Ghina Yamout, PhD

DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY & PARTNERSHIP

EDUCATION

2005

2002

1999

PHD - Environmental Resources Management

University Of Florida (UF)

MSC - Environmental Technology

American University Of Beirut (AUB)

BSC – Chemistry

American University Of Beirut (AUB)

Decision Theory Application to Sustainable Resources Management – Triple-Bottom-Line analysis –Multiple Party Decision Making Under Risk, Uncertainty,and conflict in Water Resources Allocation Problems. An Optimization Approach for Multi-Sectoral Water Supply Management in the Greater Beirut Area.

STRENGTHS

English

Arabic

French

Turkish & Hindi

LANGUAGES

OBJECTIVE Advancing WHAT and WHO I believe in. Being an integral part of a leading agency to leave a positive impact in the unyielding momentum of a California’s vitality.

Woo’er Activator Strategist Positive Individualizer ABILITIES

I am an Influencer and positive activator with ability to inspire and motivate internal and external partners into taking part of positive change. I am a relationship builder with contagious enthusiasm that engages the unique qualities of each to work together productively. I speak firmly, but from the heart, and strive to provide a safe environment for all stakeholders to be included in the conversation, with authentic believe in the enriching value of diversity and inclusion.

I am a strategic thinker who sees big picture patterns where others see complexity. I takes a leadership role in exploring and implementing ideas for growth, blending strategic thinking with hands-on practicality. I untangle complex issues and design innovative solutions by linking facts, events, and people through creative thinking and analytical skills. I work collaboratively and effectively with people at all levels in an organization, in a team environment, and communicate complex ideas effectively, verbally and in writing.

Exceptional Abilities

LEADERSHIP - Turning local and global community

sustainability challenges into opportunities

Co-Chair, Chair of Partnership Committee, and Council Member. LA Metro Sustainability Council (SC). 2017 – Present.

Dr. Yamout was appointed to the LA Metro Sustainability Council from its inception and served as elected co-chair of its first and current Executive Committee. During that time she conceptualized and lead the Partnerships Sub-Committee, the only sub-committee of the Council to bring together Council Members of different backgrounds and interests and develop a workplan to tackle key LA Metro sustainability and infrastructure initiatives including sustainability and mobility performance metrics, construction green procurement policy, green infrastructure, and tools and databases, through improving communication and promoting coordination among internal divisions and identifying and facilitating relevant LA County partnerships. Dr. Yamout continuously strived for inclusion of the diverse and inclusive stakeholders’ views, including public agencies, non-profits, public health, professional associations, engineering, construction, labor unions, academic institution, and foreign organizations, among other stakeholders.

Board President. Arab American Association of Engineers and Architects, California Chapter (AAAEA-CA). 2013 – Present.

AAAEA is a leading nationwide professional association promoting the careers of Arab American professionals, youth, and students and facilitating their integration into the industry and larger community. Dr. Yamout plans, manages, and implements major events featuring industry leaders, technical seminars, scholarships, achievement, and internship opportunities. Major transportation and infrastructure leadership hosted under Dr. Yamout’s leadership include Phil Washington, Chief Executive Officer, LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Hasan Ikhrata, Executive Director, San Diego Association of Governments, previously Chief Executive Officer, Southern California Association of Governments; Robert Johnson, Deputy Executive Officer, LA World Airports; Adel HageKhalil, Executive Director, City of LA Bureau of Street Services; Mark Pestrella, Director, LA County Department of Public Works; Michael Sarullo, Division Engineer, Environmental Engineering, City of LA, Bureau of Engineering; Jim Beil, Director, Capital Programs, Orange County Transportation Authority; Dennis Probst, Vice President, Development, San Diego Airport Authority; Cid Tesoro, Assistant Vice President, Infrastructure, San Diego Unified Port District. Dr. Yamout is continuously asked to take leadership, activator, and transformational roles in proactively shaping the technical and policy dialogues in professional organizations, technical working groups, policy councils, and conference committees. She is apt at maneuvering through the complexity of stakeholders' personalities and interests, to understand their motivations, identify commonalities and differences between their goals, and generate inspiring ideas, creative strategies, and out-of-the-box tactics to create bridges and connect viewpoints. LEADERSHIP - Turning local and global community

sustainability challenges into opportunities (Continued) Board Member. LA Metro Transportation Business Advisory Board (TBAC). 2015 – Present.

