Leadership

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Dirk is an executive leader in operations, sustainability, and climate governance, bridging sustainability with finance and regulatory innovation. He has held senior roles in operations, sustainability, EHS, risk management, investor relations, and business development across the energy, transportation, professional services, and banking 

sectors. 

He is a frequent speaker on sustainability and climate risk topics for several professional organizations and universities. 

Prior to co-founding AxVe, Dirk led the national Sustainability and Climate Risk Practice for Forvis-Mazars, a top ten global accounting firm. Dirk spent 20 years with Kinder Morgan, Inc., one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America, where, under his leadership, their ESG rating improved from 80th to first out of 185 

companies in their industry group.  Before that, he spent six years at CDM Smith, an engineering firm, in their water, environment, and energy consulting practices. Dirk also serves on the Johnson State Bank board of directors. He is a licensed Professional Geologist and a member of the AICPA and the Project Management Institute. 

Dirk is a graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a B.A. degree in environmental conservation and political science, a graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno, with a M.S. in Hydrology/hydrogeology, and a graduate of the University of Denver, 

Colorado, with an M.B.A. degree with an emphasis in marketing and an M.S. in finance.

Ron is an experienced sustainability and resilience executive specializing in emissions management and carbon accounting. Supporting diverse and complex organizations, Ron has planned, implemented, and supported enterprise-wide management systems for companies across industries since the late 1990s. His expertise includes EHS compliance & risk management, impact assessment, sustainability, EHS excellence, and management of change in energy, power, petrochemical, and other impactful industries. Ron's hands-on experience with emissions and carbon accounting from measurement and quantification to disclosure covers a wide perspective of challenges and needs organizations face. 

Ron is passionate about helping organizations manage compliance and risk while returning value. An organization's challenges are often more common than unique. For this reason, he advocates proven solutions and “smart” approaches to create better management systems, resulting in lower cost and risk. Key qualities Ron holds

important include elevating team members through documented processes, consistency, and attention to detail, focused on purpose.

Ron founded Huco Consulting, Inc. (Huco) in the Spring of 2008 and employed 25+ specialists in planning, setting up, and supporting Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) management information systems. Huco was acquired by Montrose Environmental at 

the end of 2022, and Ron led a successful transition into this organization. During the Fall semester of 2015 through 2024, he led a Sustainable Development and Reporting class at Rice University.

Ron has a Master's in Business Engineering and Management Science from the University of Twente, The Netherlands, with concentrations in Chemical Engineering, Business Administration, and Environmental Management Systems. His thesis on environmental management systems reviewed an approach of managing environmental impacts through financial drivers and risks (applying financial 

materiality concepts).