About Us

CRI was founded in 1980 by biologist Nancy Kelly, one of the three original staff of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a now nationally known non-profit conservation organization.  

With environmental advocacy leading to more federal, state, and local environmental regulations, Nancy was looking for a new challenge and saw a need to help landowners and developers conscientiously navigate the new regulations. For much of its first decade, the business primarily focused on assessing private waterfront properties and obtaining newly required Chesapeake Bay Critical Area approvals for property improvements and new construction. In the late 1980s, the firm was on the winning team for the Baltimore Central Light Rail project, which launched CRI’s long history in public infrastructure work and transportation projects in particular.  

Nancy Kelly

In 1988, Nancy hired Betsy Weinkam, a biologist previously working as an environmental sanitarian in Southern Maryland, and, in 1991, sold the business to Betsy.  As an owner, Betsy prized the closeness of a small company of dedicated professionals, and company growth was intentionally slow over the almost 25 years she owned the company.  

Under Betsy’s leadership, CRI’s growing reputation for excellence in environmental services led to the firm’s involvement in some of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects in the region and allowed CRI to greatly expand the firm’s capabilities in natural resources, as well as adding water resource engineering service areas.  To meet the demands of these projects the company grew over the years from just three people to over 35 environmental scientists, water resource engineers, wildlife biologists, hydrologists, and administrative staff.

Betsy Weinkam


For much of its first decade, the business primarily focused on assessing private waterfront properties and obtaining newly required Chesapeake Bay Critical Area approvals for property improvements and new construction. 

Sarah Williamson, Bridgette Garner, Betsy Weinkam

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After 27 years with the company, and 24 of those years as owner, Betsy Weinkam sold the business to two of her longest-term employees: Bridgette Garner and Sarah Williamson. Sarah, who had been the company’s third full-time employee in 1990, and Bridgette who joined the firm in 1997, became equal partners in ownership of CRI.   

Sarah Williamson

Bridgette and Sarah started their careers at CRI as Environmental Scientists and had a long history of collaboration through their technical work and management roles as Team Leader and Department Heads of the firm’s Natural Resources Team. By the time they took over ownership, they had been managing and growing the capabilities of the firm’s Natural Resources Team for many years together and had built a strong relationship they were confident could weather the stresses of running a company. Along with sharing the duties of overall firm management and staff oversight, Bridgette and Sarah continue their roles as Senior Environmental Scientists, managing some of the firm’s larger and more complex projects.   

Bridgette Garner

Since taking over CRI, Bridgette and Sarah have focused on maintaining the firm’s many long-term client and prime relationships as well as the principles of technical excellence and collaboration that have led to CRI’s success over the last 40 years. They are grateful for the vision and workplace culture of the previous owners that nurtured their own careers and are excited to uphold that legacy while exploring new opportunities to expand CRI’s services, markets, and geographic reach in the years to come.