Mr. Kelly is a graduate of Tulane University (B.A.) and a cum laude JD and MSL (Masters in Environmental Law) graduate of the Vermont Law School. He is currently serving as the CEO of Earth Recovery Partners, LLC, a firm that mobilizes enterprises and projects to solve the world’s environmental problems through nature-based solutions, environmental markets, and technology. ERP provides three types of offerings: strategic partnership support, a hub for investment and incubation services.
He has over 25 years of experience with project development and finance in the environmental market context and has permitted and sold over $250m of environmental credits in the United States relating to water quality, wetlands, streams, stormwater and endangered species. During that time, he drove initiatives to acquire assets, projects and enterprises. He has worked with numerous resource agencies, landowners, municipalities, investors and private and public credit buyers in the implementation of mitigation and performance-based restoration projects. He has worked on numerous resource mitigation projects; negotiated and implemented mitigation banking instruments in Maryland, Idaho, Montana, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, California and Florida; and drafted and negotiated land deals with over 100 landowners for resource mitigation projects. He has been a leader in promoting new polices at the federal, state and international levels relating to market-based solutions to achieve environmental objectives, including working on the US wetland mitigation rules enacted in June 2008. Mr. Kelly served on the Board for almost ten years and was elected as the President of the National Mitigation Banking Association (US) in 2009. He was appointed by the USEPA Secretary to serve on EPA’s Environmental Finance Advisory Board (2020-2026). Additionally, he was appointed to serve on the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP), the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Nutrient Trading Task Force, the Advisory Committee to the Water Quality Fund for the Chesapeake Bay, the National Water Quality Trading Alliance.
He served as the Chief Markets Officer from 2014-2019 and as a Strategic Advisor to the Board of Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) (2019-2021). RES was acquired by private equity firm, KKR, in 2016. Prior to joining RES, Mr. Kelly was the founder and director for Environmental Banc & Exchange, LLC (EBX) from 1997 to 2014. EBX was acquired by RES in 2014. In addition, he served as partner and member of the Environmental Law Group at the firm, Ober, Kaler, Grimes and Shriver from 1987 to 1997.
