P. Michael Saint

Chairman and CEO

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. He is co-author of the book, NIMBY Wars – The Politics of Land Use, published in 2009.

After a career in journalism, politics and public relations, Mike founded The Saint Consulting Group in 1983 in Massachusetts. Today, it serves clients from eight offices in the United States and an international office in London.

The Saint Consulting Group has worked on more than 1,500 controversial projects in 44 U.S. states, in Canada and in England. Assignments have included office parks, hotels, hospitals, retail centers, power plants, quarries, landfills, casinos, mixed-use developments, malls, heliports, golf courses and an oil refinery. Mike Saint and his colleagues have developed specialized 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 in New York and is a trustee on the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Consulting and Management Inc. He serves on the advisory board of the Civic Bank and Trust in Nashville and the executive board of the Nashville District Council of the Urban Land Institute.

As a member of the board of directors of the Nashville Opera Association, he is also trustee designee to Opera America and the association’s representative in the National Trustee Forum. Mike also serves on the board of trustees of the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

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 organizations.

Mike, his wife and two daughters live outside Nashville.

Patrick Fox

President

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. He is co-author of the book, NIMBY Wars – The Politics of Land Use.

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 programs 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 Centers, Eckert Seamans’ Panel on International Business, The Canadian Gaming Association, the AFL-CIO, ICSC Centerbuild 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.

Robert J. Flavell

Vice Chairman

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 defense practice, devised the scoping process for identifying issues, and developed the predictive strategy procedures for anticipating opponent activity and devising countermeasures.

Bob is co-author of the book, NIMBY Wars – The Politics of Land Use, and his articles on land use battles have appeared in numerous trade publications. He is a member of the Massachusetts, U.S. District, and U.S. Supreme Court bars.

Jesse McKnight

Executive Vice President

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 centers, 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 specializing 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 organizing 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 Program, University of California-Berkeley and University of California-Davis CEQA CLE programs.

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

Jay Vincent

Senior Vice President, Business Development

Jay Vincent has more than a decade of experience managing people and projects in both the public and private sectors. As Senior Vice President of Business Development at Saint Consulting, he has responsibility for managing a sales team charged with acquiring new clients across a dozen different industries. Additionally, he serves as the firm’s Energy Sector Practice Leader including work in the renewable and traditional energy sectors. Previous to this role, Jay served as Regional Vice President with management responsibility for 33 states, four business units and dozens of clients across multiple industries. He also worked as Regional Division Manager of Midwest operations and as a project manager with the firm.

Prior to his work at Saint Consulting, Jay was a regional field and political director at a progressive non-profit, running field organizing and political operations in five Upper Midwest states. He also managed the field organizing efforts of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s online and offline independent expenditure program 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 professional organizations. 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 program in Moldova for a 14-nation Eastern European Young Political Leaders Conference. Most recently, he co-founded Notre Dame’s “Conversation on Leadership and Ethics”.

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

Jay lives in Chicago with his wife, Kelly, and their son, Jack.

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 organizations as the National Sand, Stone and Gravel Association, the Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, the Northwest Mining Association, American Coal Council and the Quarry Mineral Association in the United Kingdom.

Chris has recently been appointed as an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona, where he will teach a course about how to overcome community opposition and political hurdles when permitting a mineral mine. He has been a frequent guest lecturer at graduate programs in mining at several other prestigious universities as well, including the University of Utah, the Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the University of Illinois. His articles are routinely published in industry trade journals.

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 organized and run more than 50 land use permitting campaigns.

Chris 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.

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.

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

Chris resides in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and two children.

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 specializing in the scientific and technology disciplines. His other work experience included CFO at TAC Worldwide, controller for the Worldwide Services organization 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.

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 admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1989); State of New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division (2010); U.S. District Court, Massachusetts (1991); and the U.S. Supreme Court (1993).

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 Centers and the Urban Land Institute.

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