Doug Allen has over 45 years of fire and law enforcement experience. He retired as a Division Chief with over 32 years of service with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Upon retirement he was the Southern California Law Enforcement Coordinator for CDF, supervising the Southern Region Arson Investigation Unit and Civil Cost Collection Program. Chief Allen specializes in the analysis and profiling of "Serial Arsonists". He has been an investigator, technical advisor and Incident Commander on numerous Law Enforcement Investigations and Surveillance Operations throughout California. During one thirteen month period Allen coordinated 107 sworn personnel on eight major arson investigations in Southern California. These operations resulted in the apprehension of nine serial arson suspects and the clearance of over 600 arson cases.

Allen has teaching credentials in Police and Fire Science Curriculum in the California Community College System where he instructs the Fire-Arson Investigation courses, certified by the California State Fire Marshal and the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards And Training (POST). Additionally he presents Serial Arson Analysis Seminars for the B.A.T.F. Regional Prosecutor's Course, the American Bar Association-Young Lawyers Division, the Texas Arson Investigator's Association (Texas A & M) and the International Association of Arson Investigators. Doug Allen is a California-Certified Fire Investigator. He is Past President of the California Chapter-IAAI, Past Chairperson of the California Chapter Education/ Certification Committee and has Chaired the IAAI Wildfire Arson Committee. He has provided over 142,927 student hours of investigation training to 4,901 investigators.

Ron Anthony is Wood Scientist and President of Anthony & Associates, Inc. He received a B.S. in Forest Management focusing on wildfire science and an M.S. in Wood Science and Technology from Colorado State University . He has 25 years experience with the behavior of wood utility structures, failure investigations and litigation support. His research and consulting activities have involved wood pole inspection, maintenance, and failure and he has authored approximately 85 publications; participated in conferences and seminars; and consulted throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the South Pacific. He is a member of the Association for Preservation Technology International, Colorado Preservation, Inc., the Society of Wood Science and Technology, RILEM, ICOMOS, the Forest Products Society and chairs the Committee on Forensic Investigation for the American Society of Civil Engineers. He also serves as a volunteer company officer and wildland fire incident commander in the urban interface in Colorado.

Bill Apger is a California lawyer and Registered Professional Forester (RPF). Bill has successfully litigated power line wildland fire cases, including the Pendola Fire. He and Ken Roye are co-counsel on two present power line fire cases in Trinity and Butte counties. Bill has represented private landowners, timber companies, and loggers. He was formerly a forester for Collins Pine, a progressive forest practices timber company.

David Bona is a senior associate in the San Francisco office of Carlson, Calladine & Peterson LLP. He is an experienced trial attorney who has devoted the majority of his career to defending his clients in high-exposure, complex litigation, including cases involving wildland fires. Currently, he is a member of the defense team handling five wildland fire cases brought by over 100,000 plaintiffs claiming several hundred million dollars in damages. David obtained his Bachelor's of Science degree from University of Utah and his Juris Doctor degree from the UCLA School of Law. He is admitted to the State Bar of California and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Eastern Districts of California and is the author of "Reliability and Relevance of Expert Testimony in Federal Court."

Dr. Janice Coen is a Project Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. She studies fire behavior and its interaction with weather using coupled weather-fire computer simulation models and by analyzing infrared imagery of wildfires and prescribed fires. She received a B.S. in Engineering Physics from Grove City College and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Wildland Fire and is currently an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

Christopher Curtis is a Professional Land Surveyor and President of CBC Surveys in Sacramento, California. Christopher is a graduate of Fresno State University with a BS in Geomatics Engineering. He has participated in the investigations of several powerline caused wildland fires using his expertise in LIDAR, Photogrammetry, and Land Surveying.

BIO TO COME

JEROME FISHKIN had a general practice in the 1970’s, spent several years as a research and legislative attorney for the State Bar of California, and then 9 years as a discipline prosecutor, before resuming private practice in 1992 as a Professional Responsibility specialist. He has defended attorneys in the State Bar Court, Bankruptcy Courts, U S District Courts, and the Ninth Circuit. He won the quantum meruit case Huskinson & Brown v Wolf (2004) 32 Cal 4th 453

He practices law with the other ethics speaker, Lindsay Kohut Slatter, in Fishkin & Slatter LLP. Their law firm specialize in Attorney Professional Responsibility and Conduct. In addition to State Bar defense, they advise attorneys on ethics and law practice management, everything from expert witness to disqualification motions to resolving disputes with clients before they get out of hand.

