PFAS Forum IV Moderators

Director, Operations and Maintenance, Naples Airport Authority

Originally from Alabama, I graduated from Auburn University and moved to Florida to begin my career in aviation. Since that time, I have lived in five cities and three states and worked for an FBO, two medium-hub airports, a small-hub airport, and a busy GA airport in the pursuit of professional knowledge. I have experienced many of the unique challenges our industry has faced, from macro situations involving industry-wide issues such as Covid-19 to the many micro dynamics of airports in three separate regions of the country. I have a passion for aviation, and my place in the industry is both intentional and purposeful. I believe that anything is possible with the right mindset and work ethic, and that people are the backbone of our great industry. My amazing wife, Monica, and three children, Mila, Sonny, and Maeva, are central to my life and motivate me to always push forward. 

Executive Director, Southern Waste Information eXchange, Inc. (SWIX)

Gene Jones serves as Executive Director of the Southern Waste Information Exchange (SWIX), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which has been operating since 1981 assisting businesses and municipalities with their waste management and remediation issues. 

With over 40 years of experience, Gene specializes in building strategic relationships with waste and remediation firms.  He brings a vast knowledge of various  environmental sectors from organizing and managing conferences such as;

•  the PFAS Forum,

•  the Agricultural Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show, 

•  the Waste Conversion Technology Conference & Trade Show, 

• the Southeast Recycling Conference & Trade Show, 

• the New Life for Closed Gas Stations Conference and Exhibition, 

•  the International Symposium on the Redevelopment of Manufactured Gas Plant Sites, 

•  the National Conference on Waste Exchange and Resource Reuse, and 

•  Florida Remediation Conference.

as well as in managing associations such as:

•  Florida Agricultural Plastics Recycling Cooperative

•  Florida BioFuels & BioEnergy Association, Inc., 

•  Recycle Florida Today, Inc.,

•  International Society of Technical & Environmental Professionals, Inc., 

•  Florida Brownfields Association, Inc., and

•  Keep Florida Beautiful, Inc.

Managing Shareholder, The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm, P.A.

Michael R. Goldstein, Managing Shareholder of The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm, P.A., and a Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent and Chambers and Partners rated attorney, practices exclusively in the areas of environmental law and environmental redevelopment for a broad range of clients, including retail, residential, and industrial developers, public and private companies, real estate funds, lenders, and local governments. A major aspect of Mr. Goldstein’s environmental legal practice involves support of real estate and business transactions, including managing pre-acquisition and pre-leasing due diligence investigations; structuring, negotiating, and drafting environmental provisions in purchase, lease, and development agreements; and assisting lenders evaluate and limit the risk of exposure to environmental liability in connection with new loans and potential foreclosures. In addition, he works closely and extensively with real estate development principals and engineering, planning, and design professionals to help coordinate federal, state and local regulatory approvals for complex retail, industrial, residential, mixed use, and marina related projects throughout the State of Florida. 

Mr. Goldstein’s practice has a heavy emphasis on the remediation, financing, and beneficial reuse of contaminated sites and involves a broad array of Brownfields related transactional, administrative, regulatory, legal, legislative, and policy work for clients in both the private and public sectors. He has developed a national reputation as one of the leading and most innovative Brownfields practitioners in Florida, working on important and precedent establishing projects as well as heading up or participating in numerous local, regional, state, and federal environmental restoration initiatives. On a statewide level, Mr. Goldstein was the founding Chairman of the Florida Brownfields Association and served as its Chairman and/or President for the first five years of the organization’s existence. Mr. Goldstein’s tenure as Chairman and President was distinguished by his commitment to elevating environmental justice and public health as critical areas of emphasis for business, community, regulatory agency, and local government stakeholders. In 1996, the Miami-Dade County Commission appointed him Chairman of the Miami-Dade County Brownfields Task Force, a post that he held until the committee’s business was completed in 2004. In January 2006, Mr. Goldstein was appointed to serve on the Advisory Board of the Bureau of National Affair’s highly respected Environmental Due Diligence Guide, which serves as a national reporting, editorial, and opinion forum for environmental transactions and related Brownfields and policy matters. In 2008, he founded and funded the Goldstein Brownfields Foundation, which is dedicated to empowering economically and health disadvantaged individuals and communities with scholarships, programming, and resources to restore polluted land, revitalize neighborhoods, and protect public health. The Goldstein Brownfields Foundation also focuses on increasing the ethnic and gender diversity of lawyers working in the environmental arena through academic scholarships, educational and career programming, and professional mentoring. In 2009, Mr. Goldstein was appointed to the Executive Committee of the National Brownfields Coalition, an affiliation of private and public sector stakeholders working in the U.S. Congress to advocate for improvements in environmental redevelopment policy and legislation. 

