Environmental Pollution / Emissions / Air Quality Consultants: 8

Robin D. Franks, PG, CHMM, RSO has over 30 years of relevant industry experience as a professional Geoscientist / Geologist and Certified Hazardous Materials Manager. Ms. Franks has been the President, Founding Principal, and Managing Director of TGE Resources, Inc., for over 30 years. Her specialties include Real Property Assessment and Characterization, Clean-up, and Closure in the commercial, industrial, oil and gas, and healthcare industries. 

Consulting Services Include:

• Real Property Assessment
• Industrial Compliance Auditing
• Oil and Gas Real Estate Clean-up
• Well Blow-out / Underground Storage Tank Project Management
• Redevelopment, Clean Closure Services
• Asbestos - Sick Building Management
• Lead-based Paint Management
• Industrial Hygiene / Indoor Environmental Quality - Mold / Fungus Assessment, Testing, and Remediation

Ms. Franks has been actively involved in more than 35 "merger/acquisition" projects encompassing over 750 sites nationwide. As senior Technical Advisor, she has been involved in thousands of real property investigations, many of which have involved remediation/closure projects within Texas and throughout the United States. Ms. Franks is a professional lecturer who delivers presentations and instruction throughout the United States.

View Robin Franks' Expert Witness Profile.

Ted W. Simon, PhD, DABT, is an award winning Environmental Toxicologist and Scientist. His expertise is in toxicology, risk assessment, mathematical modeling, statistics, neuroscience, and environmental / ecological health issues.

Dr. Simon has over 10 years of experience as a toxicologist employed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He served as EPA’s senior toxicologist in the waste management division working on risk and soil cleanup.

Teaching Experience - Since 2001, Dr. Simon has served as an Instructor / Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Science, College of Public Health, at the University of Georgia.

Public Speaker - Well published, including the author of a textbook on toxicology and environmental risk assessment, Dr. Simon has extensive national and international public speaking experience. Since 1996, he has been delivering seminars and lectures to universities and national institutes on many subjects within his area of expertise. In 2016, he delivered a lectures on “Bayesian Methods for Application of Uncertainty Factors,” to the Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, and “Quantitative Prediction of Phenotypic Change from High Throughput Assay Results,” to the EPA's Workshop on In Vitro to In Vivo Extrapolation, Research Triangle Park, NC.

Litigation Support - Dr. Simon has over 15 years of experience offering expert witness services to counsel representing both plaintiff and defendant. He has been retained over 20 times since 2000 for cases involving environmental risk, drug and alcohol cases, DUI, accidental poisoning, and intellectual property. Dr. Simon has particular expertise in dioxin-like chemicals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). His services include consulting, reports, deposition, and trial testimony when necessary.

Areas of Expertise:

Dioxins PCBs Drugs Alcohol Poisoning DUI / DWI Water Contamination Soil Contamination Environmental Risk Assessment

Environmental Toxicology Carcinogenicity Food Contamination Pesticides Fracking Lead Marijuana Polychlorinated Biphenyls Intellectual Property

Research & Planning Consultants, LP (RPC) has been assisting clients with expert services for over 45 years, including consulting and expert witness testimony for personal injury, healthcare litigation, commercial litigation and Certificate of Need matters. RPC also offers a wide selection of health data. They have served clients across the U.S, from Alaska to Florida and from New England to California. 

A Complete Team of Damages Experts for Personal Injury Litigation

Research & Planning Consultants, LP provides the following services: 

• PERSONAL INJURY - RPC provides comprehensive damages analysis in personal injury litigation. Their expert team has life care planners, vocational evaluators, board-certified physicians, economists and neuropsychologists. 

Areas of Expertise include: Life Care Plans, Loss of Earning Capacity or Support, Present Value of Damages, Medical Bill Analysis, Chargemaster Analysis, Neuropsychological Testing & Traumatic Brain Injury, Vocational Evaluations, IMEs, Section 18.001, Prestanding ED Chargemaster Analysis

• COMMERCIAL LITIGATION- RPC has provided expert analysis on commercial litigation concerning many industries: chemicals, refining, forestry, waste management, pipelines, water resources, oil and gas EDP, fisheries, agriculture, electrical generating plants, transmission lines, telecommunications, and real estate development. Our special expertise in the healthcare industry has proven valuable to business litigators unfamiliar with this complex industry.

