Power Market Lead, Renewable Energy Lead, Natural Resources and Environmental Planning Practice Lead

With more than 25 years of professional experience, Mr. Rutledge has supported a variety of environmental projects throughout the U.S. and internationally. His experience includes managing environmental and cultural resource surveys, threatened and endangered species surveys and permitting, wetland delineation, permitting, mitigation, and monitoring, development of weed management and restoration plans, local, state, and federal permitting, agency coordination, and stakeholder outreach.

Mr. Rutledge often serves as a strategic advisor to clients. At project inception, he helps identify potential development constraints and develops cost-effective and efficient strategies for obtaining environmental permits. He has supported efforts to inventory resources and has helped develop project designs that preserve natural communities while creating a long-term asset for these communities. He has also worked through complex project permitting issues, ranging from obtaining Incidental Take Permits for federally listed species to preparing and obtaining Individual Nationwide Permits. Finally, he has experience supporting local and state permitting for land development projects, including supporting baseline studies, permit preparation, community outreach, and public hearing support.

His National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) experience includes preparing and managing Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) for several federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, National Park Service, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for linear pipeline, power transmission, mining, and renewable energy projects.  

Mr. Rutledge’s other permitting experience includes conducting and managing environmental constraints analyses and permitting reviews, environmental compliance support, baseline studies, permitting, eagle and incidental take permitting, health and safety audits, development risk assessments, and due diligence reviews for U.S. and international projects.