Public Sector Consultants offers a wide range of services in the area of the environment and natural resources, including:

• Technical expertise and strategic counsel
• Communications and dissemination
• Facilitation and consensus building
• Strategic planning
• Philanthropy services

Technical Expertise and Strategic Counsel

Our content expertise in the areas of water resources management, Great Lakes policy, air quality, land use, energy, and fisheries and wildlife is leading edge. Our research and analysis of the impact of public programs and private activities on the environment and natural resources delivers cost-effective environmental and regulatory strategies. Through diverse perspectives, PSC’s staff conducts applied research on pressing issues and offers holistic solutions.

PSC helps organizations of all sizes to navigate the environmental regulatory landscape. We work with state environmental and natural resource agencies and with our clients’ legal counsel and technical experts to help resolve compliance and permit issues. Our services include providing expert testimony in administrative and judicial proceedings involving natural resource, environmental, and enforcement compliance issues. Our principal staff has served as technical experts and advisors to legal counsel in numerous state and federal cases. We also help develop case material, strategy, and preparation of other technical experts

Communications and Dissemination

PSC can synthesize complex environmental issues and “translate” them into a format that can be easily understood by decision makers and the general public. Our communications capacity is widely recognized for its clarity and precision. We convey complicated technical issues and processes to diverse groups through easily understood reports, policy briefs, presentations, and other communications vehicles.

Stakeholder Facilitation and Consensus Building

Both private and public organizations realize that confrontation and single-purpose advocacy expend crucial resources and often fail to provide long-term solutions to complex issues. Bringing together stakeholders from diverse disciplines and sectors and facilitating consensus to promote policy and action is an integral part of PSC’s services.

We are well known for outlining options and consequences for decision makers and helping bring together people of disparate interests. We have worked with state and local commissions, coalitions, task forces, and advisory groups encompassing representation from the education, nonprofit, public, and private sectors—groups that can include business people, community activists, environmental or other advocates, and public employees charged with carrying out their agency’s mission. Issues may be local, statewide, regional, national, and international in scope.

We have helped local governments, industries, and citizen groups develop cooperative approaches to solve complex community problems. PSC has considerable experience in using survey and interview techniques and interactive focus groups to accurately identify—and keep the focus on—the critical issues that must be addressed if a consensus process is to succeed.

When a group is prepared to pursue consensus-based approaches, PSC can help identify funding to support its efforts.

Strategic Planning

Dialogue is effective only in so far as a strategic direction emerges, work plans are implemented, and action leads to results. One of our services most sought by a variety of clients is providing strategic planning counsel and facilitation. PSC‘s consultants have strategic planning expertise and experience in a broad spectrum of content areas.

PSC’s proven record in developing strategic plans ranges from preparing blueprints for government agencies, commissions, and task forces to facilitating strategic planning processes for foundations, professional associations, and public and private partnerships at the local, state, and regional levels. PSC helps clients move from the consensus achieved through strategic planning to an operational plan with clear metrics and accountability. The best measures of PSC’s capacity and expertise are the policy and investment outcomes of the organizations that we help: clear direction and commitment to shared results and effective dialogue that creates and enhances relationships.

Philanthropy Services

PSC has extensive experience working with the philanthropic sector, particularly in the areas of strategic grantmaking guidance and strategy implementation and program evaluation. PSC’s strategic counsel and evaluation services are frequently retained to meet grant-monitoring requirements or to better understand the inputs, process, and outcomes of a single program or an entire organization—from a single point-in-time review to multiyear engagements. PSC also offers grant management services including grant tracking, accounting, program management, and board facilitation. PSC has managed the Great Lakes Fishery Trust (GLFT) since its inception in 1996, overseeing $30 million in grant awards and the disposition of more than 10,000 acres of trust lands. PSC also provides management and intermediary services for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s land-use grant program, People and Land (PAL), which was highlighted by the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities as “a unique approach to promoting local, regional, and multi-sector consensus building around issues of growth and development.”

Examples of Our Projects

The projects that PSC works on typically integrate many of the skills described above. Examples of the types of projects PSC has worked on include:

• Watershed Plans—Developed extensive watershed plans for the Portage Lake and the Upper Looking Glass watersheds.
• Michigan’s Part 201 Environmental Remediation Program Review—A year-long effort working with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the private sector, and several consulting firms and law firms to develop recommendations for revising Michigan’s environmental remediation program (Part 201 of the Natural resources and Environmental Protection Act of 1994, as amended).
• Market Structures and the 21st Century Energy Plan—Analyzes whether Michigan’s current hybrid regulatory structure accommodates the goals of Michigan’s 21st Century Energy Plan and recommends a preferred regulatory structure for the utility industry.
• The Growing Crisis of Aging Dams: Policy considerations and recommendations for Michigan policy makers—Provided staff support to the Michigan River Partnership (MRP)—a broad-based coalition of government and nongovernment partners—to assess opportunities for dam removal on Michigan rivers and highlight the need to repair dams that are not candidates for removal, provide the information necessary to optimize local decision making, and dedicate funding to address the challenges posed by aging dams
• Preliminary Assessment of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Field Operations: Improving Service Delivery—PSC conducted a preliminary assessment of the agency’s field structure and made recommendations on how to enhance delivery of services to the public and staff by optimizing the use of technology and realigning field operations. An internal MDNR steering committee provided oversight and assisted with project objectives.
• Targeting Great Lakes Habitat and Ecosystem Restoration in the New Millennium—A support plan for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission that outlines the opportunities and priorities for Great Lakes fishery and ecosystem restoration projects and includes steps to encourage collaborative efforts among various Great Lakes interests and related programs funded by public agencies and private organizations.
• Expanding Recycling in Michigan—Documents the need for, and economic benefits from, increasing recycling in Michigan.
• Enhancing Fish Passage over Low-head Barrier Dams in the Saginaw River Watershed—Helps communities and resource managers identify the most cost-effective options—including dam removal—for enhancing fish passage over barrier dams in order to achieve the targeted, sustainable fish population goals for Saginaw Bay.
• Michigan Land Use Leadership Council—Provided logistical, facilitation, research, and report writing services to this council made up of diverse stakeholders—including environmental, community development, and business interests, bipartisan legislators, and six state departments—to provide the governor and legislature with recommendations on addressing the trends, causes, and consequences of outdated and uninformed land use policies.
• Michigan Land Resource Project—A study that projects Michigan’s land use trends to 2040 and the economic impact of these trends on the future of land resource–based industries.
• Saginaw Bay Measures of Success and Remedial Action Plan—Examines environmental restoration in the Saginaw Bay region and proposes strategies for improvement