Discovering Realities and Choices

• Kevin Preister: Managing Director, Social Ecology Associates, Ashland OR
  
  Kevin Preister earned a doctorate in economic anthropology from the University of California at Davis and currently serves as managing director of Social Ecology Associates, an Oregon-based firm that specializes in community assessment, action programs and management training. He also works as an adjunct professor at Southern Oregon University, teaching courses in anthropology and conflict studies. For 20 years he has been involved in community assessment, impact management, and evaluation for a wide range of development projects: water, oil and gas, recreation, welfare reform, agriculture, urban re-development, and natural resource management. As a dedicated and enthusiastic instructor for BLM's National Training Center, he has been traveling to small towns throughout the West. He conducts workshops in collaborative stewardship for community restoration and is a catalyst for emerging partnerships between citizens and agencies. His special strengths are social impact management and having the ability to determine the social/cultural, economic/political and ecological factors within the community. He enjoys hiking, traveling, playing the guitar and spending time with his family.
  

• Roy Allen:Economist, BLM Wyoming State Office, Cheyenne, WY
  
  Roy Allen has more than 26 years of experience with the Bureau of Land Management. Currently he is an economist for the Wyoming state BLM office, having recently developed a model to measure both the regional impact and the impact to the individual livestock operator affected by reductions in grazing permits on BLM lands. He also worked to determine non-market values associated with management alternatives in support of planning and NEPA efforts. Prior to his present position, Dr. Allen was the supervisor for the oil and gas section in the state of Wyoming for four years. In 1986, Allen supervised a team of specialists called the Northwest Regional Evaluation Team (NRET). NRET was responsible for estimating the fair market value of solid leasable minerals and consisted of a geologist, mining engineers, economists and a minerals appraiser. The team estimated fair market value on major coal lease sales and coal exchanges. They also served as consultants on operational issues associated with mining on a case-by-case basis to assist in the NEPA requirements. Through this experience, Allen provided expert testimonial in congressional hearings and high profile court cases. Allen's interest in teaching began while working on his PhD in Economics at Colorado State University when he acted as both a teaching and research assistant.
  

• Andrew Klotz: Executive Director, RPI Consulting, Durango, CO
  
  Mr. Klotz serves as RPI's Executive Director and has critical experience working with a variety of progressive city governments including Boulder and Aspen, Colorado. Mr. Klotz's understanding of the occasionally complex political dynamics of rural and resort mountain locales has been refined by his work with a rural Colorado economic development district and extensive consulting for dozens of small mountain communities. Mr. Klotz has experience developing fiscal impact analysis, impact fee support studies, economic base analysis, transfer of development rights, commercial market analysis, cost of living reports, demographic profiling, collaborative surveys, annexation planning, growth management analysis, and regional wage and labor analysis. He is proficient with GIS and a range of other analytical software. Mr. Klotz graduated with honors from the University of Colorado, Denver with a Masters in Public Administration and a focus on local government /land use policy analysis.

• Gabe Preston: Senior Analyst, RPI Consulting, Durango, CO
  
  Serving as RPI's Senior Analyst, Mr. Preston maintains an extensive educational and professional background in both long-range and current technical planning services and analysis. His specialties include survey-based studies, G.I.S. mapping and analysis, economic and demographic analysis, fiscal impact analysis and technical analysis for sub-area comprehensive planning. Preston recently published two highly regarded reports (Construction Workforce Dynamics & Post-Construction Work Force Dynamics) that established a statistical and fiscal basis for evaluating the employment implications of luxury residential development in rural and resort areas. Mr. Preston's extensive experience in land use planning and regional economics in the context of local decision making makes him especially suited for conducting a range of analyses in small towns and rural counties struggling with land use issues. Mr. Preston graduated with a Masters of Art's from the University of Colorado at Boulder department of geography, with a focus on rural geography and second home development in the resort context.