Staff

Sylvia Amaya Nunez
Team Leader

Academic Background: Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Government, University of Texas at Austin; Master of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Areas of Expertise: Environment and natural resources

Key Projects: Water and wastewater regionalization initiative, public drinking water and water utilities, State of the Texas Environment Report; the state's comparative risk project and the Texas Coastal Management Program.

Sylvia Amaya Nunez has eight years of experience in analyzing environmental programs and in legislative policy work related to the environment, with special emphasis on water resource issues. She has worked with a wide variety of state and federal regulatory agencies. Before joining the Comptroller's office, Nunez was a senior strategic planner with the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), where she assessed the effectiveness of environmental programs and made recommendations for improvements. Nunez also worked as special assistant to the deputy director of TNRCC's Office of Water Resource Management, where she advised the deputy on issues affecting the office and state water resource programs. Nunez worked as a planner in TNRCC's Water Policy and Regulations Division, where she served as project manager for rulemaking and policy making for public drinking water and water utilities issues.

Nunez coordinated the TNRCC's initiative on water and wastewater regionalization; participated in preparing the state's first State of the Texas Environment Report, a comprehensive look at environmental issues facing the state; managed the state's comparative risk project, which assessed and ranked 27 environmental issues to assist state environment and natural resource agencies in setting environmental priorities; and coordinated TNRCC's participation in the development of the Texas Coastal Management Program.

Charles Bredwell

Academic Background: Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, University of Missouri.

Areas of Expertise: energy, natural resources

Key Projects: state government energy conservation, consolidation of portal issues

Charles Bredwell is a former aid to a state representative whose duties included the management of legislative and committee offices and staff as well as contacts with constituents, the press, and state agencies. His other duties included the development, drafting, and negotiation of legislative and committee agendas in both the House and Senate. His areas of experience include policy development in the areas of local needs, oil and gas, environmental issues, tax reform, welfare reform, juvenile justice reform, public safety, and public financing.

Troy Glasson

Academic Background: Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Political Science, Baylor University.

Areas of Expertise: Agricultural policy, rural issues

Key Projects: Two Texas Performance Reviews

Troy Glasson has five years of research experience in the areas of agricultural policy and rural economic issues and has worked with a wide variety of state and federal regulatory agencies as well as many Texas agricultural commodity groups. At the Comptroller's office, Troy has been involved in several special projects relating to agriculture and other topics, including special reports on drought, the cattle industry, the timber industry and regional economies. Glasson also has written several Fiscal Notes articles on topics ranging from the Texas mesquite industry to the convention business. He also contributed to the last two major Texas Performance Review reports.

Susan Kimbrough

Academic Background: Bachelor of Science in Geology, Stephen F. Austin State University.

Areas of Expertise: Revenue estimating and energy issues

Susan Kimbrough, an analyst with the Comptroller's Revenue Estimating Division, is primarily responsible for projecting state revenues from the natural gas, cement, and sulphur taxes and developing fiscal notes for proposed legislation.

Prior to joining the Comptroller's office, she worked as a consultant for four years, three years with Planmetrics Inc., a Chicago firm, and one year with its subsidiary Enerpro Inc., an Austin-based firm, conducting a wide variety of research and marketing activities related to energy production, natural gas pricing, strategies and arbitration/litigation support.

Patty Leo

Academic Background: Bachelor of Science in Economics, magna cum laude, University of Houston; Masters in Economics, Northwestern University.

Areas of Expertise: Oil and gas industry analysis and severance taxation

Patty Leo has 11 years of experience in the areas of severance taxation, the oil and gas industry and legislative analysis. Her experience includes revenue estimating, research and fiscal bill analyses. Leo originally joined the Comptroller's office in 1984 as Revenue Estimating's oil severance tax analyst, responsible for forecasting state oil prices, taxable production and severance tax revenue for the Biennial Revenue Estimate. In that role, she provided in-depth expertise on the oil and gas industry in legislative analyses, executive briefings and a wide variety of research projects. She served as Director of Research before leaving the Comptroller's office in 1991.

She returned to state government in 1996 as an economist in the Texas Railroad Commission's (RRC's) External Affairs Division, responsible for developing an agency energy statistical database for use in oil and gas industry analysis. Leo also served as the agency liaison with the Legislative Budget Board, coordinating and overseeing all RRC legislative bill analyses. Patty also coauthored the independent study Investments in Energy Security: State Incentives to Maximize Oil and Gas Recovery for the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. After serving as assistant director of the Gas Services Division, Patty returned to the Comptroller's office in 1999, as a member of the Strategic Research Section of Research & Policy Development.

Don Neal

Academic Background: Bachelor of Science (Distinguished Graduate), U.S. Air Force Academy; Masters in US History, University of Texas at Austin; Doctor of Jurisprudence with High Honors, University of Texas School of Law.

Areas of Expertise: Administrative law, environmental and natural resource regulation

Key Projects: Water Availability Modeling project, Task Force on Dam Safety, and implementation of comprehensive water legislation, Senate Bill 1

Don Neal has 11 years of legal experience in the areas of administrative law and natural resource and environmental regulation. Before joining the Comptroller, Neal was TNRCC's director of Water Quantity and also served as a special assistant to the general counsel. As director of the Water Quantity Division, Neal was responsible for water rights permitting, water conservation, drought management, dam safety, floodplain management and weather modification programs for the state. He supervised the implementation of the key features of Senate Bill 1, the comprehensive water legislation enacted by the 1997 Texas Legislature. In addition, Neal managed the Water Availability Modeling project, a complex information technology project involving the assessment of surface water availability in 22 Texas river basins. Neal also supervised the Executive Director's Task Force on Dam Safety, a citizen's commission examining all aspects of dam regulation in Texas, that recommended significant regulatory reforms.

Prior to his service with TNRCC, Neal was in private law practice, providing regulatory compliance advice to clients in the areas of environmental and natural resource management, electric utility regulation, oil and gas regulation, insurance regulation, health maintenance organizations, and other areas of administrative law. Neal is a member of the Environmental and Natural Resources Section of the State Bar of Texas and is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.