In 1998, Brennan Collier, nee Snyder, graduated from George Mason University—and used it as a springboard for everything that came next. She walked off campus with two BA degrees: one in geology, a tried-and-true science path, and the other in environmental science, a program she built herself when the existing offerings didn’t quite match her ambitions.
Collier wasn’t chasing diplomas—she was focused on impact. That same year, she locked down a certificate in environmental management, a fast track to the tools and know-how she’d need in the field. Internships and agency employment followed, giving her a front-row seat to the evolving world of environmental protection—exactly where she wanted to be.
After increasingly successful positions with public agencies, Collier is now senior vice president of strategic sales and part owner of ATCS, a Virgina-based engineering consulting firm that works with regional public and private clients in transportation planning and roadway design, traffic engineering studies, construction management, and other aspects of transportation infrastructure. You have probably traveled on a roadway in Northern Virginia whose route was determined by her research.
The Chantilly, Virginia, native began her journey in higher education at North Carolina State University, transferring closer to home to George Mason as a sophomore to enroll in the geology program.
"I fell in love with earth sciences in ninth grade,” she said. “And I wanted to do something in environmental science, which was emerging at the time.”
With no environmental science bachelor’s program available—it is now—she worked with counselors in the Bachelor of Individualized Study (BIS) program to select courses across the campus to satisfy her goals.
Two of her professors were particularly inspiring: Geology professors Julia Nord and Richard Diecchio, both now retired. “They really helped me fall in love with what I was doing,” she said.
Also inspirational was a 1998 winter break to the Caribbean, where she performed geological field work at the Bahamas Environmental Research Center on Andros Island. The university was then a partner with facility located on a largely undeveloped island.
“The experience has definitely stuck with me,” she said, “and I appreciate how George Mason was giving back to the community there, especially the young children that would follow us around curious as to what we were doing and why.”
In addition, she was “really lucky to be able to find some internships and part-time positions by just being in the Washington, D.C., area while I was in school,” she said, referencing George Mason’s proximity and access to key institutions in the nation’s capital.
She landed a paid position with Reston, Virginia’s U.S. Geological Survey, where she worked on one of the very first Geographic Information Systems. “I actually digitized the state geological map of Virginia [while a student].”
She also worked with the Environmental Protection Agency in environmental compliance and, as she was finishing up her degree programs, she found a part-time position with the Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) Northern Virginia District. That experience turned into a full-time job after graduation.
Each of these positions equipped Collier with the skills she continues to use today.
“[VDOT] is where I learned to study the environmental impacts of road and bridge projects, from wetland delineations to obtaining permits to looking at endangered species that might be at risk.”
Collier was the consultant deputy project manager for the Environmental Impact Statement required for the widening of Interstate 64 from Richmond to Hampton in Virginia, a popular highway leading to military bases and beach destinations along the Chesapeake Bay. It’s been 14 years since she started the environmental study and the project, currently under construction in segments, is valued at around $1.3 billion.
“I remind myself as an environmentalist that I’m doing good in the industry in trying to shape some of the decision making so that roads are placed where they need to be,” she said. “We’re not going down the middle of farms like we used to in the early 1950s and ‘60s when they built the original interstate.”
In fact, she frequents the I-64 corridor as she travels from her home in Richmond to her beach house in Cape Charles, Virginia.
“I annoy my 14-year-old daughter all the time because I point out things,” she said. “I say, ‘Hey, you see Camp Peary over there? Do you know the historic significance? [It was a CIA spy school.] Do you know why they felled the trees to widen the road and just left them there? That’s because of the time-of-year restrictions for tree clearing to protect threatened and endangered bats.’
“It’s nice to drive through that and know I had a piece of it, even though it was a small piece.”