NJ Vapor Intrusion Seminar Bios

Gary A. Angyal, PE, LEP
Vice President
Mr. Angyal has more than 25 years of professional engineering experience in environmental programs and remedial designs. Mr. Angyal's VI mitigation system evaluation, design and construction experience includes Chemical, Pharmaceutical and other industrial facilities throughout New Jersey as well as residential structures. As the manager of the firm's Edison, New Jersey office he has frequent regulatory interaction with the NJDEP Site Remediation Program and is responsible for VI program execution, QA/QC and regulatory compliance as a component of site remediation programs.

James M. Cavotta
Project Manager
Mr. Cavotta has more than 20 years of professional experience in all facets of construction, as well as in the areas of industrial health and safety. He has served as Project Manager for the nation's largest VI site overseeing and directly managing implementation staff, cost control, schedule and production. This project involved the design and installation of over 550 vapor mitigation systems. He developed a project specific execution strategy with the intention of installing mitigation systems on a fast track basis while controlling cost and maintaining good relations with the community and local officials. As a Project Manager with O'Brien & Gere, he is currently responsible for the quality, budget, timely and accurate completion of projects under his direction.

Mark A. Distler
Vice President
Mr. Distler has 29 years of environmental engineering experience. As a Vice President with O'Brien & Gere, he is currently responsible for management and/or technical direction of many of the firm's vapor intrusion (VI) projects, including soil vapor, sub-slab, and indoor air measurements as well as mitigation programs and public relations. He worked for three years at the nation's largest VI site where over 550 mitigation systems were installed and is currently directing the technical efforts on the largest VI site in New Jersey where over 400 mitigation systems are planned. He leads the firm's VI Team by advancing the state of the science among approximately 60 engineers, scientists and construction managers and by positioning the firm as a market leader through the sub-brand Vaprotect™.

Norma L. Eichlin
Vice President
Ms. Eichlin has over 20 years of experience in the environmental industry in both the public and private sectors. Her focus has been on sites consisting of multiple source areas and a wide array of contaminants requiring remediation. This has included the implementation of multi-faceted investigations and the evaluation of numerous technologies in the feasibility study process. Ms. Eichlin is currently serving as the program manager for the largest VI mitigation project in New Jersey, with well over 400 mitigation systems planned. This program involves continuous interaction with the regulatory agencies and has provided Ms. Eichlin with a unique perspective and understanding of client, regulatory, and community expectations. She has also been involved with planning and evaluation of various implementation strategies supporting the client's approaches for assessment, system design and installation, data analyses and management, QA/QC, and public relations.

Christopher M. Roe, Esquire
Mr. Roe is a partner of Fox Rothschild LLP, and has helped clients evaluate and/or address numerous vapor intrusion issues in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and overseas. He is a member of ASTM's Committee E50 on Environmental Assessment, Risk Management and Corrective Action. He is part of the ASTM Vapor Intrusion Task Group and is now working toward the revision or withdrawal of ASTM's E 2600-08, the recently issued standard practice for vapor intrusion assessment in transactions. Mr. Roe has been an environmental lawyer for almost 20 years, helping clients with regard to a broad range of environment-related matters. He serves as a primary outside environmental counsel to one of the world's largest companies, and regularly provides advice to clients with regard to mergers and acquisitions, real estate transactions, disclosures, remediation issues, air, water and waste and health and safety. Mr. Roe also has served as national defense counsel in toxic tort litigation, defended clients in government actions for cleanup costs; prosecuted and defended private cost recovery actions; prosecuted and defended environmental citizen suits; and defended clients in penalty actions under a variety of federal and state statutes. Mr. Roe is president-elect of the Delaware Valley Environmental American Inn of Court, is former co-chair of the Environmental Law Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association, serves East Whiteland Township as Chair of its Environmental Advisory Council, and is a member of an ABA SEER task group on nanotechnology. He graduated from George Washington University (B.A. 1982) and Temple University School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1990) and is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Paula Kovacs Ross
Ms. Ross specializes in developing and implementing intensive, on-the-ground community relations and involvement programs for environmental cleanup and controversial siting projects. Paula has developed community relations plans for environmental projects involving groundwater, soil, indoor air, and outdoor air emissions. Her projects have included those that involved lead, zinc, arsenic, VOCs, PCBs, former defense sites, and Brownfields redevelopment. She has experience with Superfund and RCRA sites, planning and carrying out strategic communications plans for individual large companies and Potentially Responsible Parties (PRP) Groups. Highlights of her career include developing and implementing communications programming and outreach at one of the largest vapor intrusion study sites in the country, and being a key participant on the team that successfully developed and led the experimental Multi-Stakeholders'Group at EPA's pilot site for Brownfields redevelopment. Paula's project work in recent years has focused on vapor intrusion, she lends her expertise at VI projects in various settings.

Before starting her own practice, Paula managed communications efforts at project sites across the U.S. for Energy Development Group (EDG), an independent power producer. Prior to EDG, she worked at DecisionQuest, a strategic communications consulting firm, working for numerous private and government clients. Her current and past clients include a several Fortune-100 and Fortune-50 corporations, as well as several PRP Groups.

Paula earned a B.A. in Environmental Studies and English from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, and she studied sustainable development at the School for Field Studies in Atenas, Costa Rica. She is certified in Public Participation by the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2).

Karen A. Storne
Technical Associate
Ms. Storne has 25 years of experience in the environmental field. Her current responsibilities as Technical Associate for the Data Validation/Data Quality Assurance Group include quality assurance/quality control oversight, preparation of quality assurance plans, data validation (including dioxin/dibenzofuran, radiochemistry and congener-specific PCB), and laboratory audits. In the laboratory, her responsibilities included operation of gas chromatograph/mass spectrometers; volatile and semivolatile organic gas chromatographs; fourier transform infrared spectrophotometers; high-pressure liquid chromatographs; and atomic absorption spectrometers. Her analytical chemistry experience includes organic and inorganic sample preparation for drinking water, wastewater, solid and hazardous waste, wet chemistry techniques, and data generation and interpretation.