Dr. Yamout is an active member, advocating on behalf of small and disadvantaged business owners, along with professional representatives from an array of industries and trades including, Asian, Black, Arab, Hispanic, Women, and Veterans. She takes part of assessing Metro’s diversity and inclusion efforts including minority representation, institutional policies, and non-discrimination, through identifying gaps and monitoring and evaluating activities efficiency and effectiveness.

“Girls Into Green Careers” and “Let’s Connect” Initiatives Lead / Committee Member. International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). 2018 – 2019.

ICSI is the lead forum for sustainable infrastructure practitioners from around the world to engage in a comprehensive conversation on the cities of the future, including latest research and innovative approaches to planning, financing, and resiliency. Dr. Yamout conceptualized and was part of the implementation team for the “Girls Into Green Careers”, an innovative program to ensure the conference “pays forward” and has a positive impact on the LA community, where it was hosted. It is a full-day event to connect high school girls from disadvantaged communities to women industry leaders. When the time was critical to advance another innovative program “Let’s Connect in LA”, Dr. Yamout was approached to lead the implementation of the program, which consists of multiple sessions for small and large businesses to have a one-to-one conversation with agency leaders as well as B2B interactions. Conference Committee Member, Panel Moderator, and Session Lead. California Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA) Annual Conference. 2016 – 2019. CASQA is the leading association focused on stormwater management challenges and opportunities through collaboration, education, implementation, regulatory guidance, and scientific assessment. The conference draws 1200 regulatory and municipal decision makers, program coordinators, planners, engineers, lawyers, and scientists, for 3 days of training and discussions. Dr. Yamout has proposed and implemented transformative ideas into the yearly event, including emphasizing the importance of partnership between public infrastructure agencies for the planning and implementation of sustainable green infrastructure programs and projects and the role of operation and maintenance of green infrastructure in challenging the successful formation of these partnerships.

Conference Organizing Lead / Committee Member, and Panel Moderator. City of LA Mayor’s First Small Business Summit. 2017.

Dr. Yamout played a decisive and very active role in the successful conceptualization, planning, and implementation of the City of LA Office of Economic Development first summit. The summit was initiated by a group of five small businesses to provide workshops, exhibitions, and hands-on contracting and certification assistance. Attracting over 300 professionals, the summit has become an annual initiative of the Mayor’s office.

Client Service Manager. MARRS Services. 2020 – Present.

Dr. Yamout is responsible for leading and managing the development and implementation of the comprehensive strategic vision and tactics for expanding the firm’s market share with various clients in Southern California. She leads branding a marketing campaigns, capture planning efforts, proposal development, and interview preparation for the team.

Dr. Yamout takes a leading part of the personal and professional development of the firm’s employees. She is a certified with Best Year Yet® coach and responsible for administering the program to employees and partners.

Director of Strategy and Partnership. Alta Environmental. 2015 – 2020.

Dr. Yamout was responsible for leading and managing the development and implementation of the comprehensive strategic vision and tactics of all environmental and sustainability services, for all media, including water resources, air quality, climate, sustainability planning,, environmental investigations, hazardous waste, hazardous materials, and environmental health and safety.

With a high sense of urgency, in a remarkably short period of time, and with minimal supplementary resources, Dr. Yamout successfully and independently orchestrated branding and marketing campaigns intended to broaden recognition of the company as a whole, as well as individual peers, beyond existing clients and offerings. Her efforts effectively reinforced the company’s brand and created an extensive network of peers which is successfully and repeatedly accessed to build successful partnerships.

