Principal Advisor

Bachelor of Science (Honours)
RABQSA Registered Environmental Auditor

John has over 20 years' experience in a range of marine and terrestrial consulting and research projects.

He also has extensive experience in liaising with industry and government on environmental performance standards, and developing and implementing environmental management systems, programs and operational procedures, and auditing. He has worked in Australia, and the United States, Indonesia, Singapore, Mongolia, and China.

Environmental consulting

John's core expertise is in his knowledge of tropical and temperate marine, aquatic, and estuarine ecosystems. He has been conducting research and monitoring programs in these environments since 1985 and has a sound knowledge of the function of a broad range of ecosystems. His technical skills include designing and carrying out field based research projects, sampling, gathering water quality data, and specialized photography.

He is also highly competent in statistical analysis, the interpretation of results, and in the communication of findings to his peers and clients.

At Sustainability, John is responsible for providing professional marine and terrestrial environmental services to government and private industry clients.

Major projects and achievements

• Facilitating environmental risk assessment workshops for pipeline installations, and drilling and development proposals
• Preparing Environmental Management Plans for pipeline installations, petroleum exploration and production activities
• Preparing approvals documentation for drilling and development activities
• Assessing proposals for compliance with environmental and petroleum legislation and preparing reviews of obligations under environmental legislation
• Leading Environmental Impact Assessment studies to examine the impacts of petroleum drilling and production, or port development  on the environment
• Providing in-house environmental support to project teams
• Published a number of peer-reviewed articles and reports between 1985 and 2003 on topics ranging from invertebrate communities in seagrass meadows, animal-plant interactions, sediment nutrient cycling, and oil production impacts on marine communities

Environmental support, Ivanhoe Cloncurry Mines Pty Ltd: Preparing the Plan of Operations and in-house environmental monitoring procedures, auditing environmental license compliance, and preparing annual environmental returns to the EPA

Environmental impact assessment, South Gobi Sands Pty Ltd: Gap analysis against World Bank EIA standards, supervision of Mongolian national environmental consultants, and in-house environmental support for the project engineering team

HSE audits, Great Southern Plantations: Audits of HSE management system across timber, cattle, grape and olive business across all Australian states and territories

Compliance auditing, DoIR: Compliance auditing of Environment Division's Oil Spill Contingency Plan assessments against DoIR's assessment protocol.

Auditing, PT Newmont Nusa Tengarra: Conducting audits of hazardous materials transport, storage and handling practices throughout its supply chain against the requirement's of Newmont's Hazmat Code and UN Dangerous Goods Code.  The work included facilitating risk assessment workshops for diesel and sodium hydosulphide management

Career Summary

• Environmental Officer, Woodlawn Mines (1985-86)
• Field Biologist, Study of Avifauna Queensland (1986)
• Honours Program, School of Biological Sciences, Murdoch Uni (1987)
• Vacation Scholar, CSIRO Division of Fisheries (1987-88)
• Marine Ecologist, WA Fisheries Department (1989)
• Marine Ecologist, School of Biological Sciences, Murdoch Uni (1988-92)
• Experimental Scientist, CSIRO Division of Fisheries (1992-96)
• Marine Ecologist, WA Museum (1996)
• Consultant Marine Ecologist, Kinhill Pty Ltd (1997-99)
• Principal Environmental Scientist, IRC Environment (1999-2004)

Memberships

Western Australian Sustainable Industry Group
Australian Marine Science Association