Facilitated Solutions, LLC, through services provided by Jeff A. Blair and Robert M. Jones, has been providing collaborative services including facilitation, process design, strategic planning, organizational consultation and training, and consensus-building since the 1970s. Facilitated Solutions, LLC provides:

• Direct Provision of Services. Direct provision of collaborative process services (i.e., facilitation, negotiation, consensus-building, process design, and situation assessment) for public, private, and non-governmental organization (NGO) sector entities;
• Planning and Implementation. Assistance to public, private, and NGO sector entities regarding strategic planning and action implementation plans;
  
• Training. Provision of facilitation, collaboration, consensus-building, process design, and effective meeting management training for the public, private, and NGO sectors; and,
  
• Consultation. Consultation with public, private, and NGO sector interests in situation assessment, process design, consensus-building, and strategic and action planning to meet their needs.
  

Facilitating the Greater Pensacola Bay Stakeholder Working Group (2019)

Mission Statement

The mission of Facilitated Solutions, LLC is to assist clients and their stakeholders to achieve broad based consensus on the development and implementation of effective solutions, and to foster the use of effective collaborative processes and procedures within and across agencies, associations, businesses and between stakeholders. Facilitated Solutions, LLC is committed to fostering a civil and respectful discourse and engagement between stakeholders on the evaluation, development and implementation of collaboratively developed solutions to complex policy issues.

Jeff Blair facilitating OysterFutures Workgroup (2018)

Guiding Principles

Facilitated Solutions, LLC is committed to and pledges to operate using the following Guiding Principles:

Facilitated Solutions Uses Our Consensus Solutions Process To Assist Diverse Stakeholders In Achieving Consensus on  Strategies and Recommendations

OysterFutures Consensus Solutions Process

Summary of Experience

OysterFutures Workgroup engaged in building consensus (2017)

OysterFutures Workgroup and project team after unanimous consensus on recommendations (March 2018)

Jeff A. Blair has over 30 years of experience in assessing and analyzing public problems and facilitating public meetings. Jeff is faculty at Florida State University (FSU), and serves as Associate Director for the FCRC Consensus Center at FSU, and concurrently he is principle and owner of his consulting business Facilitated Solutions, LLC. He specializes in strategic planning and action plan implementation, stakeholder advisory groups, commissions, taskforces, and agency rulemaking. His work for Facilitated Solutions, LLC and FSU includes facilitation, process design, situation assessment, strategic planning and implementation, and consensus-building on complex public policy initiatives. He has worked with federal, state, local government, and private sector representatives to design and implement collaborative approaches to consensus-building, planning, rulemaking, and dispute resolution with an emphasis on stakeholder participation in the design and implementation of policy in over 188 projects and over 2500 meetings. In addition, he conducts trainings in various dispute resolution and meeting management topics.

Ongoing projects include serving as process designer, lead facilitator, and conflict resolution consultant for stakeholder groups including: Florida State University’s Apalachicola Basin System Initiative Community Advisory Board tasked with developing recommendations for the Apalachicola Bay System Ecosystem-Based Adaptive Management and Restoration Plan; the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Stakeholders (ACFS) working to develop consensus on a science-based water supply plan for the ACF Basin; the Bailey Wildlife Foundation’s funded Global Defense for Coral Reef Wildlife interdisciplinary Research Team working to build a system to support corals and coral reef wildlife by creating habitat and removing carbon dioxide from the air; and, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Florida Building Commission’s ongoing process of building consensus on all aspects of the Florid Building Code System including facilitating over 68 special issue stakeholder workgroup projects for the Commission with a total of over 1,200 individual meetings since 1999.

Recently completed projects include successfully facilitating to consensus and unanimous agreement The Nature Conservancy’s Pensacola Bay System Stakeholder Working Group on the Pensacola Bay Ecosystem-Based Oyster Fisheries Management Plan; the USFWS’ Loxahatchee NWR Strategic Alignment Initiative, the USFWS’ Regional Strategic Vision Alignment Initiative, the Suwannee River Partnership Steering Committee (FDACS, FDEP, SRWMD, UF/IFAS), the North Florida Regional Water Supply Partnership Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SRWMD/SJRWMD/FDEP/FDACS), the Coastal SEES OysterFutures Workgroup, the Gulf of Mexico Angler Focus Group Initiative, and the For-Hire Recreational Fisheries Electronic Monitoring Assessment Process.

