Matt has substantive Subject Matter Expertise in the following industries:
• Business, Government & Nonprofits
• Energy & Utilities
• Environmental Affairs & Sustainability
• Real Estate, Housing, Land Use & Urban Planning
• Automotive, Trucking, Shipping, & Air Transportation
• Engineering, Construction, Architecture & Infrastructure
• Education, Teaching & Leadership
• Health & Wellness, Sports & Athletics
Matt is extraordinarily well-read and informed on historical and current events that shape the world in which we live. An avid traveler, he has visited throughout the United States and much of Europe and Asia. He has lived and worked in some of the most dynamic cities in the U.S., including New York, Washington D.C., San Diego, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon. He maintains a healthy lifestyle that includes cooking, exercise, gardening, and home improvement tasks. Matt is particularly fond of food from Vietnam, India, and China, and shares a home with his partner, three cats, and a small dog named Mugsy.
Major in Economic Development with minor in Energy Policy
Energy, Utilities and Sustainability
Matt has played principal roles on high-visibility projects involving energy, utilities, sustainability, and climate change. He recently managed a cross-functional team of 20 writing a complex 90-page state Public Utility Commission mandated SMART GRID report for a utility serving 900,000 customers. The report inventoried and benchmarked 60+ decarbonization and electrification programs, including grid modernization, SCADA, AMI, demand response, storage, distributed generation, microgrid testbeds, transportation electrification. Matt has marketed wholesale electric power from a municipally owned utility to industrial electricity consumers such as Kaiser Aluminum, Walmart, and HomeDepot.
Much of Matt's work on energy has been on sustainable energy. To help reduce emissions, he surveyed industry leaders on opportunities and barriers to growth in the electric vehicle market. He completed an 80-page study on developing and financing a nationwide infrastructure network to fuel trucks and buses running on compressed natural gas. He supported a City of Washington D.C. Task Force in developing energy efficiency incentives for downtown commercial buildings, evaluated the performance of incentives states use to attract investment in renewable energy, and co-managed a successful plan to accelerate the closure of a 480-megawatt coal-fired electric generating station. Early in his career, Matt performed some of the pathbreaking research on the performance of utility incentives in promoting the purchase of energy-efficient appliances and worked as policy staff to the Energy and Transportation Committees of the Washington State Legislature.
Matt's book Sustainability in America's Cities: Creating the Green Metropolis established a new approach to evaluating sustainability programs, with one prominent reviewer writing, "This book is amazingly rich in its content and breadth ... it does as much to back the theory of sustainable urbanism as any work to date."
Soup to nuts, whether it's policy, planning, strategy, marketing, research, or communications, Matt knows energy and sustainability.
Real Estate and Sustainability
Matt's work in Real Estate has often run hand in hand with his work in energy, sustainability, and transportation. Together with architects and engineers, Matt has helped write storybooks for prominent development projects. Preeminent developers he has worked with include Texas-based Hines, Madison-Marquette, and Washington D.C.'s KETTLER. Matt helped plan the celebrated downtown Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. He assembled sites for redevelopment and took projects with a build-out value of $250 million or more through the zoning and environmental regulatory and permitting process. As Economic Development Director for a city in Washington State, he oversaw the development of a 50-acre technology industry park and a mixed-use waterfront redevelopment resulting in replacing a landfill with townhomes, a marina, and an 18-hole links golf course.
Matt was involved in various leadership capacities in mixed-use hi-rise development after relocating to work for one of the Washington D.C. region's premier developers. Many projects were adjacent to the region's Metro lines (subways) and incorporated LEED and other sustainable building design elements. He co-managed master planning for a fully sustainable mixed-use 40-acre redevelopment fronting the Potomac River as part of the power plant closure mentioned under Matt's energy qualifications summary. After entering private consulting practice, Matt played a leading role in planning Eco-Verde in St. Petersburg, Florida. The 80-acre, $1.2 billion Eco-Verde would have been magnificent. Approved, it was, however, unbuilt due to reversals in global real estate markets.
