P. Michael Saint is founder, CEO and chairman of The Saint Consulting Group, the world's largest and most experienced firm in the new management consulting discipline of land use politics. After a career in journalism, politics and public relations, he founded the company in 1983 in Massachusetts. Today, it serves clients from 10 offices in the United States, and from one each in the United Kingdom and Canada.

The Saint Consulting Group has worked on more than 1,400 controversial projects in 44 U.S. states, in Canada and in England. Assignments have included office parks, hotels, hospitals, retail centres, power plants, quarries, landfills, casinos, mixed-use developments, malls, heliports and golf courses. Mike Saint and his colleagues have developed specialised political techniques that help clients generate public support to ensure that they prevail in the local governmental approval process.

A graduate of Holy Cross College with a degree in political science, Mike earned his master's in business administration from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He has done additional study at the University of Chicago Business School and at the Harvard Business School.

Mike serves on the board of directors of the Association of Management Consulting Firms, the Nashville Opera Association and on the advisory board of the Civic Bank and Trust in Nashville. He is on the executive board of the Nashville District Council of the Urban Land Institute, and serves as a trustee on the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Consulting and Management Inc. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the National Sand, Stone & Gravel Association and the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Mike has been a guest lecturer at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and the Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business at Belmont University. He is the author or co-author of articles published in Land Development magazine, Urban Land magazine, Shopping Center Business, the Stone, Sand and Gravel Review, REBusiness Online and Design Intelligence magazine.

He has addressed the International Council of Shopping Centers Conference on Open-Air Centers and it’s ReCON Global Retail Real Estate Convention in Las Vegas, the Commercial Retail Council of the Urban Land Institute, the Missouri Limestone Producers Association, the Government Affairs Committee of the National Sand, Stone & Gravel Association, the Ontario Sand, Stone & Gravel Association and the Pennsylvania Gaming Congress and Racing Forum, and other international, national and regional business organisations.

Mike, his wife and two daughters live outside Nashville.

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Patrick Fox has been with Saint Consulting since 1998, serving as project manager, division manager and vice president before becoming company president.

Patrick has managed or consulted on hundreds of land use projects across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, adapting state-of-the-art grassroots political campaign techniques to win controversial land use battles.

Patrick developed the Saint Index, the world’s only international survey that quantifies and analyzes opposition to development, which has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Development Magazine, Business 2.0, Electric Perspectives, Health Facilities Management, Rock Products and many other media.

Patrick earned an MBA from Northeastern University and has completed additional programmes at Harvard, MIT and Harvard Business School. His experience includes work on more than 100 political campaigns, management of a U.S. Congressional office and a government relations consulting firm. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the International Council of Shopping Centers.

He has addressed the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) Conference on Open-Air Centres, Eckert Seamans’ Panel on International Business, The Canadian Gaming Association, the AFL-CIO, ICSC Centrebuild and the annual WasteCon conference, among others, and served on the Urban Land Institute Advisory Panel for Springfield, Massachusetts.

Patrick, his wife and two daughters reside in Lexington, Massachusetts.

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Robert Flavell is an attorney with wide experience in government, politics, and land-use strategy.

During more than 20 years with Saint Consulting, Bob has successfully managed hundreds of land use campaigns, developed the firm’s defence practice, devised the scoping process for identifying issues, and developed the predictive strategy procedures for anticipating opponent activity and devising countermeasures.

Bob’s articles on land use battles have appeared in numerous trade publications, and his book on land use politics is forthcoming. He is a member of the Massachusetts, U.S. District, and U.S. Supreme Court bars.

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Nick Keable
Vice President
United Kingdom

After eight years commissioned service in the British Army, Nick Keable’s political life began working on international development and economic/monetary affairs for the UK Conservative Group at the European Parliament in Brussels.

He then moved to a European public affairs consultancy based in Brussels, concentrating mostly on European spatial planning legislation. Concurrently, he acted as secretary to the European Group of Surveyors and played a founding role in establishing a pan-European lobby group for the construction industry, similar to a UK Parliamentary all-party group. Nick then moved back to London to set up a UK operation for the company.

In the mid 1990s, Nick began working for a leading UK land use lobbyist. He rose to become managing director with responsibility for the entire UK regional office network. In this role, he headed up many client projects and developed a particular specialism for complex residential development and PFI projects. He was invited to give evidence to two government inquiries into planning reform.

In 2005, Nick joined Saint Consulting to build its UK and European operations.

He has completed programmes at Harvard, MIT and the Harvard Business School and is a member of the British Council of Shopping Centres, the Urban Land Institute and the Institute of Directors. He is also an active member of the Quarry Products Association, the Nuclear Industry Association and the Management Consultancies Association.

Nick often speaks at conferences and events on the politics of the planning process and has regularly written articles for several national and trade publications. He served for four years as a local authority councillor in a London borough where he was a cabinet member and sat on the planning committee.

