The Environmental Finance Center @ The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (efc@unc)

About UNC EFC

The UNC EFC reaches local communities through the delivery of interactive applied training programs and technical assistance. The UNC EFC sees one of its major roles as increasing the capacity of other organizations to address the financial aspects of environmental protection. For this reason and to support the leveraging of resources, the UNC EFC does most of its training in a collaborative manner – partnering with established organizations that have environmental, but not necessarily financial expertise.

Our Partners
Other Environmental Finance Centers
Other Useful Links

In addition to direct community outreach, the EFC works with decision makers to assess the effectiveness of environmental finance policies at a regional or state level, and to improve those policies as a way of supporting local efforts.

Our Mission
The UNC EFC is dedicated to enhancing the ability of governments to provide environmental programs and services in fair, effective and financially sustainable ways. The UNC EFC provides a bridge between students and faculty in the university who work principally on environmental financing, management and planning tools, and the governments whose job is to use these tools for the public interest.

Our Staff

Faculty, Staff, and Researchers

Jeff Hughes, Director
Richard Whisnant, Professor of Public Law and Government
Stacey Isaac Berahzer, Project Director
Andrew Westbrook, Project Director
Shadi Eskaf, Research Associate
Lynn Weller, Environmental Finance Analyst
Glenn Barnes, Research Assistant/Environmental Finance Analyst
Jackie Ashley, Research Assistant/Environmental Finance Analyst
Jordan McMillen, Research Assistant/Environmental Finance Analyst
Christine Boyle, Research Assistant/Environmental Finance Analyst
Mary Tiger, Research Assistant/Environmental Finance Analyst

Principal Collaborators

Susan Austin, Director, Community Planning Project
John Stephens, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Government
Kara A. Millonzi - Assistant Professor of Public Law and Government

Faculty, Staff, and Researchers

Photo of Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes is the Director of the Environmental Finance Center at UNC. Jeff works with local governments, not for profit organizations, and private companies to identify and implement innovative methods of financing and maintaining environmental facilities and programs. Jeff has a Masters in Water Resources Engineering from the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an undergraduate engineering degree from Duke University. Jeff served as the Chatham County Public Works and Utility Director between 1996 and 1999. He has worked extensively overseas as an environmental finance specialist with the Research Triangle Institute, providing technical support and training assistance to local and national governments throughout Eastern Europe and Africa.

Richard Whisnant is an Professor of Public Law and Government. He teaches environmental and administrative law, often to local and state officials such as city and county managers and attorneys, judges, and finance officers. As an Institute of Government faculty member, Richard works with local government on a daily basis to answer questions and give advice about environmental problems. Richard's interests and expertise are in environmental law, including the core air, water and waste statutes, the law of cleaning up contaminated property, and various specialized areas such as risk assessment, water resource management, coastal development, sedimentation and erosion control; administrative law, including the structure and processes of administrative agencies at the state and local level, regulatory reform, rulemaking, permitting and enforcement; and in financing environmental infrastructure. Richard is also knowledgeable in the area of digital content creation and distribution. He holds degrees from Harvard University, including a J.D. and a Masters in Public Policy, and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the Institute faculty, he served as General Counsel to the N.C. Dept. of Environment, Health and Natural Resources.

Stacey Isaac Berahzer is a Project Director with the Environmental Finance Center and works from a satellite office in Georgia. Stacey provides outreach services to local communities and disseminates tools and resources on topics such as funding strategies for stormwater management, rate setting practices, and general innovative financing techniques to improve water quality. She earned her Masters degree in Public Administration at UNC - Chapel Hill. She earned her undergraduate degree at NC Central University in Environmental Science. Stacey has worked in the area of pollution prevention and water quality at RTI International. Her experience in the field of education involved teaching high school, working with street children in Bolivia, research on closing the academic achievement gap in NC, and work in the area of "service-learning."

Photo of Andrew Westbrook

Andrew Westbrook works with the EFC on providing tools to help utility professionals and elected officials communicate effectively in order to implement proactive infrastructure financial sustainability measures. He has a graduate degree from the Environmental Sciences & Engineering Department of the School of Public Health at UNC – Chapel Hill. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. As a graduate student at UNC, he has conducted research on the rate of disinfectant (chloramine) decay in drinking water distribution systems.