Transportation and Infrastructure
We need sustainable transportation technologies to ensure a healthy and prosperous future. Matt understands the pathways to integrate multi-modal transportation, mainly no- and low-carbon fuel technologies and infrastructure and transit into intelligent transportation grids. He tired of being stuck in traffic long ago and grasped the threat of climate change early on. Matt surveyed industry leaders on opportunities and barriers to growth in the electric vehicle market to reduce emissions. He completed an 80-page study on developing and financing a nationwide infrastructure network to fuel trucks and buses running on compressed natural gas and fueling cargo ships with liquified natural gas. Matt evaluated the benefits and costs of Transportation Demand Management programs operated by major companies, including Boeing. He researched and drafted bills for the Washington State Legislature's Transportation Committee and has played instrumental roles in other important work on low- and no-carbon transportation technologies. He also played a lead role on a consulting team in developing a strategic multi-modal policy and business process re-engineering plan for the Texas Department of Transportation.
With a specialty in urbanism, electric vehicles and transit, Matt has researched and authored White Papers and case studies for leading nonprofits and think tanks aimed at transforming the nation’s auto and truck fleet to no- and low-carbon emissions vehicles. Included are vehicles fueled by electricity, hydrogen and natural gas.
Starting with preliminary planning for construction of the award-winning Portland Convention Center in Portland, Oregon, Matt worked for 15 years in various lead capacities in real estate development of large, complex mixed-use, planned district, and multi-family planning and development projects. He has an extensive command of the engineering and construction process and can write strongly about both from a technical writing or storytelling perspective.
Matt was an early adherent to the sustainability movement for business, homes, and government. He edited and is principal author of Sustainability in America’s Cities, a pathbreaking textbook that analyzed different sustainability policies and initiatives in several large American cities.
Matt has authored articles featured in a multitude of metropolitan newspapers, journals, and academic texts. Some are sourced from White Papers and Case Studies he's written, as a way to further disseminate important information to wider audiences.
A partial list of the publication venues that have featured Matt's articles includes Economic Development Quarterly, Energy Policy, Public Manager, METRO, Mass Transit, Proceedings of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (CEEE), Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education, Renewable Energy World (Contributing Editor), Green Fleet, Electric Vehicle World, Washington (DC) Business Journal, Portland (OR) Oregonian, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, The Reno Gazette-Journal, the Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, University of Nebraska Press (textbook), Island Press (textbook), Journal of Commerce (columnist).
Matt is editor and principal author of the university textbook "Sustainability in America's Cities: Creating the Green Metropolis," and has authored chapters appearing in other textbooks
Matt has researched and authored or co-authored Case Studies focused upon best practices, policy and strategy options, technology assessments, competitive intelligence, and program evaluations. These have been sponsored by business entities, local, state and federal government, and nonprofits. The Case Studies present an objective call to action in strategy, policy, or improving program performance. These Case Studies have been circulated to Congress and pragmatic business and community leaders as advocacy tools.
Matt has published, edited, and written or co-written at least two business newsletters. He published "Your First Choice Business Report" for three years to frame and raise awareness of economic development initiatives and success stories under his oversight as Economic Development Director for the City of Richland, Washington. The newsletter included reporting on initiatives undertaken in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy and Battelle Memorial Institute, which operated extensive facilities in the city.
For three years, Matt founded, published, edited, and wrote "NGV Today: Your Source for Natural Gas Vehicle Markets, Technology, and Policy." Funded by an energy and environment nonprofit, the newsletter emerged as the leading voice for growing the market for natural gas-fueled vehicles and infrastructure and was circulated to Congress as a vehicle for aligning national policy with low carbon transportation fuels to combat Climate Change.
Matt has researched and authored or co-authored White Papers focused upon best practices, policy and strategy options, technology assessments, competitive business intelligence, and program evaluations. Business entities, local, state and federal governments, and nonprofits have sponsored these. The White Papers typically do a deep-dive data analysis and advocate for particular calls to action in strategy, policy, or improving program performance. White Papers written by Matt are often circulated to Congress and leading business associations as advocacy tools.
Matt has researched and authored or co-authored a number of case studies focused upon best practices, policy and strategy options, technology assessments, competitive business intelligence, program evaluations. These have been sponsored by business entities, local, state and federal governments, and nonprofit and often assumed the role of advocating for particular calls to action in terms of strategy, policy, or Story Books setting out
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