companies, especially in the food and agriculture sectors. From 1984 to 1992 he was Vice President of Operations and General Counsel for Bake-Line Products, Inc., a private-label cookie manufacturing company with national distribution, 900 employees and annual sales of over $100 million. Mr. Kallen was also a staff attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, specializing in antitrust and consumer protection issues, and at the Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest. He currently is Secretary-Treasurer of the Concord Coalition Citizens' Council (a not-for-profit organization dedicated to deficit reduction), an executive board member of ACCION Chicago (a nonprofit microlender) and an adjunct professor of law and economics at DePaul University and the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management in Chicago, where he received the 2002 Distinguished Faculty Award. He served on the 1992 Clinton/Gore transition team for economics, and has served on numerous boards and advisory boards including, most recently, GreatSchool, NativeArtNet and Kim and Scott's Gourmet Pretzel Company. In 2002, Mr. Kallen was awarded the Rockefeller Next Generation Leadership Fellowship.

Richard C. Karney
(B.S., Biological Sciences, Rutgers University) has been the Shellfish Biologist and Director of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group, Inc., and worked with TerrAqua since 1998. Before that, he worked for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. For the past 30 years Mr. Karney has carried out a successful community-based resource development program for the commercially important shellfish species on Martha's Vineyard. Management efforts have concentrated on the development of hatchery and field aquaculture methods for shellfish and the operation of the Nation's first public solar shellfish hatchery. In the mid 1990's, with a $500,000 National Marine Fisheries Service grant, Mr. Karney conducted a shellfish aquaculture retraining program for fishermen displaced by fishing closures on Georges Bank. He is currently helping these fishermen to market their cultured oysters. In 2001, Mr. Karney was awarded the Gulf of Maine Visionary Award by the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment in part for demonstrating "that shellfish aquaculture can be an environmentally and economically sustainable activity for coastal communities." Mr. Karney is a past Vice President of the National Shellfisheries Association. He has been co-chair of the Southeast Massachusetts Aquaculture Center since 2001.

Avi Koren
(B.S. Biology, Tel Aviv University; M.S., Plant Physiology, Tel Aviv University) plans, manages and builds desert aquaculture projects for super- intensive production of food and tropical ornamental fishes, prawns and microalgae. He developed integrated aquaculture and agriculture on Israeli Negev Desert farms. Mr. Koren owns and operates a greenhouse at Moshav Paran, in Israel's Negev Desert, producing premium quality red, yellow and orange bell peppers exported to the U.S. market. He has been a consultant on aquaculture and agriculture development in Southeast Asia, Africa, the U.S. and Latin America. For many years he was a biologist, and later research director, of the Arava R & D Center Aquaculture Research Station, in Ein Yahev, Israel.

Dorothy L. Leonard
(B.S., Political Science, Maxwell School at Syracuse University) is an internationally recognized aquaculture and shellfish restoration expert. She was most recently an environmental analyst for the National Marine Fisheries Service, where she served on the U.S. Department of Commerce Aquaculture Steering Committee. She co-chaired, with USDA, a Joint Subcommittee on Aquaculture study of aquaculture effluents, and is co-author of EPA's 'Nutrient Criteria for Coastal and Marine Waters'. She spent two years as Director of Fisheries in Maryland where she developed an Oyster Restoration Program for Chesapeake Bay and began an oyster culture program for Smith Island watermen. For six years she has co-chaired the International Conference on Shellfish Restoration, and for 15 years served as Program Manager for the 'National Shellfish Register of Classified Estuarine Waters'. Her background is in coastal management and land use planning.

Una McGeough
(B.S., Biology, McGill University; M.E.M., Duke University, Environmental Management) served as Executive Director of the Cleveland-based nonprofit organization Sustainable Energy for Economic Development from 1995 to1998. She has a background in water quality and watershed management, decision theory applications to resource management and experience in analyzing atmospheric deposition of air pollutants and developing public education and outreach programs. Una is currently working on a contract basis with Conservation Consultants Inc. and EC/R Incorporated.

Barry M. Posin
(A.B., A.M., Chemistry, Harvard University; M.A, Ph.D., Chemistry, Princeton University) is an independent education consultant and veteran educator. He was a professor at Mississippi University for Women, teaching undergraduate courses in organic and inorganic chemistry, and introductory courses in chemistry and physics. He also designed and taught a new course in environmental science. He headed the university's Science and Mathematics Division for two years, during which time he involved a diversity of stakeholders—students, faculty, staff, outside planners—in the decision-making process on issues ranging from how building renovation affects education to high-profile, politically sensitive hiring decisions. He served on the university's Honors Committee for several years as well. He was on the chemistry faculty of Montclair State College in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Prior to entering academia, he studied organometallic catalysts and inorganic materials, as a chemist at SRI International, in Menlo Park, CA and, before that, as a postdoctoral fellow at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Posin has also served as a National Science Bowl judge and coordinator.

Jennifer E. Purcell
(B.S., M.S., Biology, Stanford University; Ph.D., Biological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara) is a Marine Scientist at the Shannon Point Marine Center of Western Washington University. She was formerly a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and a post-doc at the University of Victoria. She has extensive research experience in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, focusing on jellyfish as predators and competitors of fishes and the causes of jellyfish blooms, for which she has obtained more than $2 million in federal grants. Her work also has dealt with environmental problems associated with introduced species, eutrophication and hypoxia. She has published 57 refereed scientific articles, and served as an editor of a leading marine journal as well as of two books, Zooplankton: Sensory Ecology and Physiology (1996), and Jellyfish Blooms: Ecosystem and Societal Importance (2001). She has given numerous presentations at international conferences, as well as at schools (pre-K to college) and to the public. She has taught courses on various topics in oceanography and in career development.

