Meet Shirley Rivera
(and check out her occasional blog posts)
I am the founder of Resource Catalysts (R|CAT). I am an Environmental and Energy Consultant serving not only the air quality, environmental, and power generation fields but also communities and organizations. I have more than 25 years experience interconnecting air quality, energy projects, and environmental communications.
I also am a habit coach. I am a Tiny Habits® Certified Coach, with a specialty in An Improv Mindset for the Workspace, which includes Building Environmental Health & Safety Habits.
Learn more about R|CAT. Please don’t hesitate to contact me, and learn more from an overview of services.
Resource Catalysts is a California corporation and remains committed to an Environmental Strategic Planning approach – a proactive approach to balancing environmental compliance and financial objectives, while anticipating environmental protection concerns and energy industry trends.
I connect the dots. I make sense of the regulatory and permit processes and framework, project developers’ objectives, and the perspectives of affected communities. I connect people who may have seemingly disparate perspectives to create meaningful and useful ideas and results. I am trained to help people shift behaviors and easily develop habits, with an interest in creating workspace culture shifts for building healthy habits, practicing servant leader philosophies, creating self-mentoring opportunities, and promoting professional development.
In early 2014, I left EPA, and later that year, I re-established R|CAT. R|CAT’s environmental project management and environmental decision-making support services remain directed at three primary practice areas – air quality, energy projects, and environmental communications. Complimenting R|CAT’s regulatory strategy and compliance support, I apply Behavior Design and Tiny Habits® for shaping and building healthy habits for environmental health and safety, and compliance practices in workspaces.
More about my beginnings –
I began in the air quality field in 1987. After graduating from U.C. Berkeley in Chemical Engineering, throughout the following years, I worked for the federal government in air quality permitting, as a consultant in the energy and environmental field, as a corporate environmental analyst in the electric utility industry, and as business owner/consultant for power project developers. The common thread? Working well with, among, or as a liaison to the regulatory agencies.
In 1994, I established R|CAT in San Diego, California. R|CAT began during the early stages of the electric industry restructuring. Since then, R|CAT evolved into a consulting practice, where project teams often were organized to provide environmental decision-making support services for energy-related projects and programs. In 2006, I relocated to Northern California.
In late 2007, I rejoined the U.S. EPA, Region 9 Air Permits Office in San Francisco. (Region 9’s jurisdiction includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Tribal Lands, and the Pacific Islands.) As an Environmental Engineer with Region’s Air Division, I worked on the nuts and bolts of reviewing of PSD, NSR, and Title V permitting – determining the completeness of PSD permit applications (for select agency and oversight agencies), preparing elements of the draft and final PSD permits, working closely with the Region’s air quality modeler, accounting for intra- and inter-agency interests, and being mindful of the potential public perspectives.
Thanks for taking the time to get to learn about R|CAT evolving. Please don’t hesitate to contact me, and learn more from an overview of services.
Resource Catalysts 