Get to know our KTL team! This month, we are catching up with KTL Principal Lisa Langdon, P.E. Lisa provides project direction and strategic oversight to ensure the success of KTL’s projects and satisfaction of our clients. She has over 25 years of experience assisting clients with management system design and deployment, business process improvement, risk management, and compliance assurance. Lisa also manages KTL’s team of consultants and support staff. She is based out of our Madison, WI headquarters. 

Tell us a little bit about your background—what are your areas of expertise?

I have my degree in Civil Engineering with an environmental emphasis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I began my career in California, primarily doing solid waste engineering work. During that time, I became a registered Professional Engineer.

With my Midwestern roots, we moved back to the Madison area, and I began working at what was then known as Kestrel Management Services (now KTL). I wanted to transition into helping companies manage their environmental risks—beyond just remediating their environmental compliance issues. This has been the focus of my career for the past 20 years at KTL. I work primarily on management system design and deployment, business process improvement, risk management, and compliance assurance. In particular, my areas of expertise include analyzing EHS and other business processes and identifying and implementing improvement opportunities to ensure compliance and enterprise risk reduction.

In 2014, I took partial ownership of KTL and am now currently a principal owner and member of KTL’s Executive Committee. In this role, I continue to provide executive-level project direction and oversight, manage client relationships to effectively meet needs, oversee internal processes and systems, and manage KTL’s technical operations and staff.

What types of clients do you work with? What are the biggest issues you see them facing right now?

I have worked for a wide variety of companies ranging from a Class I railroad, to utilities and chemical companies, to municipal departments. While the majority of our projects involve solving issues and looking for opportunities to improve EHS and food safety compliance, we can help provide process improvement and risk reduction services to any type of organization. As a very recent example, we will use our systems analysis approach to work on a government-funded project in cooperation with pharmacy chains to develop strategies to improve access to medications for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). While the industry and compliance issues are different, KTL’s overall approach on this project remains the same.

As for the biggest issues I see right now, I think it is safe to say that many of our clients continue to struggle with finding and retaining quality staff. KTL continues to help many companies fill this hole by supporting their EHS or food safety departments to ensure ongoing compliance requirements are met. We also see many companies still working to manage the new “hybrid” work situations that have emerged from COVID. KTL’s work related to information management systems has grown as more and more companies need improved access to and control of information, regardless of where employees are working.

What would you say is a highlight of your job?

In my role, I have the opportunity to collaborate with and oversee our team of experts as they work with our clients to solve some really difficult problems. For example, we have seen an uptick in the number of surprise EPA inspections and enforcement actions over the past several months. In addition to preparing our clients to be “inspection-ready” as part of normal operations, our team has been able to respond quickly to provide resources that support our clients during and after these inspections.

We also have many clients who are working hard to implement best-in-class practices. These projects allow us to be creative in identifying approaches that help these organizations improve their transparency; develop more effective metrics and dashboards; and better align, focus, and manage those initiatives that are core to sustainable business operations.

What do you like to do in your free time?

My husband and I are adjusting to being empty nesters with two daughters now in college and out of the house. We recently bought a canoe and are looking forward to Wisconsin weather warming up enough to use it. I also really enjoy traveling and am continually planning for my next trip.

Read Lisa’s full bio.