He served as process consultant and facilitator for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ (FDACS) Pest Control Enforcement Advisory Council, Pesticide Review Council, FDACS Agricultural Feed, Seed and Fertilizer Advisory Council, and the Florida Coordinating Council on Mosquito Control for over ten years. He facilitated the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s Flood Resistant Standards Workgroup and the Florida Emergency Notification System Vision Workshop. He has done work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) including the National Saltwater Recreational Fishing Summit, Deepwater BP Oil Spill Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement scoping workshops, NOAA Fisheries Chesapeake Modeling Symposium and the Gulf of Mexico Grouper Forum. Work for United States Environmental Protections Agency (USEPA) includes the National Bedbug Summit and the International Public Health Pesticides Workshop in London, England. In addition, he facilitated the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustee Council (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and the DOI, NOAA, and DOD).

Work for the private sector includes designing and facilitating the Recreational Boating Stakeholders Growth Summit, and working with National Pest Management Association (NPMA), National Marine Manufactures Association (NMMA), Association for Structural Pest Control Regulatory Officials (ASPCRO), Association of American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO), Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC), National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Florida Natural Gas Association (FNGA), and the Solar Policy Advocates Board. Mr. Blair has provided facilitation, planning, and process design for numerous agencies, entities, non-profit organizations and associations since 1977.

He is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Mediator, a U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, National Roster of Environmental Dispute Resolution and Consensus Building Professionals qualified/approved practitioner, a qualified/approved practitioner on EPA’s Environmental ADR Neutrals Roster, and is qualified as a Senior Conflict Management Specialist for the Department of Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution (CADR).

In summary, Jeff Blair has the education, experience, and skills, to effectively collaborate with clients to design, implement, and facilitate successful consensus-building initiatives working with diverse stakeholders on complex policy issues. In addition, Jeff has extensive experience facilitating virtual meetings via various webinar platforms including Zoom, Go-To-Meeting, and Skype for Business.

Jeff Blair Collaborative Modeling Presentation VIMS July 2018

Robert M. “Bob” Jones is a facilitator and process consultant based in Tallahassee, Florida, with over 35 years’ experience in public, private and nonprofit organizations with a specialty in multi-party collaborative stakeholder consensus processes involving science and technical issues and strategic planning.

He has served as the Director of the FCRC Consensus Center, a public service center based at Florida State University since 1990.  In that role he works with leaders and representatives from state, local and federal government, the private sector and citizen and community groups in Florida and elsewhere to design and implement consensus building and collaborative civic action approaches to public and community issues.  He has served as a public policy facilitator in over 200 projects including 50 statewide policy leadership forums in Florida related to environmental, marine and fisheries, land use, affordable and workforce housing, transportation, energy, agricultural, mining and community and regional issues as wells as national work related to recreational fisheries and energy plans and issues.  He has designed and facilitated dozens of strategic planning initiatives with public, private and non-profit organizations. From time to time he has participated in consensus and civic participation projects in South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia.

Prior to his work with the Consortium, Mr. Jones was a Senior Associate for eight years at the National Institute for Dispute Resolution, in Washington D.C, where he directed a national dispute resolution research grants program (the Ford Foundation Fund for Research on Dispute Resolution) and administered programs supporting public policy mediation in state and local government and promoting professional legal, business, policy and planning curricula on collaboration and consensus building. He has served in leadership positions with national practitioner associations including Association for Conflict Resolution and the Society for Professionals in Dispute Resolution.  He currently he serves as a member of the national board of the Kitchen Table Democracy. He served as the founding Chair of Steering Committee of the University Network for Collaborative Governance. He is a graduate of the University of California, Davis School of Law, the University of California, Berkeley and of Leadership Florida and a member of the California Bar.

Bob Jones Collaborative Modeling Presentation VIMS July 2018