Mark Kieser, senior scientist and principal at Kieser & Associates, LLC, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Wittenberg University (Springfield, Ohio) and a Master of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Michigan Technological University.
Mr. Kieser has over 28 years of environmental consulting experience in addition to three years of academic research on water resource issues. As a consultant, he has been responsible for implementing studies at over 250 sites throughout Michigan, the Midwest, and the eastern and southern United States. These have involved various investigations of surface water, wastewater, groundwater, solid and atmospheric contaminant issues encompassing sites ranging from the Great Lakes, to remote undeveloped areas, to Superfund sites with more than 100 years of industrial use. Mr. Kieser has directed more than 100 other environmental engineering projects since the firm was founded in 1992. These have required an intensive knowledge of scientific and engineering principles as well as the full range of applicable state and federal regulations.
Mr. Kieser has also played a prominent role in water quality trading program and policy development since 1995. Mr. Kieser led one of five Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-supported water quality trading projects in the United States (US) in the mid-1990s and served on the state of Michigan Water Quality Trading Workgroup that developed the framework for Michigan’s water quality trading rules—the first such rules in the US. He now leads a variety of trading projects focused on: watershed; state-wide and regional trading program development; agricultural credit banking schemes; urban stormwater; electronic water quality trading registries and infrastructure; restoration of natural flow regimes in Great Lakes tributaries; and development of ecosystem service markets.