Robert R. Stickney
(B.S., Zoology, University of Nebraska; M.A., Zoology, University of Missouri; Ph.D., Oceanography, Florida State University) is former director of the Texas Sea Grant College Program and is a professor emeritus in the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University. Previous academic positions include University of Washington's School of Fisheries, Texas A&M University's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Southern Illinois University's Fisheries Research Laboratory, and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. A fellow at the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists and Past President of the World Aquaculture Society, he has published well over 100 refereed scientific articles; numerous abstracts, technical and magazine articles; and over 20 books and book chapters, including Principles of Warmwater Aquaculture (1979), Aquaculture in Texas: a Status Report and Development Plan (1981), Estuarine Ecology of the Southeastern United States and Gulf of Mexico (1984), Culture of Salmonid Fishes (1991), Culture of Nonsalmonid Freshwater Fishes (1993), Principles of Aquaculture (1994), Fisheries: Harvesting Life From Water (1995), Aquaculture in the United States: a Historical Survey (1996), and edited the Encyclopedia of Aquaculture (2000). He co-edited Responsible Marine Aquaculture in 2002 and is currently the editor-in-chief of World Aquaculture, the magazine of the World Aquaculture Society, and editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Reviews in Fisheries Science.

Richard M. Strickland
(B.S., Biological Oceanography, University of Michigan, M.S., Biological Oceanography, University of Washington) is an oceanographer at the University of Washington and a freelance scientific writer and editor. He formerly worked as a researcher in the UW school of Fisheries and as a science writer and press officer for the Washington Sea Grant Program. He is the author of books on the oceanography of Puget Sound and the Washington coast, and of technical reports and articles on the potential impacts of climate change on marine fisheries. He worked as writer and editor for the British Columbia-Washington Marine Science Panel, a scientific body appointed to advise the provincial and state governments on pollution problems and research in the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound. He has also edited numerous scientific documents, including the proceedings of large conferences such as Puget Sound Research '98 and Fisheries, Habitat, and Pollution '97.

Richard L. Tysor
(B.A., Economics, Vanderbilt University; M.S. Business and Financial Management, Johns Hopkins University) is Executive Director of Academic Administration at Stetson University. Previously, Mr. Tysor was Executive Director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Program Management for Duke University, Assistant Dean for Business and Finance at the University of North Carolina’s School of Public Health, Assistant Director of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute’s Center of Marine Biotechnology, in business management positions at Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, and in major industry and charitable organizations. He has over 20 years of experience in administration, proposal development and grant administration, business operations management and analysis, and strategic planning with academic, military, for profit and not-for profit organizations. He recently consulted on the multi-state Blue Crab Replenishment program for the Chesapeake Bay, and to update the Center of Marine Biotechnology’s recirculating marine aquaculture business/technology plan. Mr. Tysor has worked with TerrAqua since 2003, initially as a client and, after the University of Maryland, as a consultant on aquaculture-related projects.

Geri E. Unger
(B.S., Natural Resources, University of Michigan; M.Sc., Environmental Biology, Hebrew University) currently is Executive Director of the Society for Conservation Biology. She also serves on the board of the Friends of Israel's Environment (Israel Union of Environmental Defense), the Doan Brook Watershed Council (Cleveland, OH) and the Visiting Committee for the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Ms. Unger was president of TerrAqua, which she co-founded with Daniel Grosse in 1996. She has worked extensively at the intersection of environmental issues, educational reform and economic development, including directing the Funders' Forum on Environment and Education, where she ran a national healthy-schools-by-design campaign. Prior, she was director of education and research at the the Cleveland Botanical Garden, and also worked at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, the New England Aquarium, and projects for the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Heinz Endowments and the Joyce Foundation. She was Program Officer for Environmental Quality for the George Gund Foundation from 1988 to 1992. Ms. Unger has taught ecology and environmental studies, and designed exhibits and materials for science and children's museums. She has conducted research on arid-region agriculture, public health effects of agricultural pesticides, and fishpond management.

Research assistants

David Farkas
(B.A. Economics, St. Mary's College of Maryland, M.S., Economic Policy Analysis, University of Maryland Baltimore County) is currently a revenue policy analyst for the Maryland Bureau of Revenue Estimates. He worked as a research technician at the Morgan State University Estuarine Research Center in St. Leonard, MD on an economic feasibility study of small-scale oyster aquaculture for local watermen. He provided budget management of the oyster aquaculture feasibility study and drafted a grant proposal for future aquaculture work. He assisted with projects including shoreline biodiversity sampling, and the Maryland Department of Natural Resource's 2010 Blue Crab Survey. Mr. Farkas also studied agricultural production and food security in the Gambia, West Africa in 2008.

Christina Pepper
(B.A. International Relations, American University) currently owns and operates Pepper’s Pastries in Lower Faversham, England. Previously, she provided research assistance for several Washington, DC for-profit and non-profit organizations. She worked with TerrAqua on an aquaculture feasibility study for the Town of Southampton, New York. Ms. Pepper has also studied and worked with community development projects in Europe, West Africa and Asia. From 1999 to 2001, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, she established an independent theatre troupe with the National Puppet Theatre of Bukhara, to expand the tourism industry and facilitate cultural exchange, and taught English. She has also worked for the Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.