Co-Founder of Ecological Service Partners, a firm that capitalizes on opportunities in environmental services and water related investments. The founders recognized the opportunity to combine environmental domain expertise with intelligent and patient capital to benefit from regulatory-driven compensatory spend.Mr. Starkel has over 25 years of experience in full-cycle large-scale program development including raising capital, working with federal, state and local regulatory agencies, and executing complex construction projects. Mr. Starkel previously spent 21 years as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”). While in USACE, Mr. Starkel was Deputy Commander of the New Orleans District in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. In this role, he managed the $15 billion program to design and build the new hurricane protection system in Southeast Louisiana. Following his military career, Mr. Starkel joined NGP as a Managing Director. Most recently, Mr. Starkel was with Ecosystem Investment Partners, a private equity firm with over $500 million under management focused on land based ecosystem offsets such as wetland and stream mitigation banking as well as endangered species and water quality and quantity trading.Recently, ESP is pleased to announce the successful closing of $250 million equity round to support ESP’s activities in large-scale ecological restoration including damaged wetlands, streams and habitats for endangered species, as well as enhancing water quality for offsets to nutrient impacts. With $250 million of committed equity capital, ESP is now one of the largest and best capitalized operators in the ecological service market, enabling ESP to restore thousands of acres of wetlands and hundreds of miles of impacted streams. ESP will also opportunistically pursue strategic acquisitions in the US.