Nick lives outside London with his wife, Tanya.

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Jesse McKnight joined Saint Consulting in 1998 and served as a project manager, division manager and senior vice president of the western region before becoming executive vice president.

He has assisted clients by designing and executing successful land use campaigns to obtain entitlements for all types of development projects, including residential and master planned communities, commercial and retail centres, and industrial projects.

Jesse has more than 20 years of experience in grassroots campaigns at the local, state and national levels. Prior to joining Saint, he operated his own consulting and lobbying firm specialising in economic development at the county and municipal levels while providing fundraising assistance at the national and state levels for various projects.

Jesse is certified by the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to manage campaigns at the state and national levels. From 1989 through 1997, he served as state director and as campaign director for U.S. Senator Wendell H. Ford (D-Kentucky). His depth of political organising experience includes managing projects in more than 20 states.

Jesse received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky and an MBA from St. Mary’s College. He also attended the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Programme, University of California-Berkeley and University of California-Davis CEQA CLE programmes.

He resides outside San Francisco with his wife and four children.

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As regional vice president at Saint Consulting, Jay Vincent has management responsibility for 33 states, four divisional offices and dozens of clients across multiple industries. He previously served as regional division manager of Midwest operations and a project manager with the firm.

Jay has more than a decade of experience managing people and projects in both the public and private sectors. He is described as a facilitator who seizes the moment to accomplish his objectives and achieve victory.

Prior to his work at Saint Consulting, Jay was a regional field and political director at a progressive non-profit, running field organising and political operations in five Upper Midwest states. He also managed the field organising efforts of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s online and offline independent expenditure programme during the 2004 campaign cycle. During three years at the DCCC, he worked as deputy to the executive director, training director and special assistant to the chairman.

Before his professional work in campaigns and politics Jay also worked in government for several years as a staffer in both the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives as a legislative aide, legislative correspondent and staff assistant.

Outside of his professional roles, Jay has taken numerous leadership responsibilities within ideological and professional organisations. He is an active member of the Urban Land Institute and also presided over the significant growth of Washington D.C.’s premiere professional development and networking group, the Democratic Networking Group. He is a lifetime member and alumni of the American Council of Young Political Leaders, having served as delegate to Taiwan and as lead facilitator and representative of a USAID-funded programme in Moldova for a 14-nation Eastern European Young Political Leaders Conference.

Jay is a graduate of Marquette University and the Les Aspin Centre for Government Studies. He is also a candidate for a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame.

Jay is married to Kelly and lives in Chicago with her and their dog, Maggie.

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Paul Salvucci
Chief Financial Officer

Paul Salvucci joined The Saint Consulting Group as CFO in 2008 and manages the financial, tax, audit, risk and related compliance activities for the company.

Most recently, Paul served as CFO and managing partner for the Wilmark Group, a professional staffing firm specialising in the scientific and technology disciplines. His other work experience included CFO at TAC Worldwide, controller for the Worldwide Services organisation at Computervision/Prime Computer, and auditor at PriceWaterhouse.

Paul’s work experience has involved multinational expansion, including the start-up of operations in Western European countries while at Computervision and TAC Worldwide.

Paul is an MBA graduate of Babson College and earned his CPA designation while working at PriceWaterhouse in Boston. He is a member of the Boston Treasurer’s Club, Financial Executive Institute, Boston Chapter, and past board member and treasurer of the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, MA.

Paul enjoys Cape Cod history and activities. He and his family reside in Needham Massachusetts.

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Jeffrey R. Gould
Vice President and General Counsel

Jeffrey Gould is vice president and general counsel of the Saint Consulting Group. As general counsel, he assumes responsibility for the legal affairs and representation of the nation’s pioneering consultants in land use politics. He is a seasoned attorney with 20 years of experience in complex business matters and land use disputes. His expertise is in zoning, eminent domain, land use planning and regulatory matters, and environmental protection issues.
 
For six years Jeff worked in a large New England law firm before establishing his own Boston-based practice in 1996. He joined the Saint Consulting Group in 2005. He is a member of the U.S. District Court, Massachusetts; U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit; and the U.S. Supreme Court bars.

A graduate of Holy Cross College with a degree in political science, Jeff earned his Juris Doctor from Suffolk University Law School in Boston. He has been a guest lecturer at the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, and the American Bar Association.

Jeff belongs to the Association of Management Consulting Firms, where he serves on the Public Affairs Committee. He also belongs to the International Council of Shopping Centres.

Jeff's office is in the company’s headquarters in Hingham, Massachusetts.

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Peter J. Bellomo
Senior Vice President
Marketing and Business Development

Peter Bellomo is senior vice president of marketing and business development. Peter joined Saint Consulting in 2003. He oversees business development activities for the firm across North America and is also responsible for targeted industry development and marketing.