Shadi Eskaf is a doctoral student in UNC-CH's Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. He received his Master's degree in Environmental Engineering from the same department in 2003. Shadi is interested in environmental economics and policy, especially in the realm of water supply and sanitation in developing countries. More specifically, Shadi is interested in water resources management and modeling and infrastructure finance. He is currently working with the EFC to study water and sewer rates and rate structures and their relationships to the financial impacts of different policies and scenarios at the household and utility levels. Details of the project will be periodically updated on this webpage. Shadi has also worked for the World Bank, Mercury Associates Inc, and Kimberly-Clark Corporation.

Lynn Weller works with the EFC on facilitating environmental finance conflicts. Lynn has a B.A. in Communications from UNC Chapel Hill. She has a variety of local government and non-profit experience including working for Chatham County’s Solid Waste Department as the Recycling Educator and the Waste Reduction Coordinator. Lynn has also worked with non-profit organizations in the areas of development and program management.

Glenn Barnes is a master's student in the Public Administration program. Glenn has a background in environmental advocacy, specifically in energy policy. Currently, he is working on a number of projects for EFC, including an analysis of water and sewer rates in North Carolina. Prior to graduate school, Glenn worked for seven years with non-profits, including the Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance and the Fund for Public Interest Research. He also served in the Vice President's constituent correspondence office under the Clinton administration. Glenn graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina in 1999 with a B.A. in English literature and political science.

Jordan McMillen is a second year graduate student in City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His areas of study include affordable housing development, neighborhood and downtown revitalization and commercial real estate. Additionally, he has a strong interest in, and affinity for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) particularly in seeking to use GIS to aid the public in the visual presentation and comprehension of spatial data. He has spent the past year as a freelance cartographer and GIS analyst for several respected research organizations. Jordan earned a bachelor’s degree in Geography with GIS certification from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, in 2006.

Photo of Christine Boyle Christine Boyle is a doctoral student in UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning. Christine is working on EFC’s current project analyzing relationships between customer characteristics, consumption patterns, and rate structures in several North Carolina communities. Prior to working at EFC, Christine worked on several research teams looking at different aspects of sustainable rural development in China. She has conducted research on willingness to pay for vaccines, as well as analyzing investment patterns in irrigation infrastructure, among farmers in rural China.

Christine’s dissertation research focuses on water resource management in northern China’s Yellow River Basin. She researches methods for water users to participate in irrigation water decision-making processes. Her long term goal is to improve the means for all people to attain equitable access to clean water resources. Christine graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures.

Mary Tiger is a first-year student in the master of public administration program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mary joins the EFC from Loveland, Colorado where she served as the utility's conservation coordinator and performance measurement assistant for two years. Her interest is in encouraging environmental consideration in the development of small communities. She graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a B.S. in environmental journalism.

Principal Collaborators

Susan Austin is a member of the Institute of Government's Public Leadership Team working primarily with municipal and county elected and appointed officials. Susan worked for fourteen years in the private sector as a retail manager and buyer. Immediately prior to joining the IOG she was a Governor's Fellow in the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources - Onsite Wastewater Section. Susan has a Master of Public Administration degree from UNC Chapel Hill.

John Stephens earned his B.A. from Earlham College, Master of Philosophy from The City University, London, and Ph.D. from George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Before joining the Institute of Government in 1996, he was Research Director of the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management. Previously, he had managed political campaigns, worked for a congressman, and was a lobbyist for the Home Builders Association of St. Louis, Missouri. He coordinates the Institute's public dispute resolution program and teaches public dispute resolution and citizen participation in the Master of Public Administration program. John's specialities are multi-party negotiation and consensus-building. His publications include Guidebook to Public Dispute Resolution in North Carolina, Public Management Bulletin: Using a Mediator in Public Disputes, solo authored, and Reaching for Higher Ground: Tools for Powerful Groups and Communities, Listening to Citizens: County Commissioners on the Road and School Funding Disputes: Mediate, Don't Litigate, all co-authored. He is also the editor of Popular Government.

Kara A. Millonzi joined the School of Government in 2006. She previously practiced law with Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, LLP in Boston and clerked for the Honorable Louis F. Oberdorfer, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She is a member of the North Carolina State Bar and the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Recent publications include "Lawful Discrimination in Utility Ratemaking: Classifying Customers within Territorial Boundaries" and "Lawful Discrimination in Utility Ratemaking: Classifying Extraterritorial Customers," both published in Local Finance Bulletin. Millonzi earned a B.A. in economics, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University at Buffalo and an M.A. in economics from the University of Maryland at College Park. She earned a J.D., with highest honors, Order of the Coif, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served as editor in chief of the North Carolina Law Review.

For a list of past staff, please click here