Senior Project Manager, Terracon

Chad Northington, PE, serves as a Senior Project Manager with Terracon with 24 years of industry experience in environmental engineering, project management, and technical sales.  

His engineering experience includes remediation system engineering and installation, in situ treatment design and application, and technical assistance across a broad spectrum of project and contaminant types under various regulatory frameworks.  His work experience includes implementation of various conventional and innovative remedial technologies, including in situ thermal, biological, micron-scale activated carbon, and chemical oxidation/reduction approaches.

Chad most recently served as the Southeast Senior District and Technical Manager for an environmental technology solutions firm.  In this role, he provided technical support for application of soil and groundwater remediation solutions working directly with environmental consulting, construction, and engineering firms and end users to develop turnkey remedial approaches for in situ-applied strategies.  He was responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating activities of the technical staff while providing personnel management and technical oversight.

Chad holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Michigan Technological University.  He is also licensed in several states as a Professional Engineer.  In addition to his role as a professional in the environmental community, Chad also founded and directs a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization specializing in community development and outreach.

Chad’s interests generally revolve around the outdoors and sustainability.  Fishing, kayaking, and hobby farming (ask about his backyard sheep) rank pretty high on his interest list along with jumping on his motorcycle or road bike to get in some miles for fun or fitness.  Despite his many interests, most of his time is spent with his children and wife attending the multitude of sports events and activities that come from having three children between 10 and 14 (twins Josiah and Zach and daughter Chloe) and juggling responsibilities with his wife Tiffany who works in the medical field. 

Restoration Program Manager, Environmental Management Division, NASA Headquarters

Mike has 39 years of professional geological experience and is currently the Restoration

Program Manager in the Environmental Management Division, NASA Headquarters. He is

developing cleanup policy, overseeing the investigation and cleanup efforts at all NASA Centers

and Component Facilities, and leading its Agency-wide PFAS response actions. He joined NASA

Headquarters following 22 plus years at Kennedy Space Center where he was the Technical

Lead and a Remediation Project Manager. Prior to that, he was a Remedial Project Manager in

the Federal Facilities Subsection in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and an

Exploration Geologist in the oil and gas industry. Mike resides in Merritt Island with his wife and

two golden retrievers and is the proud father of two Florida State Seminoles alumni.

Sr. Principal Hydrogeologist, Geosyntec Consultants, Inc.

Joe Applegate is a Sr. Principal Hydrogeologist in the Tallahassee, FL office and has 35 years of experience and has managed multiple USEPA CERCLA, RCRA, and FDEP environmental contracts and programs and has managed federal, state, and industrial sites including petroleum, dry-cleaning facilities, chemical manufacturers, fire training facilities, landfills, former MGPs, and pesticide manufacturers and applicators.  

Joe is a recognized regulatory expert with extensive knowledge of federal and state environmental rules, regulations, and permitting processes allow him to meet the clients and regulatory community needs quickly and efficiently. Joe has managed numerous State of Florida Superfund, State Hazardous, Drycleaning Solvent, State Owned Lands and Site Investigation, Brownfields, Petroleum, and Former Manufactured Gas Plants.  He has managed multiple conditional closure projects and developed RC packages for private client projects as well as for the FDEP.   He has also managed projects with emerging contaminates, including 1,4 Dioxane and PFAS. He has presented at multiple conferences in Florida on industrial uses of these compounds, physicochemical properties, fate and transport of PFAS in soil and groundwater, as well as general assessment and remedial approaches.

President, BioLargo Equipment Solutions and Technologies

Ms. Tonya Chandler, President of BioLargo's Equipment Division, and PFAS Regulatory Compliance expert for BioLargo Inc. has  spent her career in water and wastewater working both on municipally and industrially, worldwide.  She has a degree from Carroll College (now Carroll University) in Waukesha WI in both Biology and Communication. She has worked for such companies as Shaw Environmental and Veolia Water where she gained hands on experience in all aspects of the industry. Her current focus is on PFAS and water reuse.

Bryan Massa, LSP, Principal and Regional Manager, HRP Associates, Inc.

Bryan Massa is a Licensed Site Professional (LSP) with over 25 years of experience in the environmental field.  Bryan has worked on a variety of environmental projects throughout the United States and Mexico.  His experience has included the development of environmental site assessments, complex analytical data review, remediation design and oversight, risk assessments, emergency response to releases of oil and/or hazardous materials, soil gas and indoor air assessment, due diligence investigations, forensic evaluation and cost allocation.  His portfolio includes a number of interdisciplinary projects that combine remediation efforts with civil site design, stream restoration, and adaptive reuse.