Arthur Koines

Art Koines is a highly experienced and versatile environmental policy analyst, manager and adviser with knowledge of environmental risk management, program performance and environmental information issues.
Over the course of his 37 year career with the Federal government, Art earned the respect of executives and technical staff alike for his clarity of thought, creativity and passion for improving program decision making and results. As a young economist at the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration, Art began his Federal government career doing program evaluation in a politically charged climate of aging programs with powerful congressional support and mixed performance records. The policy implications of Art’s early evaluation work were highlighted in President Reagan’s first State of the Union Address. As a journeyman policy analyst at EPA, he mastered the science and policy issues surrounding uses of human health risk assessment in environmental management decisions. Art’s work contributed directly to the adoption of risk assessment as a program targeting tool among regional, state and local planners with whom he worked. As a senior planner, Art led EPA’s first efforts to develop environmental goals and performance measures under the Government Performance and Results Act. Throughout his career Art has resolved cutting-edge issues in order to mainstream new ideas, policies and practices.
Art believes that people and organizations must continually work to understand the needs of their customers and stakeholders. He authored EPA’s Information Access Strategy, based on the findings from the National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information, an unprecedented, six-month outreach effort to over one thousand EPA stakeholders. Art led the National Dialogue, by far the largest effort ever undertaken by EPA to understand the needs of its public information audiences.
As an eclectic thinker, Art seeks out people with diverse ideas and experiences to ensure a rich and intelligent approach to problem solving. He led EPA’s Big Decisions initiative, a revealing look by EPA’s top career officials at the likely adverse effects of incomplete information on the quality of major regulatory decisions confronting EPA over the following several years. His ability to assimilate widely divergent views led to the timely completion of a highly credible product. Art’s effective communication of the results of Big Decisions contributed directly to a shift in EPA’s IT planning orientation — away from traditional discussion of system hardware and software needs and toward the bottom line: information needs for better decisions and results.
Art is at his best when combining his skills as both a strategic thinker and manager to develop projects demonstrating the value of new organizational directions. He piloted a variety of regional, state and local risk planning studies to help government officials set their environmental priorities. He employed a similar approach while on special assignment to the Agency for International Development and World Bank to advise local officials on environmental priorities for the Czech and Polish border region of Silesia. Art trained dozens of Eastern European environmental managers and scientists in the use of risk assessment as a policy, planning and program decision making tool.
Art holds an MA in Economics. For the past 25 years, he has taught courses in a Master’s program in Environmental Science and Policy at Johns Hopkins University.