About Heather Stettler, PhD, RPA

I have decades of experience editing and writing environmental documents. Learn about me and what I can do for you.

Editing and Formatting Services to Help You Create Better Documents

Woman in suit smiling in black background

Why You’ll Want to Work With Me

I have the experience, educational credentials, and knowledge of environmental regulations and jargon needed to help make your technical reports better. My consulting experience means I understand project budgets, schedules, and scopes of work. I also meet the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for archaeology.

Working together, we’ll create high-quality, well-written documents that are easier for your clients and agency reviewers to read. We’ll produce documents that demonstrate your expertise and professionalism.

How We’ll Work Together

I will help you create high-quality environmental reports that exceed the expectations of your clients and agency reviewers. We’ll do this collaboratively—I will tailor the level of effort and scope of work to your budget and schedule to help you achieve success on your project.

Workflow: Typically, clients send reports to me in Microsoft Word, and I use track changes and comments for edits. Formatting changes are not usually tracked.

Contracting: If you think you’ll have ongoing work, such as multiple environmental resource reports or permit applications, we’ll usually set up a master services agreement. Your project managers can then send specific tasks to me along with the project and task numbers for billing. If you have one specific project you’d like help with, we can set up a consulting agreement with a specific scope of work. I take ACH payments, checks, and credit card payments.

Professional Experience and Education

Click here for my environmental consulting résumé, and click here for my nonfiction book editing résumé. My previous experience and qualifications are summarized below. If you would like to see my complete CV, please send me an email.

I have more than twenty years of experience editing, writing, formatting, and doing QA/QC reviews of technical resource reports and environmental documents. For more than fourteen years, I worked at SWCA Environmental Consultants, Inc., in Salt Lake City, Utah. I started as an archaeological technician and eventually became managing principal of the Great Basin offices overseeing the cultural resources, natural resources, NEPA/planning, wetlands/water quality, and paleontology programs. This previous experience as a managing principal means I understand business documents like business plans, marketing plans, quarterly reports, board reports, and more.

I serve clients with projects throughout the United States. Most of my work has been in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. I also have archaeological experience in France and Spain. I am based in Bloomington, Indiana.

I have worked on environmental planning and permitting documents and resource reports for surveys, monitoring, and mitigation for a variety of industries:

Renewable energy: wind, solar, and hydro,
Electric energy: transmission lines, distribution lines, and substations
Mining: gold, silver, uranium, and coal
Oil and gas: pipelines, field development, APDs, and seismic exploration
Transportation: airports, road, light rail, and some railroad
Utilities: cell towers, fiber optic lines, and water pipelines

I earned all three of my degrees (BA, MA, PhD) from the University of Chicago.

Resource and Regulatory Expertise

I have edited, written, and formatted environmental impact statements, environmental assessments, resource studies, permitting applications, critical issues analyses, and feasibility studies for a variety of resources and environmental regulations:

Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA)
Clean Water Act (CWA): Section 404, wetlands and waters of the United States (WOUS)
Critical issues analyses (CIA) and state or local permitting applications
Endangered Species Act (ESA): threatened and endangered species (TES or T&E) and special status species
Environmental Site Assessments (ESA) Phase 1
Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA)
Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA)
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): environmental assessments (EA), environmental impact statements (EIS), and categorical exclusions (CatEx)
National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) Section 106 and Section 110 and state and local regulations: archaeological survey, monitoring, and mitigation reports; Phase I or Class I archaeological literature reviews; and historic architecture surveys
Section 508 accessibility requirements

Most of the projects I work on are overseen by federal, state, or local regulatory agencies:

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Department of Defense (DoD)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
National Park Service (NPS)
State divisions of environmental quality (DEQ), natural resources (DNR), or wildlife resources (DWR); historic preservation offices (SHPO); or public utility commissions (PUC)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
U.S. Forest Service (USFS)

Permits, Professional Organizations, and Training

I hold or have held the following permits as an archaeological principal investigator:

Principal investigator for the state of Utah, Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office (PLPCO), permit #36
Previously permitted as a principal investigator for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming; the Bureau of Reclamation—Great Plains; and the states of Nevada and North Dakota

I belong to the following professional organizations:

ACRA: American Cultural Resources Association
EFA: Editorial Freelancers Association
FU: Freelancers Union
INAEP: Indiana Association of Environmental Professionals
NAIWE: National Association of Independent Writers and Editors
PENS: Professional Editors Network
RPA: Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA 15236)
SAA: Society for American Archaeology

I have completed the following trainings:

Center for Creative Leadership Development
Financial Management
NEPA Comprehensive
NEPA Project Manager
PSMJ Project Manager

Elemental Text is a Technical Editing and Writing Service for Environmental Consulting Companies

I founded Elemental Text in 2014. I am a professional technical editor and writer with years of practical experience in the environmental consulting industry. I provide a variety of editing, writing, and formatting services for documents such as technical resource reports, environmental impact statements, environmental assessments, permit applications, business documents, and nonfiction books. I am uniquely qualified to help you with your reports thanks to more than twenty years of experience working in the environmental consulting industry. I have a Ph.D. in Anthropology (with a focus in Archaeology) from the University of Chicago. I understand budgets, deadlines, and scopes of work and am reliable and easy to work with. Please contact me at HStettler@elementaltext.com or call me at 801.244.0939.