The Fishkin & Slatter LLP website posts updates on new attorney ethics cases every month, and has an extensive description of the attorney disciplinary process at www.FishkinLaw.com.

Brian Garvey spent nearly 40 years with the Division of Forestry of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He has undergone over 2500 hours of professional training in his specialty. He established and trained Regional Arson Investigation Teams in Minnesota. He is an IAAI member and has taught Wildfire Cause Determination Courses in 12 states, Canada and Lebanon. He helped develop a national course, “Wildfire Cause Determination”, under the sponsorship of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) and serves on NWCG’s Wildland Fire Investigator Certification working team. He has assisted in drafting arson statutes and worked on the redraft of the Wildland Cause Determination Handbook (2004-2005 NWCG). He has conducted major wildland fire investigations in six states and has extensive Incident Command (IC) experience.

Randy Gimple is a partner and founding member of Carlson, Calladine & Peterson LLP, a law firm with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Randy has represented plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving catastrophic losses such as floods and fires for over 20 years. He typically represents defendants in wildland fire cases, such as the Poe Fire of 2001, the Freds Fire of 2004 and the Island, Guejito and Rice Fires of 2007. Randy is a member of the California Conference of Arson Investigators, International Association of Arson Investigators and National Fire Protection Association. He is also a well-known contributor to the wildland fir4e community's study of catastrophic loss investigations, fire scene investigation, evidence preservation, forensic investigation techniques, admissibility of expert evidence, property damage evaluation and statutory and common-law duties arising as a result of negligently caused fires.

BIO TO COME

BIO TO COME

Dr. Donald L. Ham is a Principal and Senior Arborist/Urban Forester with The Laurus Group, LLC, an arboricultural, urban forestry, and GIS consulting company. Dr. Ham has over 40 years of experience in arboriculture and urban forestry teaching, research, service, and consulting. He is an emeritus professor of the Dept. of Forestry and Natural Resources at Clemson University, Clemson, SC. He is active regionally, nationally and internationally in the profession and served as the president of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Dr. Ham’s numerous honors and recognitions include the 1993 ISA Award of Merit, the 1999 ISA Southern Chapter Award of Merit, and the 1999 Utility Arborist Association (UAA) Education Award. He is also a co-author and co-editor of the Utility Specialist Certification Study Guide published by ISA and the UAA along with many other technical and popular publications. Dr. Ham’s consulting focuses on tree hazard assessment; tree failure causing property damage, personal injury and death; utility vegetation management; tree appraisal; tree protection during construction; tree inventories; and tree protection ordinance development.

John A. Harris, M.B.A., M.S., B.S., A.S., of Landscape Economics and Earth Advisors, Inc. of Hollywood, Florida, is a Landscape Economist working in the field for over 25 years. He provides damage assessments, economic valuations, work audits, and expert witness testimony regarding damages to landscapes and land improvements. He is an expert on the costs of and damages assessment of damages to unique habitats. He is an author and co-author of numerous articles in trade journals, newspapers and publications. He has made numerous TV interview appearances, taught over 150 classes and field training programs, has made numerous presentations for industry organizations and education programs.

Dr. Lester E. Hendrickson is a metallurgist and forensic Engineering Consultant with 35 years of experience as an expert witness. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees at Michigan Technological University, and his Ph.d. in Metallurgical Engineering with a minor in Physics, from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana. His career as a professor of engineering at Arizona State University spanned 27 years. He retired in 1995 as Professor Emeritus. Dr. Hendrickson has assisted in numerous wildfire cause and origin investigations during the past 20 years, many of them for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and has testified at trial or in deposition on numerous occasions. He specializes in material characterization and identification, and failure analysis of components of electrical distribution systems which may have caused or contributed to the cause of wildfires.

Wes Higbie is a California lawyer who has represented timber companies and timber owners in hundreds of cases involving the destruction of, valuation of, and sale of timber. He has been an entrepreneur in the timber industry and has served as a Mediator on power line wildland fire cases. He is presently part of the faculty at UC Berkeley teaching in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.

Dr. Valerie Hipkins is the Director of the National Forest Genetics Electrophoresis Laboratory in Placerville, CA. Valerie received her PhD in Genetics and Forest Science from Oregon State University. Her program at NFGEL provides genetic information to land managers to guide restoration projects, conserve threatened and endangered species. She conducts analysis of molecular genetic markers (proteins and DNA) in plant material. Valerie has provided forensic DNA analysis in two major wildland fire cases, including the 1996 Calabasas Fire.