Dr. Yamout’s efforts covered Southern California’s massive urban matrix, with its intricate socio-political dynamics and critical issues, aggressive growth vision, and complementary (or conflicting) stakeholders’ interests. She monitored and evaluated the efficiency and effectiveness of activities outcomes, allocated resources, assessed and monitored deficiencies and workloads, and provided and coordinated staff training and mentorship. She proactively identified opportunities for internal division and external teams’ collaboration and partnerships to ensure the administrative and technical support system is constantly evolving with personnel, tools and databases, and communication improvements to optimize her efforts, teams’ productivity, client satisfaction, and company performance.

Dr. Yamout monitored the comprehensive Federal, State, and local regulatory framework impacting Southern California, and their impact on various stakeholders’ activities. She identified market trends and performs market segmentation to evaluate and guide development and implementation of strategy, including creating and maintaining active positive liaisons and partnerships with strategic stakeholders. Countywide Sustainability Annual Report and Performance Metrics, for LA Metro. Project Manager. Alta Environmental. 2016 – 2018.

Dr. Yamout played a key role bringing together a winning team to assist Metro in the selection, evaluation, and reporting of sustainability metrics for countywide planning, introducing equity as key factor in assessing mobility, socioeconomic, environmental, and safety metrics. EXPERIENCE – Turning local and global community

sustainability challenges into opportunities

The effort included identification of collaboration and partnerships opportunities, and tools, databases, and data gaps, to ensure reliable continuous tracking of performance trends for assessing efficiency and effectiveness of LA Metro’s sustainability and resiliency initiatives.

Dr. Yamout was part of an extensive stakeholder involvement process, with dynamic presentations and working groups. LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Paul Backstrom; 213-***-****. Enhanced Watershed Management Program for the Marina Del Rey Watershed, County of LA. Project Manager. Weston Solutions. 2013 – 2015.

Dr. Yamout provided technical and managerial support for the stormwater management and green infrastructure countywide sustainability effort to comprehensively identify water quality issues and evaluate opportunities for multi-benefit regional projects to optimize the recharge, capture, and reuse of storm water runoff, to meet federal, state, and local regulatory requirements at optimal cost.

Dr. Yamout’s effort resulted in the identification of the first Public-Private-Partnership in LA County, between the City of Culver City and a private entity, Costco, for a stormwater management project.

Dr. Yamout was involved in an extensive stakeholder process coordinating with key public agencies and non-profit organizations in LA County. She also managed development of the performance monitoring and assessment program. County of LA Department of Public Works; T.J. Moon; 626-***-****. Business Strategy Development and Firm Branding. Business Development Manager. Weston Solutions. 2013 – 2015.

Successfully and independently orchestrated business development and marketing campaigns in LA County intended to broaden recognition of the firm beyond existing clients and offerings, in a remarkably short period of time and with minimal supplementary resources.

Played a central role in a state-wide stakeholder effort to organize a successful groundwater conference by the Groundwater Resources Association (GRA) focused on the pressing water sustainability issues such as the oil and gas industry practices.

Played an active role in the One Water LA extensive stakeholder process. Lisa Kay; 562-***-****. Historical Characterization of the California Bay-Delta Hydrology 1850-1920. Project Manager. Weston Solutions. 2013 – 2015.

Assessed the impact of California’s economic and urban development, transportation infrastructure, mining, agriculture, migration, and climate on shaping the Bay-Delta conditions.

Identified and analyzed disaggregated and un-digitized historical qualitative and quantitative information that fills an important gap in the current understanding of the Bay-Delta evolution. Constructed consistent data series and selected of metrics to represent system change. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; Paul Hutton; 916-***-****. EXPERIENCE – Turning local and global community

sustainability challenges into opportunities (Continued) Water Resources Technical and Regulatory Specialist. City of Mesa, AZ. 2007 – 2009.

Represented the City in the extensive statewide ADD Water effort (Acquire, Develop, and Deliver) and took part of the white paper committee to research alternative acquisition approaches nationwide. Represented the City in the East Valley Water Forum, a partnership of tribal, public agencies, and private water companies, to develop a regional groundwater management plan focused on climate change drought scenarios and increasing resiliency though regional recharge.

Represented the City in public relations and maintained active liaisons state, federal, and local regulatory agencies, municipalities, and private industry. Monitored legislative and regulatory activities, and prepared and implemented policy recommendations to ensure those activities have a positive impact. City of Mesa, AZ; Kathryn Sorensen; 480-***-****. Water Demand Projections. Project Manager. City of Mesa, AZ. 2007 – 2009.