Areas of Expertise: Breach of Contract / Commercial Economic Damages, Construction Disputes, Litigation over Non-Competitive Agreements, Environmental Torts and Toxic Torts, Commercial Disparagement, Wrongful Termination

• HEALTHCARE LITIGATION - RPC offers economic, statistical, data and clinical analysis in a wide range of healthcare litigation. They have experience with payment disputes, qui tam litigation, physician-hospital disputes, practice valuations and construction litigation. 

Areas of Expertise: Qui Tam Healthcare Litigation, Medical Staff Disputes, Professional Liability, Payment Disputes, Health Facility Construction Disputes, Freestanding ED Chargemester Analysis

• CERTIFICATE OF NEED - RPC provides Certificate of Need (CON) planning services nationwide. We have over 35 years of experience developing regulatory strategy, preparing applications and testifying in public and administrative hearings.

Areas of Expertise: Satellite Hospitals, New Hospitals, Relocation and Transfer of Beds, Observation Beds, Geriatric Psychiatric Units, Children’s Hospitals, Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Units, Neonatal Intensive Care Units, Open Heart Surgery Services, Long Term Acute Care Units, Projects that exceed CON Capital Threshold Limits, Projects for Specifically Listed Services, Programs Requiring CON, Hospices, Senior Living Facilities

Ronald T. Luke, JD, PhD, is a principal consultant and President of RPC, LP. Ron joined RPC in 1976 and became its president and principal owner in 1979. He has consulted on projects for health care providers, managed care plans and public agencies in more than 25 states. He also serves as an expert witness in trials, administrative proceedings and legislative hearings.

Active in the Health Policy Arena, Dr. Luke has been accepted as an expert in Economics, Socioeconomic Impact Analysis, and Policy Analysis by state and federal courts, and state administrative agencies. The types of cases in which he has provided expert testimony include personal injury, contractual disputes, health care payment disputes, construction defects, utility construction permitting, and certificate of need. He has testified on health care matters including market structure, billing fraud and abuse, reasonableness of charges, medical staff credentialing, workers’ compensation fee guidelines, utilization review, physician contracts, and managed care contracts.

Kacy L. Turner, MS, CRC, CVE, CLCP, is a Certified Life Care Planner and Vocational Consultant with RPC. She has over 20 years of experience in Rehabilitation. Ms. Turner has experience writing life care plans for both plaintiff and defense clients. She has experience as a rehabilitation consultant in three states and has been qualified as a testifying expert in state and federal court.  

Ms. Turner has worked on cases in several states as well as the country of Trinidad. To determine the pre-injury and post-injury employability in personal injury cases, she provides vocational testing, transferable skills analysis, job requirements analysis, rehabilitation plans, and definition of reasonable accommodations under the American with Disabilities Act. She is a member of the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals, the Texas Association of Rehabilitation Professionals and Providers of Services, and Vocational Evaluation and Career Assessment Professionals.

Brian Piper, PhD,  is an Economist with RPC specializing in Quantitative Analysis and Modelling. He works on a variety of cases including personal injury and certificate of need. He is experienced in data extraction, management, simulation, and analysis using STATA, SQL, ARC GIS and a variety of other programs. Dr. Piper has taught graduate classes in statistics and econometrics in both MBA and Ph.D. programs.

Dr. Piper is an experienced expert, providing testimony, reports, and affidavits on the issues of economic damages in personal injury litigation, healthcare litigation, False Claims Act litigation, and other commercial litigation. He has testified on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants. 

Dr. Piper specializes in the economics of healthcare. He has been retained by healthcare providers and insurers in payment disputes. He has analyzed the reasonableness of charges and expected payment for past and future medical services for providers, insurers, plaintiffs, and defendants. Besides work in litigation, Dr. Piper has provided analysis of Certificate of Need applications and the economic impacts of proposed legislation.

Dr. Dennis Stainken has over 30 years of Industrial and Government experience managing Pollution Control and Hazardous Waste Projects. His experience includes assignments in engineering, analytical and toxicology sciences for regulatory compliance, product registration, risk assessment, technology development.

Dr. Stainken is a national expert in Environmental Toxicology & Ecological Research on the transport, fate and effect of pollutants, and in quality assurance in government and industry.

Areas of Expertise:

Health Effects Toxicology Chemical Exposure Health Issues/Physiology/Chemistry Water & Waste Water Ecological Services Contamination & Remediation Analytical Chemistry

Natural Resource Damage Assessments Property Assessments Hazardous Waste Water Quality Risk Assessment Wetlands Industrial Services Gasoline & Oil Issues

Nancy M. McClellan, MPH, CIH, CHMM, is an award winning, Industrial Hygiene and Safety expert with over 25 years of broad international experience practicing, teaching and authoring to anticipate, recognize, evaluate, control and prevent workplace health and safety hazards in high hazard industries.

