TSS CONSULTANTS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Environmental Consultant
David Augustine has over thirty years experience in environmental analysis, management, and compliance and the economic and financial analysis of electric generating facilities. He has worked for an electric utility, a natural gas utility and a number of management and environmental consulting firms. Clients worked for have included power plant developers, a residential developer, alternative electric generation developers, an engine inventor, and federal, state and local government agencies including the DOE, DOT and the California Public Utilities Commission.
Mr. Augustine was the northern California operations manager for an environmental consulting firm and supervised approximately twenty-five employees. Responsibilities included personnel acquisition, retention, and dismissal, business development, project supervision, bid preparation and supervision, and strategic planning.
Mr. Augustine was the Environmental Project Manager for the certification of two combined cycle generating facilities and one peaking power plant with the California Energy Commission (CEC). In addition to project management, he has written several sections of the CEC Applications for Certification (an EIR), including Hazardous Materials Handling, Waste Management, Land Use, Socioeconomics, Worker Safety, Alternatives, Demand Conformance, and Facility Closure.
Mr. Augustine was the project manager for preparation of a Risk Management Plan for a generating facility that stored and used anhydrous ammonia, and program manager for the analysis of pollution control projects considered by the California Pollution Control Financing Authority for financing assistance.
Frederick Tornatore is Chief Technical Officer of TSS. Mr. Tornatore has over 45 years experience in environmental management and regulatory compliance, energy development, permitting and environmental impact analyses, and technology evaluation. As a consultant, he has worked for a large array of clients in a variety of energy, industrial, commercial, and institutional areas. Clients have included firms in the fields of energy development, manufacturing, aerospace, utilities, refining, exploration and production, mining and cement, recycling and scrap metal, real estate development, law, as well as federal (DOD and DOE), state, local, and tribal governmental entities.
Mr. Tornatore has a long history of environmental and development work in the energy industry. He began this track in the early 1970's with geothermal power plant development in Northern and Southern California, along with environmental and development work in the oil, gas, and coal sectors, small hydroelectric, and biomass to energy projects.
During the 1980's, Mr. Tornatore was Manager of the Geothermal Marketing Program for the California Energy Commission. He worked on biomass, geothermal, and small hydroelectric projects during his tenure with the State of California. He also implemented state legislation that established the California Energy Technology Assessment Program at the Energy Commission, which was later incorporated into the Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program.
For the last 20 years, Mr. Tornatore has been conducting work in a wide variety of areas related to air, water, and waste management including litigation support; investigation and remediation project engineering and management; statutory and regulatory compliance; pollution prevention; waste minimization and source reduction; air and wastewater permitting; waste classification; evaluation of alternative treatment and remediation technologies; recycling; integrated waste management and landfill permitting; environmental and OSHA compliance audits; health, safety, and emergency response planning and training; air toxics reporting and RMP development; Proposition 65 compliance and listings; storm water planning; business plan and compliance program development; property assessments and site investigations; and all forms of environmental-related legislative and regulatory analyses.
Mr. Tornatore has been involved with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for nearly 50 years. Since 1974, he has managed and/or consulted on NEPA and CEQA-related studies: Initial Studies, Negative Declarations, Environmental Assessments, Environmental Impact Statements and Reports, and Findings of No Significant Impacts. Work with environmental documentation includes: on-shore and off-shore oil and gas exploration and development; large industrial facilities, such as mining, manufacturing, and refining; geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass, and cogeneration energy development; DOD and other related defense installations; large irrigation canals in the Southwest Desert; hazardous and solid waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities; California and federal Superfund sites; office, industrial park, and medical facility construction; highway and roadway expansions and realignments; large and small scale residential subdivision development; high-rise building construction; and County General Plan elements. He is currently managing the environmental impact assessment process for two industrial facilities and a biomass-to-ethanol facility.
Job Titles:
- Consulting Forester and Stewardship Project Manager
Mr. Smith has been a consulting field forester in the Stanislaus National Forest Master Stewardship Agreement with Tuolumne County, managing reforestation projects across the Stanislaus Forest within the footprint of the 2013 Rim Fire and along key transportation corridors.
Jason's background in communications and public relations have made him a key asset in establishing cross boundary and multi-agency partnerships, including working with the Pacific Forest Trust to implement conservation easements through private land adjoining California State Parks and National Forest. He has established solid working relationships with local Fire Safe Councils, National Forest and Cal Fire forestry personnel, as well as regional non-profits such as the Tuolumne River Trust.
