Compliance Professionals

Matt Whitacre

Manager, GIS & Ecological Services

Experience:
2008–present

Education:
Master’s Certificate: Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
B.S.: Geographic and Environmental Science
A.S.: Natural Resource Management

Certifications:

• Virginia DEQ Stormwater Management Inspector – SWIN 0657
• FAA sUAS Remote Pilot #4279772
• AED and CPR certified.

Matt Whitacre is a GIS and Environmental Professional and has worked in the field since 2008. He holds undergraduate degrees in Natural Resource Management and Geography from James Madison University and a graduate degree in GIS from Johns Hopkins University. During his undergraduate studies, Matt was part of a longstanding avian migration research project at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia where he banded and logged critical information for hundreds of avian specimens over a two-year period.

Mr. Whitacre began his environmental career at URS Corporation as part of a research team studying the bioaccumulation of mercury through organisms in freshwater and terrestrial environments along the South River in Virginia. Here, he worked alongside researchers from the Smithsonian Institute, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and multiple Universities performing benthic macroinvertebrate studies, avian population studies and blood analysis, piscivorous mammal surveys, and fish population survey and diet analysis.

Matt then went on to join Angler Environmental to serve as a GIS Professional and Project Manager. While at Angler Environmental, he spearheaded mobile GIS Application development for the firm as the technology began to emerge. He developed GIS Applications to boost workflows both in and out of the office for wetland delineations, mitigation bank site analysis, erosion and sediment control inspections, and post construction SWM inspections among others. During this period Matt was co-inventor of the U.S. Patented GEOSWM GIS Application, a system for combining pollution source information with geographic and/or temporal information for a land disturbing construction site.

After his time at Angler Environmental, Mr. Whitacre joined Greenway Engineering as the firms GIS Director and Environmental Compliance Manager. Here, Matt maintained and enhanced the firm’s longstanding GIS program and oversaw all aspects of GIS responsibilities of the firm spanning from data acquisition and manipulation to complex cartography, and application development. Also serving as the firm’s Environmental Compliance Manager, Matt oversaw numerous environmental feasibility projects including Wetland Delineations and Permitting, Threatened and Endangered Species Research, State and Federal agency coordination, Unified Stream Methodology assessments, Phase I Environmental Site Assessments, among others. While with the firm, Matt also oversaw the construction and field design of the Sleepy Creek restoration project in Morgan County, WV. This restoration helped alleviate the estimated 163 tons of sediment and associated nutrients from entering Sleepy Creek and Chesapeake Bay annually.

Mr. Whitacre brings his diverse background to Compliance Professionals to enhance the firm’s offerings and carry on their commitment to quality services. At Compliance Professionals, Matt oversees all aspects of GIS, Wetland Delineation and Survey, State and Federal Regulatory Permitting, Threatened and Endangered Species Studies, among others.

Matt also holds his certification as a Stormwater Management Inspector from VA DEQ and is a licensed FAA sUAS Remote Pilot.