Environmental Banc & Exchange

Management team / staff

George Kelly, Director of Business Development and Founder. Mr. Kelly is a cum laude JD and MSL graduate of the Vermont Law School As founder of EBX, he has drafted, negotiated and implemented mitigation banking instruments with regulatory agencies in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Maryland as well as drafted and negotiated land deals with over seventy-five landowners for resource mitigation projects. Mr. Kelly was recently elected as Secretary of the National Mitigation Banking Association. Additionally, Mr. Kelly was appointed to serve on the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program, Nutrient Trading Task force. Mr. Kelly has also served as Chair of the Section of Environmental Law for the Maryland State Bar Association and was asked to represent the Maryland business and legal communities in the drafting of the precedent-setting Brownfields environmental legislation. Mr. Kelly also chairs the Piney Run Rural Legacy Program in Maryland involving the acquisition of over $14 million of environmental and agricultural easements. Prior to joining EBX, Mr. Kelly served as partner and member of the Environmental Law Group at the firm, Ober, Kaler, Grimes and Shriver.

Thomas Rinker, Chief Operating Officer After graduation in Civil/Environmental Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Mr. Rinker worked first as a project manager and then as a business unit manager with several firms in the environmental industry. Over a fifteen year period at Environmental Elements Corporation, Mr. Rinker served as a Division Vice-President and started and managed a business unit that designed and constructed large-scale waste-to-energy facilities. During that period, Mr. Rinker became a Partner in the firm that purchased Environmental Elements Corporation from its parent company and took the company public. Mr. Rinker then became president and CEO of the North American subsidiary, an international energy and environmental technology company. During that period he arranged the sale of the subsidiary to an international engineering and construction firm, and stayed to manage the company during the transition. In 2000, Mr. Rinker joined EBX and assumed the responsibilities of Chief Operating Officer.

Randy Wilgis, President, is a graduate of The Duke University School of Engineering with a Degree in Civil Engineering, and earned his Masters is Business Administration from The University of Virginia-Darden School of Business. Mr. Wilgis’ early career was spent as a Construction Project Manager with The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company where he was part of the founding team for the Company’s West Coast operations. Mr. Wilgis then joined TESSCO Technologies as a summer intern while completing graduate school, followed by a 13 year track record of successful business development efforts. While at TESSCO he founded three service businesses with combined annual revenues of over $250 million in 2004, proved his ability to develop businesses as exhibited by a 22% compounded annual revenue growth in the business areas managed, and was a leading member of the management team as the company grew from $40 million to $513 million in sales, with an IPO in 1996. In 2006 Mr. Wilgis joined the EBX team with the responsibility to develop and implement an aggressive growth strategy, ensuring EBX’s position as the market leader in the dynamic ecosystem restoration and mitigation industry.

Dixon Harvey, CEO of EBX is also President of Black Oak Associates, Inc. and a private investor. Black Oak is a real estate development company specializing in green development. As a highly regarded and well respected authority on environmentally conscious urban re-development, Mr. Harvey has accepted invitations to address conferences sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Community Investment Institute, the National Conference for Urban Economic Development, and the Maryland Historic Trust. In addition to a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Vermont, Mr. Harvey earned an MBA with a Finance concentration from Baltimore’s Loyola College.

Steve Jennings, CFO, performs and supervises all accounting and financial functions for the company. Prior to joining EBX and Black Oak, Mr. Jennings served as a Group Controller for The Rouse Company, responsible for seven major regional shopping centers, including The Mall in Columbia, Harborplace, The Gallery, and South Street Seaport (New York). His duties included supervising on-site accounting personnel, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting and deal analysis. Prior to joining The Rouse Company, Mr. Jennings was a Senior Accountant in the Real Estate and Construction Group at the regional public accounting firm of Walpert, Smullian and Blumenthal. In that position he worked with clients such as homebuilders, land developers, contractors, and shopping center and office building ownership entities. Mr. Jennings is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants. He received his MBA, with a concentration in Finance, from Loyola College in 1995, and is a graduate of the University of Maryland.

Norton Webster, Project Manager, works in the North Carolina office. Mr Webster works with project engineers, client representatives and regulatory officials during the concept, proposals, design, construction and monitoring phases of our projects throughout the Southeast. Before joining EBX, Norton served as an Environmental Scientist with Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. Mr. Webster’s early career was spent as a Wetlands/Wastewater Consultant with Triangle Wetlands Consultants, a Research Assistant in the Department of Forestry at the North Carolina State University, and a Staff Scientist at ARCADIS Geraghty & Miller. While at Kimley-Horn and Associates, Mr. Webster managed natural resource investigations, ecological assessments, wetlands delineation, wetland mitigation feasibility studies and wetland mitigation searches. Mr. Webster holds a B.S. from Wake Forest University and a M.S. with a concentration in Forestry from North Carolina State University.

David Godley is Project Technician in the North Carolina office. Mr. Godley is responsible for maintenance and construction tasks at EBX project sites throughout North Carolina. Prior to joining EBX, Mr. Godley worked as an Extension Research Technician for the North Carolina State University Biological Agricultural Engineering Water Quality Group. While at NCSU, Mr. Godley surveyed and collected morphology data and conducted vegetation restorations for multiple stream and wetland restoration projects. Mr. Godley spent his early career as an aquaculture research assistant and biologic sciences aid. Mr. Godley holds a B.S. in Agricultural Business Management from North Carolina State University with a minor in Economics.

Janet Harvey is based in the Baltimore office where she coordinates Communications, Marketing, and Public Relations and serves as the newsletter editor, and webmaster. Prior to joining EBX, Ms. Harvey served as the Marketing Director for Black Oak Associates after working as the Director of Development for the Irvine Nature Center. Janet has also worked extensively in the Environmental field first as an educator with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and later as a public information officer with the Alliance for Chesapeake Bay. Janet is a graduate of Hampshire College.