Core Team

Dean Slocum, Principal – Dean is a former Director of EHS for Arthur D. Little and former VP, Oil and Gas Market Manager for Battelle Memorial Institute.  He has led multi-national teams, on > 50 EIAs and related studies and has worked in greater than 25 countries.  Dean speaks fluent Spanish, intermediate Portuguese and basic French and Greek.  See Dean’s bio.

Heather Boyd – Heather is an experienced environmental consultant who comes to Acorn from ConocoPhillips, where she was responsible for helping manage health, safety and environmental risk and liability on upstream and downstream assets. She has over ten years of experience and is based in the Houston area. See Heather's bio.

Atma Khalsa – Atma is an environmental consultant focused impact assessment, partnering and capacity building. He has a Masters of Science in International Environmental Assessment from McGill University. This innovative program was jointly managed by McGill University and UNEP. See Atma's bio.

David Lewis – David is a former HSE manager for Dune Energy in Houston. He has prior experience in environmental consulting focusing on environmental field investigations for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration / production activities, environmental impact assessment and wetland delineation.  David has an MS in Biology and 11 years of experience. He will be full-time in Houston and will help establish our office there in 2010. See David's bio.

John Black, P. G.– John is a senior environmental consultant with over 30 years of experience in working worldwide for the petroleum and other industries. He is based in the Houston area. See John's bio.

Pandora Snethkamp, Ph.D – Pandora has led complex and high-profile community engagement / investment programs for some very large and high-profile E&P projects around the world, including in Chad-Cameroon, Sakhalin Island and Peru.  She authored industry-wide guidelines on social impact of E&P for the Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP).  Pandora is working with us as a full-time contract staff on a special assignment.  She has a Ph.D. in Anthropology and over 25 years of experience. See Pandora's bio.

Working with Acorn will allow international industries to better manage the increasingly delicate balance between meeting corporate requirements for reliable, simplified service while satisfying host-country demands for maximum local content.