Meet the Principals
Anna L. West
Founder & Managing Principal
Anna L. West Founder & Managing Principal
Anna L. West is a Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Kearns & West. She has over 30 years of experience in collaborative solutions, facilitation/mediation, and public engagement, particularly related to water, energy, environmental, natural resource, land use, and infrastructure issues. Anna is a member of the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution’s mediator roster.
Sharif Ebrahim
Managing Principal
Sharif Ebrahim Managing Principal
Sharif Ebrahim is a Principal with Kearns & West. He brings nearly 20 years of experience designing and implementing multi-disciplinary public involvement and outreach programs, including working on numerous complex water, energy and land use issues, initiative campaigns, and state and federal legislation and regulatory proceedings. Sharif has worked with local, state and federal agencies, trade associations, Fortune 500 companies, and various collaborative processes to help them communicate their vision and form productive relationships with their stakeholders.
Debra L. Nudelman
Principal & Senior Mediator
Debra L. Nudelman Principal & Senior Mediator
Debra L. Nudelman is a Principal and Senior Mediator for Kearns & West with nearly 30 years of experience as a consensus building and dispute resolution professional. She has experience in convening, facilitating, mediating, and managing projects including stakeholder assessments, workshops, strategic planning and agreement-focused processes involving complex public policy, natural resource, land management, and environmental issues, among others. Debra oversees the Kearns & West office in Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Eric Poncelet
Principal & Senior Mediator
Dr. Eric Poncelet Principal & Senior Mediator
Dr. Eric Poncelet is a Principal and Senior Mediator at Kearns & West with over twenty years of experience in designing, mediating, and analyzing complex, multistakeholder collaborative planning and dispute resolution processes. His practice has focused on marine resource planning and conservation, fisheries management, water conservation, flood management, offshore energy, species protection, and land use management. Eric works to facilitate effective communications and agreement building among a broad range of stakeholder interests, including government (federal, state, and local levels), fishermen, farmers, business and industry, environmental organizations, recreational interests, and community groups. Eric leads Kearns & West’s marine practice while also co-leading the training program, providing interactive training courses on such topics as mutual gains negotiation, facilitation and mediation, collaboration, and effective management and communication of scientific information.
Jason Gershowitz
Principal & Senior Facilitator
Jason Gershowitz Principal & Senior Facilitator
Jason Gershowitz is a Principal and Senior Facilitator at Kearns & West managing the firm’s Digital Collaboration Practice which involves connecting people and solutions in innovative ways. His interests include bridging communications, technology, and collaboration skills to create and sustain solutions in changing and complex environments, across a wide range of issues.
Ben Gettleman
Principal
Ben Gettleman Principal
Ben Gettleman is a Principal at Kearns & West with over ten years of experience managing environmental projects and a current focus on land use, water, air quality, and marine resource projects. His central skillset includes strategic planning and process design, meeting and public workshop facilitation, stakeholder outreach, and materials development. Ben is a member of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation and is a graduate of the Coro Center for Civic Leadership Public Affairs Fellowship Program.
Joan Isaacson
Principal & Senior Facilitator
Joan Isaacson Principal & Senior Facilitator
Joan Isaacson is a Principal and Senior Facilitator at Kearns & West with over 25 years of experience in community engagement, stakeholder facilitation, and urban and environmental planning. Many of her projects integrate multiple sectors – water, transportation, energy, resiliency, land use, natural resources, parks, open space, and equity. On complex regional and local projects, both government agency clients and their communities and stakeholders appreciate Joan’s steady guidance in formulating and implementing effective, inclusive participatory processes.
Dr. Ken Kearns
Founder & Senior Counselor
Dr. Ken Kearns Founder & Senior Counselor
Kenneth D. Kearns is a Senior Counselor and Kearns & West co-founder. Since 2012, when he stepped away from the firm’s leadership, Ken has divided his time between a few selected projects and an active retirement. Ken specializes in facilitation and public engagement for high-stakes collaborative projects in water, energy, and environment.
Joey Goldman
Principal
Joey Goldman Principal
Joey Goldman is a Principal at Kearns & West and leads the firm’s Transportation Practice. He has more than 25 years of experience managing community development and transportation projects with an emphasis on planning, public engagement, consensus building, communications, marketing, and branding. He brings expertise in multiparty transit system integration negotiations; meaningful and equitable public engagement for transportation investment projects (including planning games, community tours, ambassador programs, etc.); and working with older adults, people with disabilities, and disadvantaged communities on Environmental Justice, Title VI, and ADA compliance projects. An experienced project manager and facilitator for passenger rail, transit system design, and multimodal transportation projects, he also brings skills in regional/rural investment studies, mobility management, first/last mile plans, and environmental review processes. Joey serves on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and previously co-chaired the TRB Committee on Accessible Transportation and Mobility.