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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 and service delivery. 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.
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.
Awards and Recognition
The UNC EFC is dedicated to enhancing the ability of governments to provide environmental programs
and services in fair, effective and financially sustainable ways.
OPEN POSITION: Oracle Database and Web Developer
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Jeff Hughes, Director
Richard Whisnant, Professor of Public Law and Government
Mary Tiger, Chief Operating Officer
Stacey Isaac Berahzer, Senior Project Director
Shadi Eskaf , Senior Project Director
Glenn Barnes, Senior Project Director
Christine Boyle, PhD, Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Casey Wichman, Sustainable Energy Finance Fellow
Erin Weeks, Outreach and Marketing Coordinator
Janelle Beverly, Graduate Intern
Ryan Kurtzman, Rates Survey Analyst
Xin Huang, Oracle Database and Web Development Assistant
Daniel Kolomeets-darovsky, Environmental Finance Analyst
Ricardo Morse, Assistant Professor of Public Administration
and Government
John Stephens, Associate Professor of Public
Administration and Government
Kara A. Millonzi, Assistant Professor of Public
Law and Government
Tyler Mulligan, Assistant Professor of Public Law and Government
Will Lambe, Director, Community and Economic Development Program
Michael Lemanski, Director, Development Finance Initiative
Greg Allison, Senior Lecturer in Public Finance and Government
Willow Jacobson, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Government and Director, LGFCU Fellows Program
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 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 a School 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 School
of Government faculty, he served as General Counsel to the N.C. Dept. of Environment, Health and
Natural Resources. |
 Mary Tiger
is a Chief Operating Officer and works to make sure that the
Environmental Finance Center is sustainably financed and managed. She
leads strategic and operational initiatives and coordinates the
Center's finances, personnel and budgeting. In addition, Mary provides
outreach and research services to local communities on water
conservation strategies and sustainability. Mary holds a masters of
public administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and a BS in Environmental Journalism from the University of North
Carolina at Asheville. Prior to moving to Chapel Hill, she served as
the Utility Conservation Coordinator for Loveland Water and Power in
Colorado.
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Stacey Isaac Berahzer
is a Senior 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." |
 Shadi
Eskaf joined
the Environmental Finance Center in 2004 and has worked on projects
analyzing environmental systems in local, statewide and regional
settings. Shadi conducts research on a range of topics including
water systems collaboration and regionalization, water and wastewater
rates and rate-setting, residential water consumption, infrastructure
capital needs and funding. Shadi is currently a doctoral student
in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill's Department of
Environmental Sciences and Engineering. He received his Master's
degree in Environmental Engineering from the same department in
2003, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville in 2000. Shadi has also worked for the World
Bank, Mercury Associates Inc., and Kimberly-Clark Corporation. |
 Glenn
Barnes joined the Environmental Finance Center in 2006. Barnes
teaches courses, provides direct community assistance, and carries
out research on a range of topics including stormwater management,
water and sewer rate-setting, wetlands, woody debris recycling,
and green government. Prior to joining EFC, he worked for non-profits
in New England focusing on renewable energy, biofuels, and environmental
regulation. Barnes holds a BA and MPA from The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
 Dr. Christine Boyle
has worked at EFC since 2007. She is technical lead on the NC Urban
Water Consortium Customer Water Sales Data-mining and Analysis Project,
as well as leading the EFC series on Market Assessments of Energy
Efficiency Retrofit Financing Programs. Dr. Boyle has published several
articles on customer water-use behavior and water resources management.
She recently completed her doctorate in University of North Carolina's
program in Environmental Planning and Policy. Christine also has a
master's in regional planning from University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill and a bachelor of arts in Chinese Philosophy from Columbia
University. In her free time she enjoys traveling and swimming in nice,
clean water.
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 Casey Wichman
joined the EFC in March 2011 as a Sustainable Energy Finance Fellow.
Casey performs market demand assessments for energy efficiency
projects, develops customer profiles for residential electricity use,
and provides modeling assistance on sustainable finance programs
designed to spur investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy
projects at the state and local level. Additionally, he is in the
process of developing an electric rates database and interactive
dashboard for electricity providers in North Carolina. Casey finished
his M.S. in economics at North Carolina State University in August 2011
as a USDA National Needs Fellow and is affiliated with the Center for
Environmental and Resource Economic Policy (CEnREP) at NC State. His
master's thesis assesses the relationship between heterogeneous
household composition and a household's responsiveness to demand-side
water conservation policies during drought. Casey has been involved in
collaborative research projects pertaining to air quality policy,
agricultural risk, and climate change. Casey holds a B.A. from Ithaca
College in economics and English.
