Leadership

Della Young, Owner/Chief Executive Officer
A versatile business partner and project manager, Della brings nearly 30 years of experience on multidisciplinary project experience in the public and private sectors. Her industry experience focuses on providing technical and project management expertise within water and natural resources management, permitting, and implementation of civil works support for transportation and municipal infrastructure projects. She is a certified facilitator skilled in generating consensus in both agreeable and disagreeable settings. As a skilled speaker, she conveys the most complex engineering concepts to both non-technical and technical audiences.

Della started her career in resources management as an intern for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Division of Waters (now Ecological and Water Resources). After graduation from the University of Minnesota, she worked as a flood damage reduction hydrologist for the DNR before taking a position with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT)–Water Resources Section. At MNDOT, Della honed her transportation, drainage design, and regulatory compliance skills. Before starting Young Environmental Consulting Group (Young Environmental), Della led practices for two national consulting companies. Della’s 16 years at those companies brought her many successes and understanding of client and business operations.

As owner and principal scientist of Young Environmental, Della offers not only experience, but unwavering integrity. Outside of the workplace, Della volunteers much of her time on professional committees and commissions and at organizations that support community empowerment.

Certifications: Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control (CPESC), Certified ToP Facilitator (CTF)

The Team

The Young Environmental Consulting Group team is comprised of sharp, young minds and experienced industry professionals. We strive to foster long-lasting relationships with our clients and project partners.

**Ashley Weihs, Water Resources Intern**
Ashley is an intern from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, where she is pursuing a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences, policy, and management with minors in water science and forest ecosystem management and conservation. Her service areas include floodplain modeling, fieldwork and inspections, research, and assessments related to resource management.

**Brian Kelly, Senior Hydraulics Engineering Specialist**
Brian served his 35-year career as a Water Resources Project Manager with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) where he contributed to large-scale roadway projects across the Twin Cities. He designs solutions that help our transportation evolve for a growing population. He has extensive experience in permitting compliance, stormwater design, and environmental compliance for transportation projects.

**Chris Ross, Senior GIS Analyst**
Chris is a skilled geographic information systems (GIS) professional with more than eight years of public and private work. He has spent much of his career managing public infrastructure data in enterprise GIS. His service areas include data management, analysis, and visual presentation as well as application and ArcGIS StoryMap design for public engagement.
**Certifications:** GIS Certificate

**Erica Bock, Water Resources Scientist**
Erica began her career as an intern for Young Environmental in 2019. While facilitating different projects with a range of goals, Erica has learned the importance of incorporating stakeholder opinions and values and uses this to deliver products of integrity and excellence. Her service areas include in-depth field assessments for resource management studies; restoration and protection work; and watershed permitting.

**Hannah LeClaire, Project Manager**
Hannah is a water resources engineer and project manager with more than eight years’ experience in water resources design and modeling. Her service areas include hydrologic and hydraulic modeling; stormwater best management practices; natural resource restorations; civil design; and GIS design and analysis. She builds strong partnerships that bring innovative solutions to life.
**Certifications:** Professional Engineer (MN, ND)

**Jennifer Mocol-Johnson, Water and Natural Resources Program Manager**
Jennifer oversees the firm’s operations team with more than 20 years of experience in water and natural resources planning. With her skills in project and program management, organizational effectiveness, and team management, she optimizes resources to deliver consistently excellent results for our clients. Her services areas include urban planning, renewable energy, environmental studies, regulatory permitting, stakeholder engagement.

**Jim Berg, Hydrogeologist**
Jim specializes in hydrogeologic investigations covering issues that range from water supply and contaminated groundwater to groundwater/surface water interactions and aquifers. Throughout his 40-year career with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Jim served on a wide range of projects, including local and shallow settings, deep and regional investigations, and authoring many county groundwater atlases in Minnesota.

**Katy Young, Administrative Assistant**
Katy is currently a junior at the University of Minnesota, where she is pursuing a degree in Environmental Science and minoring in Leadership. She aspires to enter the field of conservation. Katy provides administrative and operational support to the CEO as well as Young Environmental staff and clients. Katy provides detail-oriented support to ensure both internal and external business needs are meeting our standard of excellence.

**Lan Tornes, Natural Resources Scientist**
Lan has a broad technical background and enjoys a variety of challenging tasks as an experienced natural resource professional. He brings strong leadership and technical field skills with a focus on water. With nearly 40 years of experience as a hydrologist, he has executed complex resource investigations, communicating with people of all backgrounds, professions, and education levels. His service areas include monitoring data reviews and total maximum daily load (TMDLs).

**Nick Voss, Water Resources Scientist**
Nick contributes to projects in the areas of education and outreach, stakeholder engagement, stormwater management and compliance, and resource planning and management studies. With more than eight years of experience in watershed management and more than 11 years in natural resources, Nick brings a diverse and grounded approach to water and natural resources management. He is skilled at balancing science and engineering with social science and relationship building.

**Rachel Kapsch, Water Resources Scientist**
Rachel is a water resources scientist with more than a year of experience in environmental investigation and remediation, water and natural resources management, and environmental compliance. Her service areas include permitting; training, education, and outreach; collection and analysis of key data, and report writing. With a growing background in environmental consulting, Rachel brings an enthusiastic, collaborative, and detail-oriented approach to her work.

Suzy Lindberg, Communications Manager

Suzy brings 15 years of experience with communications and marketing, a decade of which was spent specifically in the environmental and natural resources field. Her service areas include communications planning, content strategy, technical writing and editing, graphic design, and proposal development. She brings a passion for the environment, storytelling, collaboration, and getting meaningful work done.

**Will Young, Researcher and Business Analyst**
Will brings more than 25 years of project management, contract execution, market research, and negotiations experience to the firm. He identifies key stakeholders impacted by each project and assists with securing resources and subject-matter experts to create strong cross-functional business teams. His service areas are markets, business, and contract review. Will also oversees company financial planning, ensuring the financial health of Young Environmental.

Interns

Young Environmental is proud to hire students as interns. We believe internships are a great way to train the next generation of employees. Our interns have conducted geomorphic and habitat assessments for trout streams and performed a comprehensive gully inventory and condition assessment in the Lower Minnesota River Watershed. Their research provided a basis for future planning on target reaches for stream restoration and stabilization work in the area. We provide training, on-the-job support, and meaningful work for students to put their learning to use in the field. As a win-win, interns give our clients additional bandwidth to take on large-scale projects.

Some of our previous interns have returned to the Young Environmental team full-time after graduation!