Smith is in New York City fighting the decline in biodiversity and the increase in species extinction by publishing a plan proposing strategic partnerships among environmental and community groups.
NEW YORK, NY, June 22, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Stephen Merrill Smith, JD, LLM, has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Mr. Smith's passion for environmental activism began in high school when, as elected leader of the Nashville Red Cross Youth Community Action Task Force, he persuaded a large group of teenage volunteers to help raise funds for the Save Radnor Lake Campaign. The Save Radnor Lake Campaign honored Smith by giving him Commemorative Print number six of the Radnor Lake Natural Area (by wildlife artist Robert Nipp) for funds raised by Smith's Community Action Task Force. These funds went to the Campaign to successfully buy back the land from a developer and thereby save Radnor Lake's surrounding 14 ecosystems – in the middle of Metropolitan Nashville, TN – from any commercial or residential development in perpetuity. In high school Smith lettered in swimming, won Brentwood Country Club Swim Team's Most Valuable Swimmer award, and won First Place in the Belmont College statewide writing competition, the Belmont Wordfest. He also won a full Air Force R.O.T.C. scholarship to Auburn University.
At Auburn University, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1978. In two years between graduation and law school, he was made Press Spokesperson for the Stonecab Alliance, a local anti-nuclear group fighting for safer operations at Florida Power & Light's troubled Turkey Point nuclear reactor. In 1980, he continued his education at University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, known during Smith's attendance at the Antioch School of Law, where he attained a Juris Doctor in 1983. To further his expertise, he was among the 17 candidates (chosen from thousands of applicants) to participate in the prestigious George Washington University Masters of Environmental Law program, where he received his LL.M. in Environmental Law in 1987. Mr. Smith was persuaded by, and subsequently worked with, his faculty advisor – the notable Arnold W. Reitze, Jr. – to publish Smith's thesis, "CERCLA Compliance with RCRA; the Labyrinth," 18 ELR 10518, Environmental Law Reporter 12-88. Smith is licensed to practice law by the Pennsylvania Bar Association and admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Currently, Smith is in New York City fighting the decline in biodiversity and the increase in species extinction by publishing a detailed plan proposing strategic partnerships among environmental and community groups to work together to achieve statutory and regulatory amendments to the Brownfields Law to allow federal, state, and local funding to establish wildlife biodiversity easements that network natural areas by building land bridges over highways, and connecting natural areas by using abandoned (as well as active) rail, utility, and pipeline corridors to achieve sustainable protection for highway traffic and protection of migrating animals. Smith envisions a natural network that ultimately mimics the U.S. Interstate Highway network.
Meanwhile his day job is as a contract attorney for Lexolution (recently acquired by Consilio and XDD) relevant to their cases.
These cases involve environmental, securities, employment, intellectual property, antitrust, and pharmaceutical litigation. Via expert analysis, he renders decisions about relevance to the case, attorney-client privilege, attorney work product and personally sensitive information redactions. Before getting interested in eDiscovery, he served as president and General Counsel of Merrill Legacy Group LLC, a startup he founded, staffed and secured operational finances, from 2009 to 2017. Prior to that, Smith served as Senior Government Affairs and Business Development Professional for Computer Science Corporation (CSC, now General Dynamics Corporation) from 2000 until 2008. At CSC Smith advised the Director of EPA's Brownfields Program and managed a Web-based project for EPA and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).
Previous to that, throughout much of the 1990s, he served in a similar role for Benchmark Environmental and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), consulting for Los Alamos National Laboratory on transuranic waste safety and for Sandia National Laboratories' Department of Energy (DoE) Environmental Restoration Project. At Sandia, he came up with a solution to clean up large amounts of legacy nuclear testing contamination in an onsite facility on Kirkland Air Force Base that would be built to treat and dispose of the waste. Smith had to convince the DoE, Sandia management, EPA Headquarters, EPA Region 6, and the New Mexico Environmental Department regulators that this idea, dubbed a Corrective Action Management Unit (CAMU), would be the most affordable, effective, and job creating solution available before the land disposal ban restrictions were scheduled by Congress to take all of the waste offsite and incinerate it, costing almost $20 million more than the CAMU solution. Sandia rewarded Smith with a Certificate of Appreciation.
Before his accomplishments in the Southwest, Smith was recruited by Environmental Systems Company to start a Washington lobbying office and served as Counsel for Government Affairs. Smith opened the office, participated in the Hazardous Waste Treatment Council (founded by Ricard Fortuna), and worked with the Treatment Council trade association to meet two out of three lobbying goals. Furthermore, Smith wrote and co-directed a Telly Award winning corporate public relations video to explain how high temperature treatment of hazardous waste was far superior than the previous practice of land disposal without treatment, which led to the infamous Love Canal debacle and many others like it, such as the Valley of the Drums.
Working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C. early in Superfund's beginnings, remains a highlight of his career, where from 1985 to 1990, he was an Environmental Protection Specialist, then an Attorney/Advisor, and finally a Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement, James M. Strock, and then promoted to a full time speech and article writer to the EPA Administrator, William K. Reilly and Deputy Administrator Henry H. Habicht.
To commemorate his accomplishments, Mr. Smith has earned numerous public and private commendations, including the EPA Bronze Medal for Commendable Service in Promulgating the Superfund National Contingency Plan in 1985. In 1990, he was given an EPA Special Award for Loyal Service and Outstanding Contributions to the Environmental Protection Agency by Administrator Reilly and Deputy Administrator Habicht. He received a Certificate of Appreciation from Sandia National Laboratories, and a Certificate of Appreciation from CSC for his work in winning a multi-million-dollar proposal for CSC's Science and Engineering Group. He received a complimentary membership in the 2009 Biltmore Who's Who Registry of Executives and Professionals. He also maintains an active environmental network via memberships in key civic organizations, including the New York City Brownfield Partnership and the Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast.
Mr. Smith recognizes the positive and productive influence of four people who have been touchstones and inspirations to do his professional best. Those touchstone people are his ex-supervisor and mentor Linda Garczynski (arguably the mother of the EPA Brownfields program), his late uncle, Watergate Associate Special Prosecutor William H. Merrill (the lawyer who put the Nixon plumbers in jail and with whom Smith prosecuted two environmental cases years later), his ex-supervisor EPA Assistant Administrator for Enforcement James M. Strock (who taught him the value of liberal and conservative dialogue in finding better, more innovative policies), and his friend and mentor Sue Boyle (who somehow keeps the many New York/New Jersey Brownfields groups running smoothly).
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