Garry Hubert is a California trial lawyer with almost 40 years of trial experience. While a deputy district attorney for Alameda County he taught criminal law and evidence. He has tried to jury verdict 135 plus Superior Court criminal cases and 30 Superior Court civil cases (the longest lasting 8 months). He founded Hubert & Yasutake in 1996 which specializes in civil litigation for both the plaintiff and the defense, with an emphasis on plaintiff's fire loss claims. He is an experienced arbitrator/mediator having presided over 1,000 such proceedings. Specific fire cases prosecuted by Mr. Hubert include self-igniting automobiles, construction practices causing fires, fireplace failures, electrical appliance failures, power line failures causing structure fires and wildland fires, and spontaneous combustion fires. Mr. Hubert is rated A-V by Martindale-Hubble and is a special master for serving search warrants.

Alan Jang is a co-founder of and partner in Buresh, Kaplan, Jang & Feller, a law firm in Berkeley, California, an AV-rated civil litigation and defense firm. He has produced multi-million dollar recoveries in fire, products, landslide and inverse condemnation cases. He has handled complex construction defect cases. He has successfully handled appeals in two published cases, one an inverse condemnation case and the other a negligence-per-se case involving premises liability. He is a member of NASP.

BIO TO COME

BIO TO COME

BIO TO COME

BIO TO COME

Wayne C. Miller is an independent Real Estate Appraiser with California Appraisals in Chico, California. Wayne specializes in complex property appraisals and fire loss valuation. He has prpared numerous types of fire assignments for attorneys, insurance companies, and private property owners since 1970. Years of experience in firefighting, arson investigation, and as an expert witness give Wayne a unique insight into fire loss valuation and settlement litigation.

Danny K. Nichols is a retired Battalion Chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. He managed the Department’s Fire Suppression Cost Recovery Programs in Sacramento and Fresno for 12 years. He managed CDF’s cost recovery efforts in the Gueijito, Perry, Barham, Winchester, Grand, Calabasas, and Poe fire litigations. He authored the last major revision of the Power Line Fire Prevention Field Guide. Dan and Dave LeMay appeared in the Court TV presentation of “Extreme Evidence” based on their use of vegetation DNA in the investigation of the 1996 Calabasas Fire.

Jan Null, CCM, has thirty-five years of experience as a meteorologist with a BS in Atmospheric Science and a MA in Geography. After over 23 years with the National Weather Service he founded Golden Gate Weather Services in 1998. As a Certified Consulting Meteorologist he is often called on as an expert witness for a wide variety of litigation matters encompassing a full array of meteorological elements including storms, winds, temperatures, thunderstorms, floods, fog, ice and snow. He also serves as a consultant on meteorological topics for engineering firms, architects, environmental groups and the media. He has been an Adjunct Professor of Meteorology at San Francisco State University since 1987. His research on the topic of Hyperthermia Deaths of Children in vehicles is used world-wide by child safety groups to help save lives. Jan has done over 400 television interviews including CNN, Weather Channel, Good Morning America and McNeil Lehrer News Hour.

Ken Roye is a California trial lawyer with over 100 civil jury trials to verdict in twelve California counties including Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. He is presently litigating wildland fire cases in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sonoma, Trinity and Ventura Counties. He represents subrogating fire insurers and private landowners and limits his practice to mass tort catastrophic loss cases. Ken is the founder and host of the Wildland Fire Litigation Conference, now in its fourth year. He litigates these cases, for the most part, with Garry Hubert of Hubert & Yatsutake in Concord, California and with Alan Jang of Buresh, Kaplan, Jang & Feller of Berkeley, California. He is also associated with the County Counsel’s office in Sonoma County on the Geysers Fire case and with Bill Apger of Chico, California on the Sims Fire case in Trinity County. Ken has previously worked in the Legal Services program and thereafter followed a career as a criminal defense lawyer for 10 years with over 250 criminal jury trials. He is a continuing education provider for the State Bar of California, is the author of “California Consumer Protection” (1994) (Fullcourt Press) and has taught law school at California Western University, School of Law. He was a speaker at the November 2009 Annual Conference of the National Association of Subrogation Professionals (NASP) (Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs) and at the 2009 Spring meeting of the Western Chapter in Costa Mesa, California.

