Michelle Odom Nesbit
Chief Executive Officer
Michelle Nesbit is the founder, owner, and CEO of Natural Resource Professionals, an environmental services firm specializing in wetlands consulting. For over 50 years, her family which is composed of engineers, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and scientists, has been active in the engineering and environmental arenas. Ms. Nesbit is proud to continue this family legacy through Natural Resource Professionals. Her family history includes the Pyburn and Odom Engineering Consulting Firm, founded by her grandfather, Leo Myers Odom, who was previously the Chief Engineer for the State of Louisiana, a former President of the Louisiana Engineering Society, and was famous for pioneering river related engineering projects for the petrochemical industry. Her father Leo James Odom was also active in engineering and formed Odom Offshore Surveying Company where she worked in the 1970’s. A major influence in her life was her grandmother Aimee Sorrel Odom who instilled in her a love of Louisiana with it’s rich culture and cuisine which originates from South Louisiana’s diverse wetland ecosystems. In 1980 she studied culinary science at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris, France, founded a business that supplied pastries to regional restaurants, and authored a cookbook highlighting her love of South Louisiana foods, “La Bonne Louisiane”. Over the last 30 years, Ms. Nesbit has been active in environmental consulting companies including business management and operations, with specific knowledge in Wetlands Ecology and Environments. She has also gained considerable knowledge in the field and in the application of wetlands environmental principals from her experience in these companies.
Based on her experience in environmental consulting businesses and through her established relationships with some of the most prominent professionals in the field, Ms. Nesbit recognized the need for a specialized wetlands consulting firm to address emerging markets created by newly promulgated wetlands regulations. In 2005, she formed Natural Resource Professionals, a company comprised of skilled environmental and wetlands scientists, some of who are considered the best in the business.
Today, Ms. Nesbit, in the capacity of CEO, insures that NRP continues to be at the cutting edge of Wetlands Consulting. She makes sure that all NRP staff are technically advanced and properly equipped with "state of the art" field instrumentation, are properly trained including attending international wetlands conferences, and are meeting or exceeding client's expectations.
Since 2005, NRP has conducted hundreds of large-scale wetland delineations on thousands of acres of land, secured complex clean water act section 404 permits, provided environmental consulting and advisory services on challenging large-scale projects, and designed and constructed coastal and non-coastal wetland habitats. NRP stands alone as a single company that specializes in all phases of wetland identification and restoration. Since her vision for starting the company in 2005, NRP has become one of the most successful and comprehensive wetlands consulting companies in the field.
