Leadership
We ensure the consistency and quality of our work through our investment in our teams that include over 40 consultants and support staff.
Our reputation for high quality and responsive environmental support is attributable entirely to the dedication and skills of our staff.
Betsy Lindsay
Founder/CEO
Ms. Lindsay is the founder and chief executive of UltraSystems Environmental. A building industry veteran, she has over 35 years of experience in environmental planning and permitting, preparing more than 500 environmental documents. Her background includes managing over 20 large-scale, on-call/as-needed contracts that have encompassed 1,000’s of task orders relating to public agency projects.
At UltraSystems, her day-to-day responsibilities include business and project management, contract administration, resource allocation and quality control. She is responsible for overall project management, the preparation and processing of CEQA/NEPA documents, and associated entitlement obligations for large-scale public and private infrastructure projects.
Robert Manford, DPPD
President
Dr. Manford has been an Urban Planner for 30 years working on diverse projects of local, regional, and international significance for both private and public sector organizations in California and across the world. He has held executive management, staff, technical and subject matter expert positions as a public agency employee and consultant. Prior to joining UltraSystems, Dr. Manford was the Deputy Director of Planning for the City of San Jose, where he had oversight responsibilities for Environmental Review, Development Review, Permitting, and Urban Design and Historic Preservation within the City of San Jose’s Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement. Prior to that position, he managed Environmental Land Use and Planning Divisions/Teams at the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Community Development Department, and the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department.
Hina Gupta
Vice President
Ms. Gupta is the vice president and urban planner with 15 years of experience in environmental planning and regulatory permitting for a variety of projects including infrastructure, transportation, renewable energy, commercial, residential, mixed use and master-planned development, and educational facilities. Her areas of expertise include; Sustainable Land use, Aesthetics and Visual Analysis, Socioeconomics and Community Impact Assessment, and Green Building Design. Ms. Gupta is a LEED Accredited Professional and has experience in identifying and evaluating green building features for use in CEQA/NEPA analysis related to greenhouse gas emissions, utilities and solid waste management. She is trained in environmental analysis for local agency development projects and has experience working with staff at various city and county departments within California.
Mike Lindsay
Director of Operations
As operations manager, Mr. Lindsay oversees human resources, contracts and hiring, computer and software assets, IT management and facility operations. Mr. Lindsay is also the firm’s QA/QC officer, and has been specially trained in UltraSystems’ project management and QA/QC programs.
He reviews deliverables prior to submission to the client, and periodically reviews each overall project to make certain that UltraSystems’ and the client’s high professional standards are being achieved. Another function that Mr. Lindsay provides is overall document control and security, including password protected file transfers using our secure FTP directory. Mr. Lindsay is also an experienced air quality and noise impact scientist, who provides modeling and analysis to support CEQA and NEPA documentation.
Michael Rogozen, D.Env.
Senior Principal Engineer
Dr. Rogozen heads the UltraSystems air and noise practice, and has over 47 years of experience in project management, health risk assessment, air and industrial wastewater permitting, carbon footprint studies, ambient monitoring, dispersion modeling, pollution control technology assessment, economic analysis of air pollution control alternatives, air toxics emission inventory development, offsite consequence analysis, environmental database design, survey design and management, source test design and analysis, railroad noise investigations, regulatory analysis, water resources studies, and technical writing and editing.
Dr. Rogozen is responsible for consulting, technical project management and business development. He has assisted industrial and governmental clients in complying with federal and local air quality regulations. His work has included managing air compliance audits, preparing applications for permits to construct and operate (including Title V permits), annual emissions reports, and responses to notices to comply and notices of violation. He has also conducted many health risk assessments under AB2588, Proposition 65 and SCAQMD Rule 1401. Dr. Rogozen serves as lead quality assurance officer for UltraSystems’ submittals.
Michelle Tollett
Senior Biologist/ Biological Resources Group Manager
Ms. Tollett has over 24 years of experience as a field and consulting biologist working with private companies and public agencies throughout California and the Rocky Mountains. She is the Lead Senior Biologist and Group Manager at UltraSystems Environmental in Irvine, California. Her responsibilities include managing the Biological Resources Team; supervising and mentoring staff biologists; delegating work assignments; managing budgets and project schedules; reviewing document preparation; interacting with client and resource agency representatives; developing mitigation site design with landscape contractors; preparing and conducting environmental awareness training.
Ms. Tollett is familiar with the regulatory framework to prepare defensible biological resources technical reports and environmental documents including biological constraints surveys, reconnaissance-level field surveys, wetland delineations, CRAM assessments, focused special-status species surveys, and habitat mitigation and monitoring plans.
Ms. Tollett’s industry experience includes oil and gas transmission lines, energy transmission lines, wind and solar renewable energy, private development, transportation, flood control, military base, mineral mining, and conservation-oriented projects.
Prior to her biological consulting experience, she worked in the Channel Islands National Park as a naturalist. Ms. Tollett continues to volunteer with non-profit groups to educate local community members through citizen-based science and serves as a high school science fair judge each year for the Newport Bay Conservancy.
Billye Breckenridge
Project Manager/ GIS Spatial Analyst
As a project manager and lead for our Geographic Information Systems (GIS) group, Ms. Breckenridge evaluates project environmental impacts for significance by utilizing thresholds set forth in regulatory documents. She manages projects and prepares environmental documents, including Initial Studies and Preliminary Environmental Studies based on the provisions of CEQA and NEPA.
In her role with UltraSystems, Ms. Breckenridge acts as a liaison between environmental monitors and project management. Her GIS experience extends to data management, cartography, ArcGIS extensions and geoprocessing tools. Specifically, Ms. Breckenridge’s GIS skills include file conversion from various data sources (e.g. AutoCAD, Google Earth and Coverage) to GIS; manipulating and digitizing data including parcels; utilizing census socioeconomic data for graphical presentation; and utilizing geoprocessing tools to analyze project impacts. Her responsibilities include project management, data acquisition, cartographical analysis and map creation.
Stephen O’Neil
Cultural Resource Manager
Mr. O’Neil has a broad scope of environmental consulting responsibilities and experiences, ranging from general project management and technical writing to prehistoric site excavation and construction monitoring. He has worked on projects with clients in both the public and private sectors—including alternative energy, energy transmission, U.S. Forest Service, parks, public works and water resources. He has a wide range of expertise in Phase I and Phase II Cultural Resource Inventories, archaeological, historical and paleontological survey assessments, and cultural background studies for various EIR projects. Mr. O’Neil has experience with many cultural resource management firms, as well as government agencies and Native American entities.
Mr. O’Neil has authored and coauthored numerous technical reports, and conducted surveys and monitoring in compliance with NEPA, CEQA and other federal, state, regional, and local laws and regulations. Mr. O’Neil is an active member in the field of cultural resources—he is a board member of the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society and the Orange County Natural History Museum Foundation. He is also a member of the Society for California Archaeology.
Bob Reicher
Economist
Michael Milroy
Environmental Planner
Mr. Milroy is a planner with over 17 years of experience in community and environmental planning. Mr. Milroy is trained in a variety of project types including residential, commercial, industrial, mixed-use, and specific plan projects. Mr. Milroy’s expertise includes California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) document preparation, project management, and review of supporting technical studies; including, but not limited to, Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs), Initial Studies, Mitigated Negative Declarations, and federally funded National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents.