The Board of Directors is pleased to announce the election of Donna Collier as Chairwoman of the Board of the National Environmental Banking Association.
The National Environmental Banking Association (NEBA) is committed to high standards for environmental restoration and preservation of our wetlands and natural habitats through the use of ecosystem service banks. NEBA promotes economic development by streamlining the permitting process and by creating jobs in the private sector. Its members have established and operated mitigation, conservation and other banks throughout the United States since the early 1990s.
Previously, Donna was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Mitigation Banking Association where she served as Treasurer, Secretary, and Chair of the Data and Research Committee. She is on the Leadership Council of the National Small Business Association, a guest speaker for college level environmental banking courses and a contributor to the National Wetland Newsletter published by the Environmental Law Institute.
Donna is founder and manager of Valencia Wetlands Trust. She purchased the degraded Louisiana Pacific sawmill property in Priest River, Idaho, in 2001, with the intention of developing a residential golf course community. After learning about the wetland banking program from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she decided to develop a wetland bank instead. Valencia, that 291-acre property, has been restored to a high quality, for-profit wetland bank with a score of 11.8 out of a possible 12 environmental functional units, and is the first and largest wetland bank in Idaho. Valencia now provides public recreational fishing and educational tours for schools and other groups.
Prior to Valencia, Collier had a wide range of development and management experiences that include permitting sizable residential development projects, supervising and training over 40 office managers for a nationwide corporation, liaising with Medicare, leading a corporate-wide project to revolutionize physician billing, and de-bugging a medical office accounting system which was subsequently marketed nationwide. Donna has also managed a multi-national marketing group and administered large U.S. Government and International contracts.
“It is an honor and a privilege to serve the seasoned professionals on the NEBA Board of Directors who have contributed so many years to the development of sound environmental practices. We have a historic opportunity to promote economic development while empowering small businesses and landowners to restore and protect our precious natural environment.”