A Calculated Gamble: Chris Gale on His Career and ANS
Chris Gale is a Professional Geologist with over 20 years of experience in environmental consulting. He currently serves as the Vice President of Applied Natural Sciences (ANS), where he leads the company's efforts in integrating innovative, nature-based remediation technologies into environmental projects.
Can you walk us through your early career and how you first got involved with TreeWell Systems and ANS?
I went to Colorado College, where students there take one class at a time. My first year, when I went to select my first two classes, the biology classes were full, so I registered for a couple of geology classes. I figured it made sense in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Each course took us into national and state parks. I quickly realized I loved being outdoors, developing an understanding of the physical world around me more than being in a lab. That’s what hooked me on geology.
Graduate school at San Diego State University came next, mostly because I wasn’t sure what else to do. Even as I finished my Master’s, I didn’t know much about opportunities outside academia—until Geosyntec Consultants held a recruiting event. The SDSU alum who had opened their San Diego office made the connection that launched my career in environmental consulting.
I joined Geosyntec while recovering from knee surgery and used that time to sharpen my technical writing and project design skills—a nontraditional but valuable foundation for consulting. Once back in the field, I steadily took on greater responsibilities, earning my colleagues’ and supervisors’ trust through reliability and curiosity. That growth ultimately led to leading client and regulator meetings and managing a $15-million, five-year project with a client whose problem-solving style matched my own, sparking a long and productive collaboration.
Over barbeque and a couple of beers, that client and I sketched a remedial design on the back of a cocktail napkin for a project he was exploring. He was already familiar with TreeWell units, having installed them at a few of his sites, and we envisioned a combined remedies approach that integrated them into a broader design. A few years later, a TreeWell system was installed that closely resembled our initial sketch, while incorporating a thermal remedy for the source area. On other sites, we continued strategizing ways to optimize remedies, and through those strategy and design sessions, I became increasingly familiar with TreeWell systems.
So, what led to you joining Applied Natural Sciences?
It was that long-time client who encouraged Edd Gatliff, the founder of ANS, to reach out to me as he was planning for succession. Edd and his long-time collaborator, Paul Thomas, were interested in my experience with diverse remedial technologies, and we began discussing ANS’s future and a possible role for me. Those talks paused as Edd weighed selling the company, but after he decided against it in late 2020, we planned to reconnect—only for him to tragically pass away from Covid that winter.
A few months later, his daughter, Tara, reached out to continue the conversation Edd had started. After meeting with Tara and Paul, I took the leap and joined ANS.
It sounds like it really was a leap at that time.
Yes, with Edd’s passing, the future of ANS was unclear. By that time, I had seen the elegance in the simplicity of TreeWell systems. Whenever the technology was presented, people got interested and reacted positively, which keyed me into the growth potential for ANS. I believed in the technology, but there were a lot of unknowns for the company at that moment.
On a personal level, I had been looking for greater autonomy and creativity and, for a number of years, had kicked around the idea of starting my own small consulting company. But with ANS, I saw potential for the freedom and ownership I wanted, along with an established book of business, so that I wasn’t starting completely from scratch—something my wife really appreciated. But we could both see the obvious risks in leaving an established career at a multinational corporation to join a small company in a time of significant transition.
Ultimately, I took a gamble on myself, believing that I could be a part of shaping the future of ANS and help to realize the growth potential that I saw prior to joining the company.
What excites you about your work at ANS today, and where do you see the company—and TreeWell Systems—heading in the next few years?
I wanted to be in a place where I could work hard and take more direct pride in what was being built, and I have that here. A lot of we are going is on my shoulders—I have autonomy to do things I’m interested in doing (like learning about mycorrhizal fungi, bacteria, and their interactions with trees as they apply to remediation of contaminated sites), and Tara does all the stuff I hate, like invoicing and chasing down unpaid bills! When I met her, I really didn’t know all that she is capable of. She’s an amazingly talented and capable individual, and I really love being part of a team with her. I enjoy our team and appreciate the honesty and transparency with which we operate. The work itself is satisfying, but it really is the team that we are building around us that makes this job so much fun.
Over the next five years, my goal is to expand our “bread and butter” TreeWell work to more sites while deepening our understanding of how these systems function with various compounds. We know they work, but we want stronger data to back up that understanding so we can better sell, implement, and communicate the value—especially to regulators. Right now, some agencies still view TreeWell systems primarily as hydraulic control rather than a mechanism for in-situ degradation. The more data we can collect and share, the more acceptance we’ll gain. We’re already making progress, and with time, that impact will grow.
Beyond that, I’m interested in tackling projects that go further than the more commoditized side of phytoremediation. For example, challenges like Red Mud—if there’s a viable, nature-based solution to be found for some of these bigger issues, there’s a huge opportunity. I really want to continue pushing what is possible with nature-based remediation.
Any final thoughts?
I often think back to a moment when I was talking with the young daughter of a good friend. She was about five or six at the time, and she asked me what I do for my job. It’s always interesting to try to explain your work in a way a child can understand. I told her, “You know the Lorax from Dr. Seuss? Remember the guy who messes up the earth, the water, and the sky? Well, I get to help fix that.” She thought that was pretty cool. And honestly, there’s a lot of personal satisfaction in addressing those kinds of environmental problems, especially when we can do it with plants that provide a multitude of other benefits.
