HUTCHINSON ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES - Key Persons
Andrea is a senior scientist with over 25 years of experience in ecology and environmental science. Her love for adventure and curiosity about the natural world leads Andrea to conduct research on a wide range of taxa (from amphibians to birds to insects to whales) in a wide variety of arctic, temperate and tropical locations around the world. Andrea specializes in environmental impact assessment, invasive species management, and species at risk/biodiversity conservation.
Andrea brings a multidisciplinary perspective to her work, with extensive experience bridging the gap between science and policy. As a detail-oriented person, Andrea is skilled at thoroughly researching and analyzing issues, synthesizing complex technical information and distilling it down to the key messages and solutions in plain language. She regularly applies this expertise in jurisdictional scans, identification of best management practices and peer review.
Beyond work, Andrea enjoys getting out into nature, travelling, swimming, skiing and yoga. She also keeps busy running around after her two teenage boys.
Job Titles:
- Principal and Senior Aquatic Scientist
Since 2008, Brent has worked from Muskoka as an environmental consultant on projects throughout Canada. He's focused his career on land development, mining, wastewater assimilation and lake management with a balance between guiding private parties through the regulatory environment and providing regulating agencies and Indigenous organizations with expertise and third-party reviews.
Brent offers focused expertise on water quality, aquatic ecology and fisheries. He's well-versed in all project phases and environmental policy, and is as comfortable in chest waders collecting data as he is managing large project teams.
In his free time, Brent coaches youth basketball and explores the lakes of central Ontario with his young family.
Job Titles:
- Administrator / Office Administration / Corporate Administration
Job Titles:
- Environmental Scientist & Technician
Job Titles:
- Principal and Senior Environmental Scientist
David has extensive experience conducting contaminant assessments of complex aquatic environments. Since 2004, he's assessed and remediated some of Canada's most challenging and acutely contaminated environments, cleaned up spills, and managed trace-level contaminants, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, southern Ontario to the Arctic.
David helps his clients with his thorough knowledge of contaminant behaviour, an incredibly high standard of professionalism and care, genuine concern for their interests, and a dash of good humour. David is particularly well-known for his practical, reliable environmental solutions, sound advice, and successfully bringing new risk management concepts to regulators that oversee oil and gas, hydropower, mining and urban development.
Deborah is a Senior Aquatic Scientist with 17 years of experience in environmental consulting. She has conducted and managed many projects including: nutrient modelling studies, assimilative capacity studies, environmental impact studies, and lake assessment and management plans.
She is proficient in the synthesis and interpretation of surface water quality data, the use of CORMIX and Qual2K to model dispersion and assimilation of wastewater in rivers, the design of large surface water quality monitoring programs, and assessing the response of the aquatic environment to anthropogenic activities. She is a capable project manager and has managed, provided technical direction and served as a technical lead on many projects.
When she's not at work, Deborah enjoys spending time with her husband and kids, extended family and friends. She loves travelling, whether that's cottaging in the summer, heading out with her kids on a camping trip, or adventuring to a warm destination like Panama, Roatán or Costa Rica. She's even brushing up on her Spanish to assist with future travels!
Dr. Neil Hutchinson became passionate about environmental science as a teenager and coupled its emergence as a discipline with his personal attraction to water and Canadian geography. Having worked on water quality from Newfoundland to BC and from southern Ontario to Nunavut, he considers himself fortunate to have taken part in the great strides made in environmental management over his 45-year (and counting!) career as a summer student, graduate student, government scientist, consulting scientist and finally managing his firm of dedicated, likeable and talented individuals.
His professional career has focused on pollutants and stressors of aquatic systems, with a focus extending from geochemical to laboratory to whole-watershed levels of investigation and a specialization in Precambrian Shield systems. He's a stickler for clarity in thought and writing. He always strives to serve clients with sound and objective advice and creative feasible solutions. He has worked at the highest levels of peer review, providing input to all levels of the environmental assessment process, provided evidence to the Senate of Canada and served three three-year terms on Grant and Scholarship Selection Panels of Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
His off-work time finds him messing about in canoes, kayaks or sailboats, skiing and performing music as a flutist or in his alter ego as "Singer-Songwriter-Scientist", performing his original and Canadian folk music (Recordings are available!).
Job Titles:
- Junior Environmental Scientist
Jo-Anne is a Senior Aquatic Scientist with over 30 years of experience working as a consultant and specializing in aquatic ecology and project management. Over the years, Jo-Anne has acquired expertise in the effects of land use activities on fisheries, habitat enhancement and creation techniques and has been responsible for the completion of numerous aquatic habitat restoration plans. She has provided fisheries input to development projects including identifying areas of constraints and opportunities, negotiating habitat compensation measures, creating habitat and providing mitigative measures to resolve impacts. These projects have included procurement of permits and approvals, water quality studies and fish habitat monitoring studies.
In recent years, Jo-Anne has focused on project management, acting as a liaison between private sector proponents and public regulators. This role has included providing expert witness testimony at the Ontario Municipal and Ontario Land Tribunal. She has worked with clients to resolve legislative issues, with a focus on ensuring compliance with the federal Fisheries Act, the provincial Endangered Species Act and related policies, as well as permitting and approvals processes for government agencies of all levels.
Outside of work, Jo-Anne enjoys cycling, running, kayaking and cross country skiing. She spends a lot of time in the woods with her two large dogs keeping them fit and exercised.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Senior Aquatic Scientist
Richard is an aquatic scientist specializing in aquatic toxicology, resource development, environmental assessment and indigenous traditional knowledge. His experience in consulting stretches across the provinces and throughout all three of Canada's territories. This works out well for him since he got into environmental consulting hoping to find his way up to Canada's Arctic!
Richard has worked for consultants, governments, non-governmental organizations, industry, and Indigenous Groups. This range of clients - and exposure to mining, development and industrial projects in multiple jurisdictions - has given him insight into environmental monitoring and management from many perspectives.
His technical expertise and years spent working on varied projects across Canada has given him the experience necessary to supervise, coordinate and manage multidisciplinary teams of consultants in large-scale research programs and other projects for his clients.
Richard loves to lead a life of adventure outdoors. Whether it's backcountry canoe camping, downhill skiing through glades, bicycle touring around islands or exploring on runs in any of Canada's provinces and territories, Richard brings energy, enthusiasm and skill to all his adventures and projects.
Sarah is a Senior Aquatic Scientist with 14 years of experience working as an aquatic ecologist and environmental consultant. She has worked on a wide variety of projects including land development, lake management studies, environmental baseline studies, Environmental Effects Monitoring programs and renewable energy. Sarah specializes in Environmental Impact Studies, Aquatic Ecology and Species at Risk permitting and enjoys all aspects of field work including fish community surveys, aquatic habitat assessments, water quality monitoring, and anything from a boat.
Sarah provides expertise in all project phases from field work to project management and study design to policy review. She has worked closely with clients and agencies to navigate the regulatory approvals process under the Endangered Species Act, Fisheries Act and Conservation Authorities Act.
Outside of work Sarah enjoys spending time with her family, curling in the winter, gardening and growing food for her family and exploring the outdoors either by camping, canoeing, or hiking.