Staff Bio

Suzanne Orenstein

Director of the Udall Foundation’s Washington DC Office

Suzanne Orenstein, a well known environmental conflict resolution practitioner and manager, was named to head the new Washington, D.C., office of the Udall Foundation and the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution in early 2010. Ms. Orenstein comes to the position after twenty-three years working as a neutral facilitator and mediator of multi-party public policy negotiations, strategic collaborations, and other consensus-building efforts. She has facilitated and mediated collaboration and consensus building processes addressing the full range of environmental and public policy issues, working at the national, state, regional and local levels. She has facilitated several Federal Advisory Groups and negotiated rulemaking processes, and has conducted conflict assessments on a full range of controversial topics.

Ms. Orenstein’s responsibilities as Director of the DC Office include representing the Foundation and the Institute in their many interactions with federal agencies based in DC. She is responsible for maintaining relationships with the Institute’s agency-partners in environmental collaboration work, and for supporting Tucson-based staff in their work with federal partners. She provides consultation on potential ECR processes and provides an expeditious link to the IECR staff and its roster of ECR professionals. She is also responsible for helping partner agencies develop and implement programs for managing environmental conflicts that require independent neutral assistance.

Orenstein is the former Vice President of RESOLVE, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., which focuses on conflict resolution for public policy issues. She is also the former Alternative Dispute Resolution Coordinator for the Department of the Attorney General in Massachusetts. More recently, she was a senior consultant to the Consensus Building Institute, and a private ECR practitioner based in Massachusetts.


Suzanne Orenstein, (202) 540-1040 orenstein@ecr.gov



 

“ In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. ”
Albert Einstein

Did you know...?

building Our professional staff sometimes serve as lead mediators/facilitators on projects, primarily when complex federal interagency or intergovernmental issues are involved. More often, we help the people involved assess the situation, outline a path to resolution and choose a lead mediator/facilitator or team of independent practitioners. We typically manage the contract and oversee the work of these service providers. Often the national roster or the Native Network can be used to identify the best qualified practitioners for specific cases.


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