EMP is a multifaceted team for a multifaceted business. EMP, LLC is a partnership of two successful experts who have shared a close relationship for many years.Jerome Ryan and James Hodge have been friends and business associates for over eleven years. We began working together in 2001 and have been doing business together since that time. The members of the EMP team have dedicated their professional careers to the pursuit of mitigation banking. The group that we will assemble represents one of the most experienced, successful and talented mitigation banking firms in the country.

Jerome Ryan holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Leland Stanford, Jr., Graduate School of Business, and is the co-founder of Environmental Mitigation Partners, LLC. Mr. Ryan is a resident of California. Mr. Ryan will focus on business management including investment strategy, the set-up and long term management and administration of the acquisitions. As member of EMP, LLC he has negotiated the credit ratios for the bank, analyzed the economic impact of the resulting credit ratios, negotiated the service area, analyzed the economic impact of the resulting service area, and analyzed and set the pricing structure for the credits. Mr. Ryan completed a wetland mitigation business report entitled Economic Viability of Entrepreneurial Mitigation Banking, in the course of completing Masters’ degree requirements at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Since then he has been the co-founder of Environmental Management Partners , LLC. He has performed the economic analysis of potential credit ratios and service area on numerous banks in Washington, California, Alaska, Michigan, Texas, New Jersey, Indiana, Alabama, Oregon, Idaho, Florida, and Mississippi. Following graduation from business school, Mr. Ryan worked directly in the real estate field as a project manager for Carmel Partners, a San Francisco real estate development firm, where he performed management and acquisition/disposition of real estate assets totaling $40 million. During the two years prior to entering the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mr. Ryan was the administrative manager and financial analyst for a $300 million private equity investment firm. His duties included all administrative tasks including reporting, accounting and investor relations.

James Blythe Hodge received his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of Washington, and his Juris Doctor with high honors from the Law School of Columbia University in the City of New York. He is a member of EMP. He is currently living in Jackson, Wyoming. Mr. Hodge will focus on structuring the business transactions, drafting documents, forming the legal and business structure of the acquisitions, and management of the marketing and project management team. Mr. Hodge has practiced law for 30 years, specializing in complex real estate, business and financial transactions. In the course of his practice he has negotiated many hundreds of transactions with private and public parties, including those relating to the formation and operation of companies and the transfers, management and operation of real property. He has dealt with federal, state and local regulatory, land use and environmental agencies and commissions of all kinds in the course of his practice. For more than five years, Mr. Hodge was the managing partner of the San Francisco office of his 300-lawyer national law firm, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter and Hampton, LLP. This gave him a wealth of administrative and project management experience. For several years, he was also the head of business develop and marketing for the law firm. Mr. Hodge’s experience with complex real estate, financial and business transactions will provide the backbone for the creation of the EMP in terms of its financial structure, fundraising and back office operation.

PARTNERS One advantage that EMP is continually creating is the formation of partnerships with some of the Nation’s top mitigation banking professionals. While Messers Hodge and Ryan form the nucleus of the company, EMP has formed partnership agreements and works with select partners throughout the U.S. It is EMP’s belief that, like most real estate ventures, having local talent and expertise is fundamentally necessary to the success of a mitigation bank. Local mitigation consultants and experts have the ability to source projects through their network of contacts, know what regions are in need of mitigation banks, will be able to market and sell the credits after certification is obtained and most importantly they have existing relationships with the regulatory agencies that will end up comprising the Mitigation Banking Review Team, which is the group that is put together to manage the certification process. This network of partnerships has allowed EMP to begin sourcing deals outside of their immediate areas of expertise of Florida, Alaska, Washington and California.