Bruce Engelbert

Mr. Engelbert is a former Federal employee with 32 years of service at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy and the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. During the first part of his Federal career he held a variety of policy and program management and implementation positions. In the second half he focused on promoting good public participation, customer service and alternative dispute resolution.

Mr. Engelbert has extensive experience in helping people work effectively together and in dealing constructively with differences and disputes. He is a certified mentor mediator in the State of Virginia and has mediated over 130 community, consumer and employment cases. At EPA, he helped to establish the Agency’s Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center and served on the task force which developed the internal workplace dispute mediation program. For five years he managed a contract which provided conflict assessment and resolution services for the Superfund program. During this time he also coordinated a network of ombudsmen who helped resolve issues related to Superfund sites. He has facilitated large public meetings and smaller organizational problem solving sessions. And he has consulted with the government of Thailand on increasing its public participation efforts during environmental decision-making.
Mr. Engelbert has been an instructor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and has taught facilitation and conflict resolution courses for corporate and government clients.

Mr. Engelbert has a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley and a Masters Degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Northern Virginia Mediation Service, a non-profit, community dispute resolution center, and the Earth Sangha, an environmental organization that raises native trees and shrubs for forest and watershed restoration in the Potomac River region. He also serves on the Arlington County Multicultural Advisory Commission. He is the co-author of the article, “Evaluating Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making,” published in the Journal of Environmental Management.