Consultant Team

The firm, Five E’s Unlimited, has been contracted by the Town of Dauphin Island to serve the role of facilitator and expert for the Island's Strategic Planning process. Dr. Warren Flint, the firm’s principal, is joining with Mr. Gene Martin of the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) and Ms. Mary Mullins of the Bellwhether Group (Mobile, AL) to carry-out an effective plan of action in meeting the four requirements listed below to guiding the Town. The Team’s services will assist the Town of Dauphin Island in developing a long-term strategy and implementation plan for community development that creates a more hazard resistant community able to balance economic development with environmental sustainability.

From a team perspective, the key requirements for the planning process to succeed include:

1. the consultant team’s understanding for where the Town has been with planning activities that will appreciably inform this project and what the stakeholder aspirations and core values look like regarding a future, sustainable Dauphin Island community, which will require:
2. the community’s deep and extensive science-based understanding of ecological, economic, and social sustainability, in all of its temporal, spatial and systemic dimensions, communicated effectively to participants and stakeholders in a way that inspires vision and action, to inform:
3. a thoroughly community-based and community-driven process of deliberation and decision making, engaging all stakeholders in the identity of weaknesses and threats as well as community assets, and capable of guiding the making of difficult trade-offs while creating cohesive win-win solutions, whose outcomes are expressed in:
4. a solid, comprehensive, implementable Strategic Plan fulfilling all best-practice planning and statutory requirements, which will identify the necessary resources to overcome challenges and take advantage of opportunities, and will be a model for change management that effectively guides the Town of Dauphin Island in revising its Comprehensive Plan in order to direct progress toward a successful, resiliently enduring future.

Consultant team members include the following.

Dr. Warren Flint, principal of Five E's Unlimited, is the Team Leader for the Dauphin Island Strategic Planning program. Dr. Flint assists clients to integrate environmental, economic, and social equity concerns into project design and problem solving that focuses upon community-based natural resource management, comprehensive planning, promotion of environmental sustainability in watershed and coastal zone strategic plan development, community awareness and capacity building, and sustainable eco-tourism planning. His national and international leadership in community capacity-building facilitation, research, strategic planning, education, and policy recommendations toward achieving sound economic development and natural resource conservation goals has assisted governments, corporations, academic institutions, communities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for more than 9 years.

Mr. Gene Martin's specialty in the Five E’s team partnership is providing support for local and regional community driven initiatives through information and visualizations created using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Invaluable assets for success in these kinds of strategic planning efforts include complete knowledge of information technology, access to information, community values, and means to engage with all stakeholders involved. Mr. Martin employs mapping techniques to assist stakeholders in this regard.

Ms. Mary Mullins, a partner with the Bellwether Group in Mobile, AL, serves a broad array of clients in the chemical and industrial manufacturing, oil and gas, utility, professional services, community and environmental non-profit sectors. Her community and media relations programs, along with her marketing and branding projects, have received regional and national recognition. Mary is adept at providing environmental, health, and safety communications mechanisms for a wide variety of clients. She is also a skilled professional facilitator able to assist a diverse array of groups.