From Our CEO

Sincerely yours,

 

Rhodes Robinson, CEO

Meet ESI's Forestry, Carbon & GHG Team

 

We've come a long way since the early days of verifying forestry carbon offsets under the Chicago Climate Exchange......

 

In 2005, as a Senior Project Manager for the Jacksonville, Florida Ecology Division, Janice McMahon managed a team of nine, including six degreed foresters or arborists. Janice developed a plan and was supported to promote traditional forestry and arboriculture services (i.e., management plans, prescribed burning, timber sales, tree assessments, etc.). We were still unaware of an opportunity that was coming, but we were prepared to take advantage of it through technical competency, tenacity, creative thinking, and willingness to redefine a part of our service.

 

In 2007, a client who was starting a new business developing carbon credits through forest carbon sequestration approached us and introduced ESI to the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). This chance encounter ultimately lead us into becoming a third-party validation/verification body (VVB). With three staff working full time on this effort, ESI gained VVB approval and experience for CCX, which then helped us achieve VVB approval and experience from the Verified Carbon Standard. In 2010, ESI became accredited under the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) under ISO 140675:2007 for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies at the project-level for Forestry and Land Use. ESI's Forestry, Carbon and GHG Services Division was recognized and started to develop business relationships worldwide. In 2011, ESI expanded our ANSI accreditation scope to include organizational-level verifications for Groups 1-3 and 5-9.

 

 

 

In a few short years, we have gone from what started as a phone call from a potential client in Florida to a rapidly expanding international service line offering GHG validations and verifications under 13 different Programs or Reporting Regulations (see world map below).   Currently our Forestry, Carbon and GHG Services team comprise of nine staff members located in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Oregon, and California; however, it's not often that you actually find them in their home states, let alone the U.S.

 

Click through to view the map of countries that ESI has visited (At bottom of page entitled "download attachments")>>> 

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  Meet Two of ESI's New Employees   

 

Eric Jaeschke

Eric Jaeschke is a forester/remote sensing specialist who has participated in a wide range of projects for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, including development of a watershed forest management plan for the City of New York, and various vegetation management and timber sale preparation across the country.  When asked what drew him to ESI, Eric answered "To be a part of the global movement to help curb climate change using market-based incentives. Also the opportunity to participate in challenging, complex carbon offset projects and evaluate a variety of remote sensing practices applied across the world as part of a good team."  Eric graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in Forestry, as well as a duel master's degree in Forestry from North Carolina State University and the University of Helsinki, where he spent a year in Sweden and Finland learning Scandinavian forestry practices.

Senior Scientist Guy Pinjuv's expertise lies in forest carbon growth modeling, carbon project development, forest offset project validation and/or verification, and forestry related methodology assessments. Before joining the ESI team, Guy was an Ecophysiological Modeler and Forest Economist with the Pacific Northwest Research

Guy Pinjuv

Station of the USDA Forest Service.  He was also founder of Ptarmigan Forestry and Carbon Consulting LLC where his work focused on eco-asset related strategic planning, carbon project development, and verification. When asked what drew him to ESI, Guy responded that "ESI was working on projects that made an impact on climate change.  At ESI I could be involved in laying the ground work for a new system of valuing carbon, biodiversity, community impacts, and food security as a new kind of currency."  Guy holds four degrees from three different universities:  a B.A. in Physics and a B.S. in Forestry Timber Resource Management from the University of Montana; a M.S. in Forest Economics from Northern Arizona University; a PhD in Forestry from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand where he studied hybrid eco-physiological modeling of forest growth; and he completed a post Doctorate Research Fellowship at Oregon State University in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society.    

 

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  ...ESI currently has nine offices in four states (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio)?

...ESI has 7 divisions: Archaeology, Ecology, Forestry, GIS, Site Assessment & Remediation, Stream Restoration and Carbon & Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Services?