Ms. McClellan is domestically and internationally recognized for leadership service to the IH profession for the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH), the Occupational Hygiene Training Association (OHTA) and the Joint Industrial Hygiene Ethics Education (JIHEEC) Boards of Directors and Committees. She currently serves on the AIHA Executive Board of Directors.

Background Experience:

Technical

• Planned and carried out evaluation and exposure assessment of global drug supply management resulting in >55% reduction in respiratory personal protective equipment in clinical packaging operations. Completed initiative resulted in potential total reduction of >70% respiratory protection equipment as new engineering controls were implemented and evaluated for controlling pharmaceutical dust.
• Developed and executed strategy for assessing potential IDLH chemical release during missile destruction testing. Outcome enabled missile scientists to safely enter the test site and collect time-critical data.
• Provided expert witnessing to nationally profiled, occupational health cases in multiple states.
• Executed reduction of >70% respiratory personal protective equipment for potent compound isolators as result of statistical analysis of occupational hygiene data, saving time and materials and eliminating need to transport active pharmaceutical ingredients between facilities.
• Identified and addressed the mysterious source of staphylococcus biohazard in canning industry to address epidemic and prevent further widespread infections among workers.

Management

• Developed and instituted IH programs through effective change management process, impacting 85 countries, increasing engineering control implementation and reducing need for quantitative-evaluation consulting services by over 20%.
• Planned and executed highly potent (HPAPI) compound containment risk assessment and management strategy, achieving 50% improvement in potent compound containment across global manufacturing in 5 years, fully engaging engineering, operations and EHS communities in reaching goal.
• Designed sustainable industrial hygiene risk assessment strategy and tools, addressing prioritization of industrial hygiene goals and resources, resulting in 32% increase in manufacturing site exposure assessments and global program engagement.
• Reviewed, planned, and prepared EHS response to Statement of Work for TPMs, required for first trial as third-party manufacturer in clinical supply operations, leading team in completing multiple rounds of production of highly potent compound for other major pharmaceutical companies in collaboration with global pharmaceutical operations in high-containment facility.

Training

• Served as volunteer leader for past 9 years for globally-endorsed Occupational Hygiene Training Association (OHTA) for development and proliferation of free, public-domain training modules, collaborating in creating module materials taught in over 55 countries and officially training over 8000 students regarding OH technical skills to universally impact and grow occupational hygiene profession.
• Directly addressed IH competency in global corporations by implementing training curriculum, impacting over 100 health and safety staff by providing endorsed training materials and tools for manufacturing-site-level industrial hygiene programs.

Good Morning America Interview Link

View Nancy McClellan's Expert Witness Profile.

Dr. David L. Mitchell is an authority on the Numerical Modeling of Geophysical and Atmospheric Data with a Doctorate in Meteorology from Purdue University. Dr. Mitchell has over 28 years of technical modeling experience in industry and consulting.

Dr. Mitchell is a Court Qualified Expert in Air Modeling and Forensic Meteorology. His business experience includes various research, project management and technical consulting positions with Conoco, Getty Oil Company, Texaco, Tenneco, British Petroleum, Leviathan Gas Pipeline LLP and IBM Corporation.

Dr. Mitchell has extensive knowledge of Forensic Meteorology and has published his research results on the numerical modeling of atmospheric stability and convection. Dr. Mitchell is an expert in the field of Air Pollution Meteorology with over 28 years of experience with the mathematical modeling of wave propagation in elastic media, atmospheric fluid dynamics and air dispersion modeling.

Dr. Mitchell is a specialist in Weather Event Re-Construction for litigation and has provided expert testimony for numerous cases related to severe weather events and the application of Force Majeure clauses. He has provided forensic meteorology support for civil and criminal investigations and insurance cases involving weather related accidents, the release of toxic pollutants into the air, air pollution and weather related personal injury and property damage.

He is a member of the Air and Waste Management Association, the American Meteorological Society and the National Association of Environmental Professionals. Dr. Mitchell is also an Associate Member of the American Bar Association with affiliation with the Litigation Division and is a Certified Professional Geoscientist and a Licensed Professional Geoscientist (#1330) in the State of Texas, Certified by the Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists.

