Vicky Amato, Natural Resources Planner/Fire Planner in the Denver office, has been named the Lawrence S. Semo Scientific Achievement Award winner for the fourth quarter of 2020.
Vicky started at SWCA in 2007 in the Albuquerque, New Mexico office. She has been instrumental in keeping SWCA at the forefront of pre-fire planning, always pushing to utilize new technologies and strategies to support client needs.
Since 2007, Vicky has expanded pre-fire planning services nationally, winning work in places such as California, Utah, Colorado, New York, Illinois, and recently, Martha’s Vineyard. In addition to this work, Vicky helped start SWCA’s post-fire restoration work through the Ojo Peak post-fire restoration project in New Mexico. Vicky and the project team produced a technical, high-quality Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) report, which has been highly utilized in marketing and for winning additional wildfire work. Vicky has continued her technical leadership in post-fire services through publishing in peer-reviewed journals, tracking relevant policies to help support and attract clients, and utilizing new technologies to create novel deliverables.
The quarterly Lawrence S. Semo Scientific Achievement Award rewards individuals for demonstrating passion, creativity, and scientific excellence in a manner that advances SWCA’s purpose, mission, vision, and values. The award is in honor of Larry Semo, who began working as a biologist for SWCA in Austin in 1993 and transferred to Denver in 1999. A respected and widely published ornithologist and all-around naturalist, Larry had an insatiable desire to learn and a great love for the outdoors until his untimely passing in 2011.