Fred W. Dieffenbach

Fred Dieffenbach is an Environmental Professional with more than 18-years of experience applying Federal regulations, collecting and evaluating environmental data, assessing environmental impacts, reviewing project alternatives, building Geographic Information Systems (GIS), tabular databases, and drafting permit documents.  During this time, he has worked for three Federal agencies, two consulting firms, and a non-profit corporation studying acid rain in New York State’s Adirondack Park.

For twelve years, Fred worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a biologist and team leader for the Buffalo District in Buffalo, New York.  For nine of those years, Fred was responsible for administering the District permit management system, which evolved from a modest letter-template system to a sophisticated Oracle database. Twice during this period Fred was recognized by his co-workers for outstanding performance, and following the implementation of a new system to revolutionized the way workload was distributed throughout the branch Fred’s successes were highlighted in the Agency publication, Engineer Update.

Following his stint with the Corps, Fred joined the National Park Service as the Data Manager for the Northeast Temperate Network located in Woodstock, Vermont.  The Northeast Temperate Network is one of 32 networks nationwide that work with individual National Park Units to inventory and then monitor their important natural resources.  Fred joined the Northeast Temperate Network when the program was just beginning, and worked with Greg Shriver, the Network’s first Coordinator, to develop a program that is recognized today by the National Inventory and Monitoring Program as one of the networks to watch.  In this role he acted as data steward for eleven northeast parks stretching from Acadia National Park in Maine to Morristown National Historic Park in New Jersey, and has played an influential role on projects conducted along the Appalachian Trail.  Among his accomplishments, Fred wrote a chapter discussing the status of invasive species along the Appalachian Trail for the 2005 Appalachian Trail Vital Signs report, and wrote a comprehensive data management plan for the Northeast Temperate Network.

Data management, a recurring theme throughout Fred’s career, is what he focuses on through his business, Innovative Environmental Information Management Services.  This is an area that it easily overlooked because it isn’t glamorous, but without organization and structure the investment made in a project may be squandered if the acquired data cannot be retrieved – or worse, if the data is available but unreliable.  It was with this perspective that he joined forces with Douglass MacLean of Ewarenow to become a reseller of Conservation Connections, an application designed to meet the needs of Land Trusts and Conservation organizations.