Expert Environmental Consulting

William Kleindl, PhD, Professional Wetland Scientist (PWS) certification #1695, President of Naiad Aquatic Consultants (NAC), LLC: NAC, based in Bozeman, MT, has been in business since 2006. Dr. Kleindl (Bill) is the sole proprietor of NAC and has more than 30 years of academic and consulting experience within public and private sectors in the science, policy, and management of aquatic environments, working for state, tribal, and federal agencies throughout the United States. Bill has managed multi-consultant teams to provide client services, including policy development, permit assistance, mitigation design and monitoring, and natural resources construction monitoring, to ensure permit compliance. He has developed and conducted ecosystem assessments of the integrity, function, and condition of aquatic invertebrates, instream habitats, vegetation, soil, erosion, and hydrology in multiple aquatic and upland systems at various assessment scales. Currently, he is developing a rapid assessment tool for ecosystem services in wetlands for the EPA. He has worked with multi-consultant teams to assess and manage degraded aquatic systems at site scales, leveraging his extensive field experience, as well as at regional scales through his extensive remote sensing experience. NAC has performed regulatory wetland delineation or determination on over 1,200 square miles of land in Alaska, Washington, California, New York, and Florida. Throughout his career, he has collected and analyzed physical and biotic data on over 300 miles of wadeable streams and 150 miles of large rivers in the United States. Dr. Kleindl has taught wetland ecology and delineation classes since the 1990s and served as the former President of the Society of Wetland Scientists (2022-2023). Through his position at Montana State University, his research and teaching focus on assessment and management questions that address combined anthropogenic and natural disturbances and how these drive aquatic structure, function, and services. His career has consistently aimed to provide a straightforward analysis of ecological data, facilitating its translation for management applications that address tangible problems at the intersection of natural and human environments.

Mark Rains, PhD, PWS # 1299 – Vice President of Coshow Environmental, Inc: Mark Rains is the Vice President of CEI and is also a Professor of Geology at the University of South Florida and the Chief Science Officer for the State of Florida. He earned a BA in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from the University of California, San Diego, and an MS in Forest Resources from the University of Washington, where he studied the hydrologic controls on plant distributions in beaver swamps in the Cascade Mountains. He then worked as an environmental consultant in the Puget Sound region, specializing in the application of the Clean Water Act and its state and local equivalents, including providing permit assistance, conducting functional assessments, and implementing compensatory mitigation. This led him to develop an increased interest in hydrology, and he earned a PhD in Hydrologic Sciences from the University of California, Davis, where he studied the hydrological and ecological effects of reservoir management. As a Professor at the University of South Florida, his research is focused on how water flows from ridges-to-reefs and controls the structure and function of the ecosystems with which it interacts along the way, and how this knowledge can inform water-related law, policy, and decision-making. As the Chief Science Officer, he is charged with ensuring that science underlies sound environmental policy and protection, especially as related to water-quality protection and flood resilience. As President of CEI, he specializes in technical assistance and expert witnessing in both federal and state actions, especially as they relate to the protection of natural resources. He is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including receiving three Scientific and Technological Achievement Awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and being elected a Fellow in the Society of Wetland Scientists.

Jason Schilling, MS – Principal of Kestrel UAS Services (KUS) – Kestrel UAS Services was founded in 2024 by Jason Schilling, a photogrammetrist and remote sensing specialist. Jason is a wildlife biologist and remote sensing specialist with expertise in providing high-accuracy, small-scale photogrammetric and lidar data for restoration, asset management, construction, and long-term monitoring projects. He has over 19 years of experience with remote sensing projects and 12 years of experience in UAS-derived photogrammetry and LiDAR, across the northwest with tribal, state, federal, and local land management agencies. He collaborates with land survey companies to deliver precise geospatial data for a diverse range of projects. Jason specializes in detecting changes in riparian and upland areas with digital terrain models, point clouds, contours, and orthophotomosaics.