Dick Kempka
Vice President Business Development
The Climate Trust
A long time specialist in eco-asset projects, Dick has over 20 years of executive experience in innovative sustainability, carbon, forests, grasslands, wetlands, land conservation technology development, and sales. Dick leads business development and primarily works on carbon transactions including acquisitions and sales. He also leads product development and services to meet the evolving sustainability needs of corporate partners and the carbon market. In addition, he provides strategic planning with partners to assist with carbon asset management. Dick formerly worked for Equator LLC, an asset management firm, who specializes in the generation and management of high quality carbon credits and environmental assets derived from reforestation projects, forest conservation, sustainable land management and other emission reduction project activities. Dick‘s primary responsibility at Equator was sales and origination, deal negotiation, and product development. Before joining Equator, Dick was the Carbon Program lead for Ducks Unlimited (DU), the world’s largest wetlands conservation organization. While at DU, Dick was responsible for the positioning and marketing of DU’s carbon offset program and coordinated all carbon sequestration and environmental asset activities throughout the organization, including a successful effort to deliver a first-of-its-kind forest carbon conservation easement to a consortium of 25 large utility companies and Edison Electric Institute. He also spearheaded a large terrestrial carbon sequestration project with the Energy and Environmental Research Center as part of a Carbon Sequestration Science Program covering the entire U.S. He is an accomplished speaker who has participated on several carbon panels and delivered presentations at numerous Environmental, Carbon, and other industry forums. Before joining DU, Dick served as Remote Sensing Analyst with Pacific Meridian Resources, a natural resources consulting firm in California including a large technology transfer project with NASA, and as a Remote Sensing Analyst for the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the Defense Mapping Agency. The author of more than 20 professional publications, Dick received his B.S. in Geography and Remote Sensing from Carroll College and his Master’s in Geography and Remote Sensing from Indiana State University.