Pioneering Coastal Solutions: Aram Terchunian and the Coastal Zone Foundation

January 29, 2023

Learn how to improve coastal collaboration with the CZF!

In this week's episode of the American Shoreline Podcast, co-hosts Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham are joined by Aram Terchunian, Secretary and Treasurer of the Coastal Zone Foundation and founder of First Coastal, to welcome the Coastal Zone Foundation as a new sponsor of Coastal News Today & The American Shoreline Podcast Network. The episode focuses on the Coastal Zone Foundation's Certified Coastal Practitioner Credentialing Program, which trains coastal professionals to improve their knowledge and collaboration with peers. Aram shares his expertise in coastal management and environmental science, while the discussion highlights the history and objectives of the Coastal Zone Foundation, and its impact on advancing coastal and ocean resource management.

Show Transcription
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Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.