Andrew Schwartz is a partner at Shute, Mihaly, & Weinberger LLP in San Francisco, California.  Mr. Schwartz specializes in regulatory takings, eminent domain, inverse condemnation, and general land use and real estate litigation.  He was part of a team of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger attorneys who won a unanimous decision in the United States Supreme Court in San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323 (2005), where the Court determined that adjudication of regulatory takings claims against local government agencies must be conducted in state courts.  

Mr. Schwartz received his JD degree in 1979 from UCLA, where he was a member of the Law Review, and his undergraduate degree in 1976 from Stanford University.  For more information, please visit the Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP website at www.smwlaw.com.

Lindsay Kohut Slatter began as a plaintiffs lawyer in the 1970s, expanded her practice to adoptions in the 1980’s, and has specialized in attorney defense since the late 1980’s. She has never worked for the State Bar. She serves as an expert witness, advises law students in admissions cases, and lectures throughout California on practical ethics.

She and her partner Jerome Fishkin practice law in the Walnut Creek law firm of Fishkin & Slatter, LLP. They specialize in Attorney Professional Responsibility and Conduct. In addition to State Bar defense, they advise attorneys on ethics and law practice management, everything from expert witness to disqualification motions to resolving disputes with clients before they get out of hand.

The website of Fishkin & Slatter LLP contains updates on new attorney ethics cases every month, and has an extensive description of the attorney disciplinary process at www.FishkinLaw.com.

Mr. Steensland has 38 years of combined fire/law enforcement experience with CalFire, (formerly California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection), the United States Forest Service and in private practice. He has investigated hundreds of wildland fires, including the two largest fires in the history of South Dakota and Colorado, and has been recognized as an expert witness in state and federal courts.

Prior to his retirement in 2005, he was the National Fire Investigation Specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, Law Enforcement and Investigations Branch. Steensland served for five years as the chair of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Wildfire Investigation Working Team, which is currently developing an international certification program for wildland fire investigators. He was also a principal member of the National Fire Protection Association’s technical committee on Professional Qualifications for Fire Investigators, (NFPA 1033) and is a member of the IAAI Wildland Arson Subcommittee. He is currently the owner/president of a private wildland fire investigation consulting firm, Paul Steensland and Associates, LLC.

Steensland has instructed investigators from over 40 states nationally, as well as presenting courses in Australia, Alberta, British Columbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Guam, and Saskatchewan.

BIO TO COME

BIO TO COME

Mr. Unsworth, President of IEc, is an internationally recognized expert in natural resource damage assessment. Over the past two decades he has established a reputation for applying a balanced, pragmatic approach to natural resource damage assessment. He has worked on over 50 environmental damage assessments at sites throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean . His clients include the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of the Interior, various states and Indian Tribes, non-governmental organizations, private companies and law firms.

BIO TO COME

Gary White is a retired U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management Criminal Investigator. He has 30 plus years of experience in wildland fire suppression, wildland fire origin and cause determination, and natural resource law enforcement with the United States Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Mr. White now owns and operates GL White and Associates, a consulting firm, specializing in wildland fire origin and cause analysis, and wildland fire origin and cause determination training. Since his retirement Mr. White has consulted on numerous major wildland fire cases.  Mr. White also teaches basic and advanced wildland fire origin and cause determination courses throughout the United States for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, CalFire, and other public agencies. Mr. White has been a member of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group Wildland Fire Investigation Working Team since its inception in 2000, is a member of the IAAI Wildland Arson Committee, and currently is serving on the NFPA 921 Wildfire Investigations Task Group.

Tracy Winsor is a Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General's Office, Natural Resources Law Section. She has represented the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in numerous fire suppression cost recovery matters arising from wildfires kindled by equipment, vehicles, timber operations, power lines/hardware, industry, camping, and burn piles. She has also litigated cases leading to published appellate opinions on responsible corporate officer liability and commercial/government speech. Her trial court practice includes complex environmental litigation.

BIO TO COME

Dr. Bob Zybach received his Environmental Sciences PhD from Oregon State University in the fields of Forest Science, Cultural Anthropology, and Historical Archaeology. His research focused on a comparative analysis of Indian burning and catastrophic wildfire patterns of western Oregon during the past 500 years. Prior to earning his doctorate, Bob owned and operated a reforestation business for 20 years that performed more than 80,000 acres of prescribed burning and forest restoration work in the Pacific Northwest. Since 1996, he has been Program Manager of a nonprofit 501 c(3) organization, Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project, Inc. (www.ORWW.org), which reaches more than 100,000 students and teachers a year via its educational website. His primary research interests are in the fields of forest and fire histories, Internet communications, and catastrophic wildfire mitigation.