Date: Friday, June 20, 12-1pm ET
Learn how brownfields and agrivoltaics are helping rural communities attract investment and support sustainable growth.
Rural communities and small towns continue to face challenges in attracting investment and putting underutilized properties to productive use. While brownfield redevelopment has long served as a pathway to revitalization, emerging strategies like agrivoltaics are opening up new opportunities that connect land reuse with energy generation and agricultural productivity.
This webinar offers a preview of the upcoming Brownfields 2025 and Solar Farm Summit conferences and will explore how communities can prepare sites and local leadership to support investment. Speakers will discuss what developers look for in rural markets, how small town coaching helps align local goals with viable reuse strategies, and how agrivoltaics can increase food yields, support clean energy goals, and generate new revenue streams for landowners and farmers.
Attendees will also get a sneak peek at key sessions and themes from both conferences, along with practical tips for making the most of the experience.
Date: Friday, June 20, 12-1pm ET
Register NowSPEAKERS
Dan French
Dan French is Founder and Executive Producer of the Solar Farm Summit, known as North America’s Agrivoltaics Expo, which is held annually in Chicago, as well as the Virginia Solar Summit in Richmond. Having produced and facilitated dozens of dynamic development events from California to Minnesota to New Hampshire to Virginia, and many states in between, he serves as market-maker, meta-developer and macro visionary. Respected for deeply substantive, interdisciplinary, catalytic and market-moving events, Mr. French’s work has connected many thousands of professionals in uncommonly constructive and collaborative environments that foster meaningful professional cross-pollination.
Mr. French is also Founder and Principal of dbForesites, a global advisory boutique translating planetary megatrends in economics, energy, and environment into actionable intelligence for funds, family offices, corporations, and governments. Known for his intense candor, cutting insights, sharp analyses and unorthodox strategies, Dan is a former corporate attorney with a diverse blend of domestic and international experience as well as deep expertise with complex transactions and exotic classes of real estate and risk including brownfield, brightfield, and Superfund redevelopment. One of America’s foremost innovators and thought leaders, Mr. French helps decision-makers facilitate both ideation and implementation from the strategic level to the tactical, brainstorm grand strategies, baseline scenario frameworks, and developing pathways to navigate individual investments, site selection, real estate development and/or divestment, and portfolio de-risking.
Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson is the Vice President of Community Development for Vita Nuova. She has more than 25 years of experience in environmental project management, brownfields redevelopment, community engagement, and land revitalization.
She specializes in tough projects in small communities and most recently managed a re-visioning of a former shoe factory in Franklin Township, WV, and a former porcelain china manufacturer in New Castle, PA.
Ms. Henderson works across a broad spectrum of substantive areas to provide communications and outreach support as well as technical assistance to further economic and environmental revitalization. At Vita Nuova, she supports private-sector client site dispositions and public community revitalization projects. With more than 18 years of experience supporting the U.S. EPA’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization, Ms. Henderson has worked on more than 70 community technical assistance projects nationwide. She resides in Pittsburgh, PA.
Tad McGalliard
Tad McGalliard is ICMA’s Managing Director for Research, Development, and Technical Assistance. He joined ICMA in 2003 as a senior project manager. From 2009 to 2015 he served as ICMA’s first Director of Sustainability. In his current role, Mr. McGalliard oversees the activities of teams focused on research, publications, grant funding, business development, and technical assistance. Prior to joining ICMA, he worked with Cornell University’s Center for the Environment, assisting local governments and nonprofit partners on sustainable community strategies, including projects in large cities, and small rural communities. He formerly worked with the Energy, Environment, and Resources Center on redevelopment and reuse strategies for federal facilities. Mr. McGalliard earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Tennessee.
Michael Taylor (Moderator)
Michael Taylor is the Founder and President of Vita Nuova. He is a leading strategist in implementing redevelopments at brownfield and Superfund sites. He regularly serves as a project manager, facilitator, and key strategist, working with stakeholders to sustainably redevelop projects nationwide.
Mr. Taylor works in many of the country’s most challenging areas, including remote rural locations, inner-city environmental justice neighborhoods, and some of the most contaminated sites in the country. He has specialized expertise in bringing diverse parties to consensus to facilitate redevelopment.
He is a pioneer in implementing sustainable solutions at individual sites, neighborhoods, and regions. He specializes in helping second and third-tier real estate communities in economically distressed parts of the country rebuild and move toward revitalization. He understands the perspectives of communities as well as the developers and works to create redevelopments that bring prosperity and long-term sustainability to all parties. Through his work, he has established a broad network and connects community and industry leaders, site selectors, private equity groups, energy transition stakeholders, manufacturers, and developers who can help bring billions of dollars of resources to redevelopment projects.
Mr. Taylor chaired ASTM International’s task group for the National Standard on Sustainable Brownfields Redevelopment and is personally involved in implementing this groundbreaking process at Superfund and brownfield sites nationwide. He has also contributed to national and state environmental policies regarding new approaches to cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields. Mr. Taylor has trained more than 5,000 community, state, and federal officials involved in brownfields redevelopment.
He also served as an industry representative to the Waste and Facility Siting Subcommittee of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) of USEPA. As chairman of the Brownfields Work Group and co-chair of the Superfund Redevelopment Initiative Work Group under NEJAC, Mr. Taylor provided guidance to USEPA on issues related to brownfields, Superfund, environmental justice, and the sustainable redevelopment of impacted sites.