Straughan Promotes Matt Rescott and Kate Traut

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We are pleased to announce the promotions of Matt Rescott and Kate Traut to Director and Assistant Director of the Natural Resources Department.

Matt is a Certified Arborist who has worked at Straughan for almost 15 years, bringing his experience and expertise in wetland delineations, mitigation site monitoring, forest stand delineations, and stream assessments to a variety of projects. For the last 8 years, Matt has served as Program Manager responsible for environmental permitting and compliance for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission’s Consent Decree order to repair, rehabilitate, and replace failing sewer infrastructure. Matt has overseen the environmental monitoring and stream stabilization inspection programs for the project. To date, approximately 125 stream stabilization projects have been constructed. Matt has managed environmental compliance during construction, which includes running preconstruction meetings, resolving environmental issues in the field, reporting to permitting agencies the as-built impacts of projects, and conducting post-construction monitoring of completed projects. He has developed guidance documents for stream design and restoration; wetland studies, reporting, and permitting; forest conservation studies and plans; Maryland Historic Trust and Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Commission coordination; and fisheries and RTE resource coordination.

Matt’s years of experience on these stream stabilization projects and many other environmental permitting and compliance projects in the Mid-Atlantic Region throughout his career brings a wealth of knowledge to Straughan and his passion for trees and the natural environment provides an invaluable perspective to all projects that he leads.

Kate is is a Professional Wetland Scientist and Certified Arborist who has been at Straughan for over 10 years. She is experienced in wetland, forest, and rare species investigations and in the agency coordination that accompanies regulatory processes associated with these resources. She has managed small and large projects, leading and overseeing field investigations, preparing documentation for Section 404/401 permitting and forest conservation compliance, coordinating with regulatory agencies, and conducting extensive rare species and habitat surveys throughout the state. Kate’s active rapport with local regulators and agency representatives at the county and state levels is a key component for many projects, as is her expertise in regional plant identification, hydric soils identification, and in ArcGIS mapping software.

Prior to working at Straughan, Kate worked with the Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment, a regional program of the US EPA. As a scientific writer, she developed and edited various short publications highlighting best management practices in the applied environmental science sector. She was instrumental in collaborating with Baltimore County to showcase their stream restoration program. At Straughan, Kate puts many of these skills into practice as she heads up various internal sustainability and resiliency efforts.

We are excited for the future of the Natural Resources Department and look forward to pursuing new and interesting projects in 2020!