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Practical Strategy and Policy Insight for Transportation, Climate, and Environmental Impact

We help agencies and partners bring structure, alignment, and momentum to public‑sector work. We serve federal, state, and local agencies, regional authorities, and mission-driven organizations, along with the engineering and environmental firms that serve them.

State, local, and regional teams take on this work with real constraints on staff time. Constellation Strategy brings policy depth to that reality, at a scale built for it.

Core Services

Program Strategy & Delivery

Public‑sector teams work hard, often with limited time and competing demands. We help bring structure to large efforts so your programs stay coordinated, supported, and moving in the right direction.


    Strategic plans and roadmaps

   Climate action plans

   Program, portfolio, and project management

   Cross-functional coordination and risk mitigation

    Grant readiness and competitive positioning

    Organizational effectiveness and process improvement

    Technical assistance for program implementation

   Interim or fractional program leadership

Policy & Regulatory Insight

Policies and regulations shift quickly, and leaders need grounded guidance to make good decisions. We help you understand what’s changing, what it means, and how to respond with confidence.


    Policy analysis, regulatory strategy, and legislative support

    Climate policy review, gap analysis, and emissions reduction strategies

   Qualitative research, interviews, and synthesis

   Benchmarking, comparative analysis, and best-practice review

   Guidance development

   Executive briefings and decision-support materials

Change Management & Stakeholder Engagement

Successful implementation depends on shared understanding and commitment. We engage agency leaders and partners to understand their roles, missions, and goals to support durable, well-coordinated outcomes.


   Stakeholder engagement strategy

   Change readiness and adoption planning

   Facilitation and collaborative decision‑making

   Communications and alignment materials

   Capacity building, including training and knowledge transfer

What We Work On

Multimodal Transportation


   Rail: grants, program delivery, governance

   Highway: planning, environmental review, program oversight

   Aviation: noise, emissions, policy analysis

   Transit and multimodal integration

Climate, Environment & Sustainability


   Climate action planning and implementation

   Transportation emissions reduction strategies

   Resilience and adaptation planning

   Noise and air quality policy

   Sustainability strategy and governance

Representative Work

Selected engagements Gina led at the USDOT Volpe Center and the Federal Railroad Administration before founding Constellation Strategy.

Climate and Sustainability Strategy for Rail

FRA needed a framework to coordinate its climate, emissions, and resilience work across the U.S. rail system. Gina co-authored the FRA Climate and Sustainability Program Strategic Plan and Roadmap, wrote its Resilient Infrastructure section, which the team used as the template for the other sections, and provided strategic direction. The plan organizes FRA's work into three focus areas: reducing emissions, resilient infrastructure, and a sustainable rail network. The work earned the USDOT Secretary's Award.

State and local agencies needed a practical way to quantify emissions reductions from transportation projects without specialized modeling expertise. Gina led the team that designed FHWA's CMAQ Emissions Calculator Toolkit, turning EPA's MOVES modeling into low-input calculators for projects such as EV charging, transit expansion, bike and pedestrian improvements, and diesel retrofits, and led nationwide training. The toolkit is used nationwide and is credited with helping agencies justify clean transportation investments.

Read the story ⇾

FHWA set out to bring environmental considerations into transportation planning earlier, reducing duplication and delay. Gina played a foundational role in establishing the national Planning and Environment Linkages (PEL) Program. She helped shape its strategic direction, built coalitions among planners and environmental specialists, delivered national practitioner workshops, and developed guidance for rollout into state and regional planning. PEL became a widely adopted national framework.

Read the story ⇾

HUD's decades-old noise assessment program had become difficult for practitioners to use, especially in under-resourced local agencies. Gina led a national evaluation combining policy analysis, technical review, and interviews and listening sessions with planners and program staff. She identified barriers such as outdated tools and inconsistent implementation, delivered an updated practitioner guidebook, and initiated development of a replacement assessment tool designed for non-technical users.

Read the story ⇾

A high-profile Title VI complaint overwhelmed FHWA's four-person team and created a case backlog. Gina rapidly assembled and led a 25-person multidisciplinary team spanning document review, public meeting analysis, environmental and flooding review, GIS, and statistical analysis. She kept quality consistent, shared the workload fairly, and supported staff working with sensitive material. FHWA then awarded a five-year follow-on contract to continue Title VI support.

Read the story ⇾

A federal policy on advance and pre-award costs was meant to speed the flow of grant funding, but reviews had slowed as teams applied it cautiously and interpreted it in different ways. Gina brought together grants, legal, and project management teams and used structured facilitation, root-cause analysis, and policy-to-execution mapping to see how the process actually operated. The work pinpointed where friction occurred and defined decision pathways, and Gina drafted updates to the policy notice to streamline reviews and strengthen accountability.

Ways to Work Together

Constellation Strategy can deliver services as a direct engagement or as part of a subcontractor or teaming role on a larger contract.

Grant Readiness Review

A fixed-scope review of a project or application ahead of a federal or state grant deadline, from someone who has reviewed and scored grant applications. You receive a gap analysis and action plan.

Good fit when: you want an outside read on a competitive application before submission.

Program Diagnostic

A focused review of an existing climate, emissions, noise, or compliance program, benchmarked against best practice, with practical recommendations.


Good fit when: a program has grown, changed hands, or stalled, and the team wants a practical path forward.

Facilitated Working Session

Design and facilitation of a working session, or a short series, that brings offices and partners to shared decisions. Includes a written summary of outcomes and next steps.


Good fit when: several teams share a goal and need to agree on roles, priorities, or a plan.

Fractional Program Leadership

Part-time, senior policy or program leadership on retainer, for a vacancy, a new initiative, or a busy season.


Good fit when: a team needs experienced help for a few months without adding a position.

Teaming Partner

A certified WBE subconsultant that joins engineering, planning, and environmental firms to lead defined scopes such as compliance review, policy analysis, and program assessment, and supports proposals.


Good fit when: a prime is building a team for a public agency pursuit.

Tell us about your program

Share a little about what you're working on, and Gina will follow up personally.

© 2026 Constellation Strategy LLC, a certified Women Business Enterprise (WBE) in Massachusetts