Prior to his role in natural resource management, Mr. Smith had a successful career as a writer and photographer, covering environmental and conservation stories for international publications and NGOs. Jason received his Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Studies from Prescott College with a focus on environmental economics in mountain communities.
With a particular interest in forest economics and fire resiliency in the Wildland Urban Interface of Sierra Nevada communities, he brings extensive knowledge of the forest communities from the Stanislaus to the Inyo National Forest and is well situated to advise on projects along both the west and east slope of the Sierra.
Job Titles:
- Independent Consultant to
- Senior Environmental Analyst
Dr. Harris has over 40 years of diverse experience in forestry, environmental assessment and planning and the ecology and management of riparian vegetation and oak woodlands.
Early in his career, Dr. Harris was project manager and/or principal-in-charge for many environmental assessment and planning projects throughout California and in other western states during the period 1977-1982. These included general plans, resource management plans, environmental impact reports and statements and forest management plans. From 1982 to the present, Dr. Harris specialized in the assessment of impacts on riparian vegetation for numerous proposed and existing hydroelectric, water supply and flood control projects on streams throughout California. His projects were on the Kern River, Feather River (Oroville Project), Whitewater River, South Fork American River, Orestimba Creek, Truckee River and numerous smaller streams throughout the Sierra Nevada.
After completing his Ph.D. at Berkeley Dr. Harris taught at the University of Wisconsin and conducted research at Oregon State University. He then joined the University of California Cooperative Extension initially as Extension Forester in Humboldt County and later as Cooperative Extension Forestry Advisor and Statewide Specialist at Berkeley where he remained for over 20 years. As a University researcher and Extension educator, Dr. Harris participated in interagency committees and programs, conducted applied research (e.g., contract work with Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Department of Fish and Game, US Environmental Protection Agency, etc.), and conducted educational events for resource professionals and landowners on forest stewardship, rural road management and environmental topics.
Since leaving the University of California Dr. Harris has worked as an independent consultant to TSS Consultants and other clients. Some recent assignments at TSS have included a nation-wide evaluation of biomass energy feedstock availability and an assessment of forest conditions in three Sierra Nevada counties. He currently works on behalf of TSS as the tree mortality program manager in Amador and Calaveras Counties. His current projects with other clients include serving as a specialist on oak woodland ecology and management and wildfire management for the Placer County Conservation Plan and Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan (HCP/NCCP plans) and planning forester at the El Dorado and Georgetown Divide Resource Conservation Districts (reforestation projects, fuels treatments e.g., Fire Adapted 50, forest management plans and community wildfire management plans).
Job Titles:
- Senior Planning and Regulatory Compliance Consultant
Over a nearly forty-year national and international career, Dr. Daus has provided natural resource project identification, impact analysis, pre-implementation preparation, and field implementation oversight services to a broad spectrum of private and governmental clients. As a well- experienced practitioner, he offers clients the ability to design projects with the knowledge of the realities of getting them done in the field. Dr. Daus received both a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and Range Science (1970) and a Master of Science in Wildland Resource Science (1972) from the School of Forestry, University of California, Berkeley. He went on to receive a doctorate in Ecology (quantitative analysis of ecological systems) in 1979 from the Graduate Ecology Group, University of California, Davis, CA. In addition to the natural resource subject material, Dr. Daus carried a minor throughout his advanced studies in remote sensing applications. He is a retired California Registered Professional Forester and carried an associated archaeological survey certification. Over the last 20 years he has focused on fire and fuels hazard reduction projects, oak woodland assessments, and regulatory compliance, working with private clients, fire safe councils, resource conservation districts, special districts, county governments, and state agencies.
Tad Mason has over 43 years of experience in the fields of natural resources management, renewable energy project development, feedstock supply chain development, and forest fuels reduction. As a Registered Professional Forester, Mr. Mason has hands-on experience in all aspects of natural resources management from preparation of forest management plans, to managing forest fuels reduction projects, to advising decision makers on key policies in support of renewable energy deployment and forest fuels reduction/restoration.
Mr. Mason served as a manager of wood fuel supply with Pacific Energy (now Covanta Energy) for over 12 years. In this role, his primary duties were to develop, coordinate, procure and manage fuel supplies for biomass power generation facilities ranging in scale (generation capacity) from 12 to 50 MW. Fuel supply assessment and development utilizing a variety of woody biomass fuels (urban wood waste, agricultural residuals, and forest thinning material) were a major focus. Contract negotiation and the establishment of long-term fuel procurement agreements, including multiple year forest fuels thinning contracts and forest stewardship contracts, were an important part of the fuels procurement process. Other responsibilities included company start up, strategic long-term planning, fiscal budgeting, management of field operations and community outreach.