Degrees

Ph.D., Atmospheric Science and Meteorology, Purdue University 1976

M.S., Physics, Purdue University 1974

B.S., Physics and Mathematics (Dean’s Distinguished List), Baylor University 1972

Dissertation: A Theoretical Investigation of Atmospheric Convective Modes as a Function of Rayleigh Number, Prandtl Number and Eddy Anisotropy; 1977, Meteor. Soc. Japan, Vol. 55, No. 4, 341 – 363.

Certification and Honors

Court Qualified Expert in Air Modeling and Forensic Meteorology

Certified Professional Geoscientist, Licensed Geoscientist – Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists

Associate of the Scientific Research Society of North America

Sigma Pi Sigma, National Physics Honors Society

Distinguished Expert, National Forensic Center

Howard M. Kipen MD, MPH, is Board certified in Internal Medicine and Occupational Medicine. Dr. Kipen earned a BA from UC Berkeley, MD from UCSF, and MPH from Columbia University. He currently serves as Director of the Clinical Research and Occupational Medicine Division and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at Rutgers University. Dr. Kipen’s research focuses on clinical and epidemiological studies of the health effects of Indoor and Ambient Air Pollution. His research uses both controlled exposure models with ozone, fresh aerosols, and diesel-enriched on-road exposures, primarily with drives on the New Jersey Turnpike. A new EPA study examines health benefits of portable air cleaners for reducing indoor air pollution levels. Biomarker outcomes presently emphasized are exhaled breath oxidative stress and invasive and noninvasive measures of vascular function. Dr. Kipen has published morethan 200 articles on environmental / occupational health. Scholarly Activities:

• Former Chair, NASA Human Research Program’s Advanced Environmental Health / Advanced Food Technology Standing Review Panel
• Member, National Academies Standing Committee on Medical and Epidemiological Aspects of Air Pollution on U.S. Government Employees and their Families, 2016
• Chair / Member Multiple Ad Hoc Grant Review Panels (e.g., NIEHS, Department of Defense)
• Governor’s Appointee, Public Employee’s Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, New Jersey Department of Labor
• Member, Public Health Scientific Advisory Board, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

Litigation Support: Dr. Kipen has 35 years of litigation experience. He has expertise in various Toxic Torts including asbestos, benzene, mold, air pollution, occupational and environmental cancers, and other diseases. He also has expertise on "Multiple Chemical Sensitivities" (MCS). Dr. Kipen has particular experience as an asbestos plaintiff's expert and both plaintiff and defense experience with other toxic torts. His services include medical record review, thorough reporting, depositions, and trial testimony as needed.

GEO Associates provides litigation support services and expert witness testimony for civil and criminal investigations and insurance industry cases (both plaintiff and defendant) that involve Groundwater Pollution and Data Analysis, Forensic Geology and Geophysics, Hydrology Modeling, and Forensic Meteorology including Weather Event Re-Construction and Force Majeure cases. GEO Associates can assist attorneys and insurance claim professionals in obtaining, analyzing, modeling, and interpreting the correct geophysical/geological and meteorological data for their case.

GEO Associates uses the latest approved Regulatory EPA and USGS numerical modeling software to map the concentration levels and transport of air and groundwater pollutants. GEO Associates numerical modeling expertise, combined with their advanced knowledge of meteorological, geophysical and geological data gathering and processing, provides strong support to the attorney and client for cases involving Air Pollution, Reduced Visibility, Severe Storms, Groundwater Contamination, Flooding, Wind Damage and Hazardous Material Spills and Releases to Air and/or Water, which result in accidents, contamination of aquifers, toxic air, property damage, personal injury and death.

Services Include:

Forensic Geology

Industrial Groundwater Pollution

Toxic Tort Strategy

Environmental Surface and Groundwater Pollution

Mapping of Surface and Groundwater Contamination

Forensic Hydrology

Groundwater Computer Modeling

Aquifer Systems Analysis

Hazardous Spill Releases

Geological and Geophysical Data Acquisition, Processing and Analysis

Geological and Geophysical Mapping of Reservoirs

Observational Field Programs

Reflection and Refraction Seismology

Forensic Seismology

Seismic Investigations

Oil and Gas Operations and Operator Performance

Marine and Land Seismic Operations

Value Analysis of Proprietary Geophysical and Geological Data

2D and 3D Reflection Seismology Modeling and Analysis

Fluid Dynamics and Reservoir Analysis

Toxic Fluid Migration

Class Action and Force Majeure Cases