Provided independent complex technical and advisory support to carry out long-range water resources management objectives by assessing different methods to estimate projected water demand to align the city’s water portfolio, policies, and projected growth, and ensure state and federal compliance.

Demonstrated leadership and cross-functional skills by effectively and efficiently motivating, managing, and coordinating various departments to define project scope, budget, schedule, resource needs, constraints, acquire resources, define data needs, and implement geospatial analysis.

Demonstrated innovation in handling projects challenges; prepared reports and presentations for a diverse group of managers and employees. City of Phoenix, AZ; Kathryn Sorensen; 602-***-****. Price and Weather Elasticity of Demand Analysis. City of Mesa, AZ. Project Manager and Principal Researcher. GY Consulting. 2009 – 2011.

Developed and executed a univariate and multivariate model to assess consumers response to changes in price and weather factors in the unique water rights, regulatory, physical, and growth setting.

Coordinated with diverse departments to define key needs and requirements and analyze extensive customer databases to geo-reference water usage, prices, and weather data. Coordinated with client to develop project plans with scope, constraints, budget, schedule, resource requirements; timely exchange of data and track key milestones, prepared and delivered reports, recommendations, and client presentations. City of Mesa, AZ; Kathryn Sorensen; 480-***-****. Picayune Strand Restoration Project for the South Florida Water Management District, West Palm Beach, FL. Water Resources Specialist. Parsons. 2005 – 2007.

Coordinated programmatic tasks and environmental and engineering teams, in an integrated multidisciplinary setting for the Federally and State funded US largest environmental restoration project at the time in the Florida Everglades. Assisted very actively, technically and magisterially in scope preparation, subconsultants coordination, document control, project management, budget and schedule. ACR, Charles Rowney; 407-***-****.

EXPERIENCE – Turning local and global community

sustainability challenges into opportunities (Continued) EXPERIENCE – Turning local and global community

sustainability challenges into opportunities (Continued) Selected Publications and Presentations

Yamout G, El-Fadel M, (2005). An Optimization Approach for Multi-Sectoral Water Supply Management in the Greater Beirut Area. Water Resources Management, 19 (6), 791-812. Yamout, G. and Jamali, D. (2006). A Critical Assessment of a Public Private Partnership for the Management of Water Services in Lebanon. Water Resources Management, 21, (3), 611-634. Yamout, G. M., K. Hatfield, and H. E. Romeijn (2007). Comparison of New Conditional Value-At-Risk-Based Management Models for Optimal Allocation of Uncertain Water Supplies. Water Resources Research, 43, W07430.

Yamout, G. M. and K. Hatfield. A conflict Resolution Model for Common Pool Water Resources. Submitted to Advances in Water Resources.

Doctorate Dissertation. 08/2005. Applications of Single Party and Multiple Party Decision Making Under Risk and Uncertainty to Water Resources Allocation Problems. University of Florida. Civil Engineering Department. Chairman: Dr. Kirk Hatfield.

Master Thesis. 08/2002. An Optimization Approach for Multi-Sectoral Water Supply Management in the Greater Beirut Area. American University of Beirut. Civil Engineering Department. Chairman: Dr. Mutasem El Fadel.

Yamout, G. Water Resources: The West. Invited Presentation at Arizona State University, School of Planning. PUP 442, Environmental Planning, Ross Cromarty. 01/2008. Rowney, A. C. and Yamout, G. BMPs as a Water Balance Asset In Arid Regions. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). EWRI Congress. 05/2008.

Lant, T. and Yamout, G. Water Portfolio Scenario Analysis for Mesa, Arizona. . American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). EWRI Congress. 05/2008.

Yamout, G. Water Allocation Modeling: Conflict Resolution and Optimization. Oral Presentation. Symposium on Challenges facing Water Resources Management in Arid Regions. Beirut, Lebanon. 10/2005. CONTACT Cell: 850-***-**** Email: adi53u@r.postjobfree.com

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