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 Erin Weeks
recently moved to Chapel Hill to join the EFC as its Marketing and
Outreach Coordinator. She'll be working to increase the visibility and
impact of the Center's work by developing its online presence and
external communications. Erin hails from Charleston, South Carolina,
and holds a B.A./B.S. from the University of South Carolina in English,
ecology, and environmental studies. She came to the EFC from the Sierra
Club in Washington, DC, where she worked in communications and federal
advocacy for the Lands Protection Program. As an undergraduate, Erin
worked across the environmental sector of South Carolina with entities
as various as an electric utility, an aquarium, university research
teams, and an urban farm.
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 Janelle Beverly is
a third-year graduate student at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, pursuing a dual M.A. in Public Administration and a M.S.
in Information Science. She received her B.A. from the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor. Janelle worked as a Co-op student for the local
housing agency, Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA)
and thereafter worked with Detroit Housing Commission (DHC) and Habitat
for Humanity of Oakland County. At DHC, she served as the Program
Coordinator for three client service programs, Building Memories
Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Homeownership Program, Family
Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS) and the Disaster Housing Assistance
Program (DHAP), geared to help public housing residents attain their
dreams of self-sufficiency. While at DHC, she also redesigned the
housing commission's Homeownership and FSS program. Janelle continued
her career at Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County as the Director of
Volunteer Services. In summer 2010, Janelle completed the Community
Scholars Program at NeighborWorks America in Washington, DC. During the
summer she worked with the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling
Program and developed good practices for the program's 2600 foreclosure
mitigation counseling programs. Janelle comes to the UNC Environmental
Finance Center apart of the Educating Stewards of Public Information in the 21 st Century Program (ESOPI-21).
Her role at the UNC EFC will focus on three core information needs;
effective methods to collect and manage public utility information,
analysis of North Carolina's drought polices via public water utility
information, and internal organization of project information for
improved public access.
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 Ryan Kurtzman Ryan
Kurtzman is a senior undergraduate student currently pursuing a BSPH in
Environmental Science and Engineering at UNC's Gillings School of
Global Public Health. He currently serves as EFC's lead analyst for its
annual North Carolina Water and Wastewater Rates and Rates Structures
Survey. Prior to working at the EFC, Ryan worked on the Business
Development team at Futures Group International, a public health
consulting firm located in Washington, DC. Some of Ryan's interests
include sustainable health systems, clean air and water policy, and
data visualization.
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 Xin Huang Xin
is a UNC graduate student pursuing an M.S. in computer science, with an
expected graduation date in May 2012. As a student assistant with the
EFC, he'll be helping with website and Oracle database development. Xin
previously studied software engineering and computer science at Peking
and Chongqing Universities in China, and has since worked as a research
assistant in the UNC Department of Computer Science and ITS.
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 Daniel Kolomeets-darovsky
Daniel is an Environmental Finance Analyst at the EFC, where he
executes qualitative and quantitative research on water utility finance
challenges and opportunities, alternative pricing mechanisms, and
demand management and conservation. Dan holds an undergraduate degree
in economics, political science and business from New York University
and a Masters in Environmental Management with an Energy and
Environment concentration from Duke University.
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 Rick
Morse joined the School of Government in 2006. He previously
was assistant professor in the Public Policy and Administration
Program at Iowa State University. He has also served as a project
manager at Virginia Tech's Institute for Policy Outreach. He has
worked extensively with state and local public officials on community
collaboration processes in Virginia and Iowa. More recently, he
led a team of colleagues consulting on a county-wide community visioning
effort in Wilson, North Carolina, and continues to do advising and
teaching in the areas of collaborative problem solving, visioning,
and citizen participation. His publications include several articles
and book chapters on collaboration and public participation. He
also is lead editor of two recently published books on public leadership,
Transforming Public Leadership for the 21st Century (M.E. Sharpe,
2007), and Innovations in Public Leadership Development (M.E. Sharpe,
2008). Morse holds a BA and MA in public policy from Brigham Young
University and a PhD in public administration/public affairs from
Virginia Tech. |
 Tyler
Mulligan joined
the School of Government in 2007. He previously practiced law with
Woble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC, in Raleigh, focusing on the
areas of community development law and economic development law. He is
a member of the North Carolina State Bar. Prior to private practice,
Mulligan served as a Navy diver and JAG Corps officer. Mulligan earned
a BA in public policy studies, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from
Duke University. He earned a JD at Yale Law School, where he was
awarded the Yale University Elm-Ivy Award. |
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.
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