Peter has over 35 years of experience in sales and business development across a wide spectrum of business interests. Immediately prior to joining Saint, Peter spent five years at Accenture. As an associate partner in the firm’s customer relationship management line of business, Peter worked closely with the company’s strategic alliance partners (Siebel, Siesent and NCR Teredata) to develop synergies and market offerings that combined best-of-breed capabilities from all parties.

Before joining Accenture, Peter was with BellSouth’s wireless entity in Florida (BellSouth Mobility) as director of sales and distribution. In this role Peter managed all channels of sales and distribution, including direct sales, company owned retail stores/service centers, resale and indirect distribution for a $60M business. Before joining the wireless organisation Peter worked in both the regulated and unregulated side of BellSouth where he managed BellSouth’s first unregulated business entity (Advanced Systems).

Peter's career also includes 13 years with Dun & Bradstreet where he held various positions of increasing management responsibility across the U.S.

Peter and his family reside in Coral Springs, Florida.

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Thomas Ahern
Senior Vice President
Health Care and Capital Markets

Tom Ahern oversees Saint Consulting’s work in the health care industry and with investment firms, banks, private equity firms and Real Estate Investment Trusts involved in development projects.

Since joining Saint in 2001, Tom has served as a project manager, division manager and regional vice president. Prior to assuming his current position, he was responsible for operations in the Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Tampa divisions of Saint Consulting, overseeing four division managers and 18 project managers.

Before joining Saint Consulting, Tom was president of the Worcester InfoTech Corp., a business-backed economic development corporation that encouraged growth of small high-technology companies in Central Massachusetts and along the I-495 Technology Corridor.

From 1996-2000, he was with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city’s planning, zoning and economic development agency, where he served first as the director of brownfields development, then as the agency’s deputy director for industrial development.

Tom earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston University with a concentration in political science and economics. His political campaign experience includes managing state Senate and representative campaigns in Connecticut and Massachusetts, serving as field director for a governor’s campaign and two congressional campaigns, as well as consultant roles in three presidential campaigns, two U.S. Senate campaigns, three mayoral campaigns and numerous local races in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Tom resides in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children.

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Christopher M. Hopkins
Senior Vice President
Aggregates and Mining

Chris Hopkins oversees all of Saint Consulting’s work in the quarry and mining industries in the US, United Kingdom and Canada. He is a regular speaker on overcoming the difficulties of permitting aggregate quarries and mineral mines before such organisations as the National Sand, Stone and Gravel Association, regional mining conferences and the National Coal Association (upcoming).

He has published articles in various trade publications on the value of maintaining community relations and how to overcome community opposition in the mining sector.

Chris joined Saint Consulting in 2000 after managing and participating in more than 20 political campaigns over a 12-year period. Since joining the firm, he has organised and run more than 50 planning consent campaigns. He was promoted to vice president in 2003 to oversee regional offices in Tennessee, Florida and Missouri, and in 2007 was named senior vice president for aggregates and mining.

Chris did his undergraduate studies and received his master’s degree in public policy from the University of Massachusetts. He has completed additional programmes at Harvard, MIT and the Harvard Business School.

He is a member of the Communications Committee of the National Sand Stone and Gravel Association and served as a judge for the association’s 2008 annual awards for Environmental Excellence and Community Relations. Chris is also an active member of the Quarry Product Association in the United Kingdom and the Ontario Sand Stone and Gravel Association.

He resides in Williamson County, Tennessee, with his wife and two children.

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Ben Kelahan
Senior Vice President
Energy

Ben Kelahan is the energy practice leader at Saint Consulting, developing relationships with clients in the energy sector throughout the U.S., the United Kingdom and Canada and ensuring that projects are moving toward successful outcomes for clients. Lately, Ben has focused much of his sector work on wind energy, natural gas and power plants transitioning to more diversified fuels.
 
Ben has been involved in political and legislative campaigns his entire career, both in direct lobbying and grassroots capacities as an employee and consultant. He began his career managing legislative affairs at the Tobacco Institute in Washington, DC, and then moved on to consult within the tobacco industry on state and local government relations. He worked on a variety of local candidate campaigns throughout Northern Virginia.
 
Ben began his tenure at Saint Consulting managing land use field campaigns in the Mid-Atlantic region, employing his experience in organising local communities on controversial ordinance changes and coalition building with various stakeholder groups. He then managed the operations of the firm’s Mid-Atlantic Division, overseeing client projects in five states and the District of Columbia.
 
Ben earned his MPA from The George Washington University School of Business & Public Management, is a member of the Pi Alpha Alpha National Honor Society of Public Affairs and Administration and has pursued doctoral work in political psychology. He has also completed educational and leadership programmes at Harvard Business School.

He and his wife, Keri, live in Brambleton, Virginia, with their two children.

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