About IMPEL
The Board is the executive body of the Association and is responsible for day-to-day management and implementation of the General Assembly's decisions. For example, it manages relationships with key external stakeholders such as the European Commission, drafts the budget of the network and manages and allocates funds where needed. The Board supervises the Secretariat.
Currently, the Board consists of:
- Marco Falconi (Italy) , Team Leader, Expert Team - Water and Land
- Jaakko Vesivalo (Finland) , Team Leader, Expert Team - Industry and Air
- Alfred Dreijer (The Netherlands) , Team Leader, Expert Team - Nature Protection
- Martine Blondeel (Belgium) , Team Leader, Expert Team - Cross Cutting Issues
- Ana Garcia (Portugal) , Chair
- Helge Ziolkowski (Sweden) , Team Leader, Expert Team - Waste and Transfrontier Shipment of Waste
- Jean-Luc Perrin (France) , Vice Chair - Administration and Finance
- Bojan Počkar (Slovenia) , Vice Chair Projects
Marco Falconi is working as a Technologist at ISPRA (Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) and is the IMPEL Water and Land expert team leader. He holds two masters – one in Environmental Science and a second one in Geology.
Marco has international experience with projects with the United Nations in the Balkan countries and in GEO6 assessment. He is one of the EIONET National Reference Center for Soil. In ISPRA he is the coordinator of the “Soil and Land” chapter of the annual Urban Areas Report. He is also the scientific coordinator of Remtech Europe, an annual conference on contaminated sites. He teaches Environmental Assessment at the Polytechnical University of Marche and at the University of Camerino.
Jaakko Vesivalo is working as Leading Environment Expert in the inspection unit of Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Southeast Finland (KASELY). He joined the IMPEL family with the IED Implementation project in 2015 and is Industry and Air expert team leader since 2021 . Jaakko has international experience with development aid projects in Nepal, Lao PDR and RSA in the area of environmental management. He holds M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin and B.Sc. in Social Anthropology from the Free University of Berlin.
Alfred Works in the licencing authority in the province of Drenthe in The Netherlands, licencing permits on hunting, nature protection and forestry. On behalf of the province of Drenthe he participates in a national working group on nature protection law and in the national working group on wolf management. His previous experience includes work as a real estate agent in the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries and also as a nature conservation officer in the Province of Friesland. He has been involved in IMPEL since 2017 and in 2021 was elected as Leader of the Nature Expert Team.
Martine is a senior Environmental and Spatial Enforcement Policy Expert at the Department of Environment and Spatial Development of the Flemish Government in Belgium. Before this she was the head of the Chief Inspectorate of the Environmental Inspectorate Division for many years. In that role she supervised the coordinating work of several experts in different environmental fields like air, wastewater, waste, waste shipments, noise, odour, ozone depleting substances and greenhouse gasses, soil and groundwater, genetic modified organisms, energy management systems, environmental management systems and Reach Regulation. Before this she was a coordinator-expert in the field of air pollution and odour nuisance control. She has experience as an environmental inspector, as a policy specialist in the field of air and as a science educator. She studied at the University of Leuven and subsequently further degree studies at the universities of Antwerp and of Ghent. She has been involved in IMPEL since 2007 – mainly in the expert teams Industry & Air and Cross Cutting Issues – and in 2021 she was elected as leader of the Cross Cutting Issues Expert Team.
Ms Ana Garcia is currently working as Inspector Director of the Unit for Cooperation and International Affairs, IGAMAOT, Portugal. She is an Environmental Inspector at the General Inspection for Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning (IGAMAOT, Portugal) and holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences on the theme “Implementation of Environmental Legislation”. Working with IMPEL since 1999 she has participated as national representative in IMPEL Projects in different areas, namely on Nature Conservation, Industry and Air, Waste, Water, is the portuguese national coordinator since 2015 and was IMPEL vice-chair in 2017-2018.
Helge Ziolkowski is working as a Senior Adviser on Waste Shipments for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. He joined the IMPEL Waste and TFS family in 2010 and since then he has participated in many different projects for the Swedish EPA. Helge was elected at COP 12 as a member of Basel ENFORCE for 2016/17. He was the head of the TFS department in the federal state of Saxony for the last 3 years and he finally returned to Sweden in May 2021. He has experience in TFS and waste classifications, wastewater, and landfill. Helge is the Waste and TFS expert team leader for 2022/23. He holds a graduate degree in chemistry from the Technical University of Dresden.
Jean-Luc is the Head of Chronic risks and inspectorate steering department at the Ministry for energetic transition in France. He studied at the Ecole polytechnique and Ecole Nationale Superieure de Techniques Avancees in Paris and has experience working in various ministries on topics such as social insurance accounting, soil and radioactive pollution and now on inspections of industrial facilities. He has been the National IMPEL Coordinator for France since 2009 and has participated in a wide range of IMPEL activities. In 2022 he was elected as Vice Chair for Administration and Finance in IMPEL.
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Bojan a senior environmental inspector at the Inspectorate for Environmental and Spatial planning in Slovenia. He has a degree in organisational sciences from the Univeristy of Kranj in Slovenia. He is head of the interdepartmental working group on TFS issues in Slovenia (members Inspectorate, Police, Financial Administration) and has been involved in IMPEL for over 10 years as National Coordinator, National Contact point in field of TFS, member of the Steering Committee for Waste&TFS expert team and active member of different IMPEL projects within Waste&TFS and Cross Cutting Expert Teams. Bojan is the Vice Chair for Projects.