Conflict Resolution & the Environment: An Interview with Leslie Richards, Public Involvement Specialist
 When a public agency or private company has a development project, there are environmental rules and regulations they must follow. Sometimes these regulations, along with the design work and construction activity can be overwhelming—that is when Leslie Richards, a Public Involvement Specialist for A.D. Marble steps in to inform stakeholders about a project and get their feedback to help a project run smoothly.
Q: What does A.D. Marble & Company do?
A: We work with mostly environmental issues and are starting to get into the engineering side of projects. We work with different organizations from the state of Delaware to the United States Navy and private companies like Toll Brothers. We help clients comply with environmental standards, mainly for transportation-related projects. When appropriate, we host public open houses, public officials meetings or community meetings so that communities have a say. These meetings will typically happen between our client (DelDOT, as an example) and the communities impacted by the current project. We host these meetings because often times, without them, conflict arises and becomes more difficult to manage. Our overarching goal is to make sure that environmental issues are addressed while still successfully completing projects. We do this with a multidisciplinary staff. Our staff includes wetland specialists, environmental scientists, environmental planners, noise and air specialists, architectural historians, archaeologists, GIS and CADD technicians, and engineers. The majority of our employees has a master’s degree or is currently working toward a graduate degree.
Q: What is the history of A.D. Marble & Company?
A: Twenty years ago Anne D. Marble saw the need for an entity that would assist companies, communities, and governments with wetland delineation. She started a two-person firm that has grown to the company we are today. When A.D. Marble began, we were a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE). In Pennsylvania this means that the majority of the business is owned by a disadvantaged (in our case a woman) individual. Many projects have specific percentages of work set aside for DBEs to help “level the playing field” of DBEs and larger firms. As the company grew, we graduated from our DBE status and Ms. Marble sold the company to its employees. It has been an employee-owned business working under a board of trustees since 2002.
Q: How did you become involved in environmental work?
A: When I first started college I was not sure exactly what I wanted to do, and then I took a couple of land-use planning classes. I knew that I wanted to do planning work and went to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. Mine was actually the first class to go through its graduate program in regional planning. During this time, I also was introduced to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and enjoyed working with the applications. After I graduated, I got a job at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) working with GIS.
Q: What do you do for A.D. Marble?
A: In 2003, I decided to go back to work after being home with my kids. I wanted to work in the GIS field. I applied for the GIS position at A.D. Marble, but, after speaking to people in the company during my interview, they asked if I wanted to come in as a public involvement specialist. At that time there was no formal department, and after I was hired we started the public involvement department. What I was seeing and what we were finding is that people were upset when new transportation or building projects would come to their towns and they would have a negative effect on the project being completed. It was not that they did not want new roads or improved buildings; they wanted the chance to tell developers about their concerns and an opportunity to be heard. That was the goal of the public involvement department to ensure that people are heard so that projects can incorporate public concerns in their decision making process. I go out to the public and help with public meetings ensuring that the public who is most affected by development is heard and fully understands the project. This is where my conflict resolution skills really get utilized.
Q: Can you give an example of how you use your conflict resolution skills?
A: I have the perfect example of how conflict resolution skills were recently used. We were working with two tourists towns—one in Pennsylvania and another in New Jersey. These two towns were joined by a bridge that was in desperate need of repairs. To the untrained eye, it seemed that the people of both towns did not want the bridge fixed. However, when we held open community meetings what we found was that tourism was such a vital part of both towns’ economies that even shutting the bridge down for a few weeks in the summer would wreck havoc, possibly putting many family-owned companies out of business. The bridge needed to be fixed, and the towns agreed on that issue. They wanted to be heard on the issue of losing business with a closed bridge. We suggested that the work on the bridge be done over the winter season when the tourism for both towns was significantly less. Both towns agreed, but wanted to add a stipulation that no work be done on the weekend because even in the winter there would still be significant tourism for both towns. Although stopping the work on the bridge on the weekends during the winter would postpone the completion date into the early summer, it was a compromise the towns were willing to make. The towns and developers came to an agreement by using skills such as active listening, reframing concerns, and facilitating negotiations. My skills allowed me to be neutral in facilitating the meeting process and neutral in supporting everyone to develop an outcome through consensus building.
Q: You seem to really love your job. What do you like the most about it?
A: I like being able to collaborate with citizens and help facilitate meetings. The best part about that is coming to an agreement that satisfies both parties. At the end of the day if a major conflict can be avoided because of conflict resolution skills that I use, then I have put in a good day’s work.
I also like the environment in the office. Since we all own a small piece of the company, we have a stake and a need to see our company succeed. This means that there is more teamwork and people ensuring that everyone and the company succeed. We are family because of the team atmosphere. We get together for BBQs, happy hour events, bowling parties and other activities that many larger businesses do not do for their employees. We have become a support system for each other and there is a good camaraderie among the employees, which makes A.D. Marble a fun place to work.
Source: admarble.com.
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