Who We Are

Zender Environmental Science and Planning Services, LLC is a women-owned small Alaskan business that specializes in waste management programs and related issues for Alaska Native communities and Tribes at local, regional, state-wide, and national levels. The principal, Dr. Lynn Zender, carried out her Civil and Environmental Engineering doctoral research on the institutional, socio-cultural, legal, and infrastructural differences between Tribes and conventional communities that limit the successful application of conventional environmental management and engineering approaches. The resulting entrenched knowledge and experience within the firm that Tribal cultures and Tribal institutional/political complexities play a central role in Tribal environmental decisions, plans, and projects has provided the firm its foundation for success.

Zender carries out a combination of academic research and studies, planning, and educational work, and is particularly well-known within the rural Alaska environmental community for its acclaimed waste management materials that are targeted, in both content and format, to Village audiences. These materials may be viewed on SWAN, the Solid Waste Alaska Network, (www.ccthita-SWAN.org), a statewide Tribal website for practical solid and hazardous waste technical assistance to Villages (and other rural Alaska communities). Zender is the technical consultant and site designer of SWAN and its materials. Zender is considered to be a leading expert in the field of scientifically-based health and environmental risks specifically presented by Alaska Village waste management practices and facilities, and has performed what are, thus far, the sole quantitative risk studies particular to the Alaska situation.