Greater Sacramento
As a Senior Director at Kearns & West, I design collaborative decision-making, conflict resolution, and public outreach and engagement processes related to water operations and supply, water quality, habitat restoration and endangered species issues, flood risk, and wastewater. Depending on the client needs, I provide facilitation, mediation, strategic guidance, and/or process support services. I've worked with local, state, and federal agencies, both internally and in multi-agency contexts, and executed outreach to a wide range of public organizations and individuals. Two areas I particularly enjoy: helping stakeholders utilize evolving science and modeling in their decision-making, including exploring how to address scientific uncertainties and associated risk in their short- and long-term planning and policymaking; and supporting the design, piloting, and refinement of governance to support multi-agency groups in effectively coordinating and collaborating.
Terra facilitates collaborative stakeholder processes and negotiations related to water operations and supply, hydropower, water quality, habitat restoration and endangered species issues, flood risk, and wastewater. Her aim is to design and support forums that foster meaningful dialogues between diverse parties. She has worked with a wide range of interested parties, including local, state, and federal agencies (both internally and in multi-agency contexts), members of the public, and NGOs throughout California, Oregon, and on the Colorado River. She specializes in helping a groups develop implementable, science-based solutions that offer mutual benefits. She also enjoys helping these groups evaluate their governance needs and design frameworks responsive to those interests and capable of delivering on a broader community vision.
Terra executed distinct LTER and NCEAS communications strategies using both traditional and social media: for LTER, she improved intra-network communication, elevating site research to a Network-level to encourage collaboration and synthesis opportunities. For NCEAS, she highlighted their research and mission’s relevancy to outside audiences. Updated websites in Drupal and Wordpress. Supervised student communications interns, teaching them NCEAS & LTER style, HTML, InDesign, & Photoshop.
Over the course of 100+ interviews with industry experts, INGRAIN team developed a business model in which brewery waste is transformed into sustainable packaging and marketing solutions. Spent grain packaging enables microbreweries with limited marketing to effectively message their commitment to sustainability. Team established requirements for profitability and quantified environmental improvements of new production process as compared to traditional paperboard production. Received Elings Prize at UCSB New Venture Competition; finalists in San Diego State Lean Model Competition.
Researched and drafted a paper on the conservation implications of climate change on global wine-growing regions.
Terra supported the development of a countywide long-term master plan encompassing water supply, watershed stewardship, and flood control, assisting in defining goals and key strategies for reaching them, facilitating stakeholder breakout groups, integrating new ideas, and drafting factsheets on the central master plan elements for public distribution.
Created targeted plans to help students approach difficult subjects; marked improvement in students’ grades & confidence.