Chuck Howe is a seasoned environmental executive, operations leader, and strategic advisor with more than three decades of professional experience spanning environmental science, infrastructure, transportation, aviation, tourism, resource development, government affairs, and Tribal economic development. Throughout his career, he has built a reputation for navigating highly complex projects that require technical expertise, regulatory fluency, stakeholder alignment, and practical leadership. His background is unusually broad, allowing him to contribute not only as an environmental professional, but also as an executive who understands organizational performance, business development, logistics, land-use planning, and long-term strategy. His core strengths include operations leadership, regulatory compliance, program management, strategic planning, Tribal relations, government affairs, risk management, infrastructure delivery, and stakeholder engagement.
Today, Chuck serves as Chief Operating Officer of Blackstreak Holdings, LLC, where he provides executive leadership across a Navajo-owned enterprise with multiple affiliated companies operating throughout Arizona and Utah. His responsibilities encompass business operations, environmental compliance, infrastructure development, aviation services, Tribal government relations, and strategic growth. In this capacity, he helps guide complex development projects on Tribal trust lands while coordinating regulatory requirements across federal, state, and Tribal jurisdictions. His ability to integrate operational governance, strategic planning, business development, and compliance oversight has made him a key contributor to the organization’s continued growth and diversification.
Chuck’s entrepreneurial leadership is equally evident through C2 Environmental LLC, where he has served as Principal and Owner since 2016. Through the firm, he has provided project management, environmental consulting, permitting strategy, business development, and resource planning services to Tribal governments, public agencies, developers, mining interests, transportation organizations, and other clients. His work has involved NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, environmental due diligence, CERCLA, renewable energy development, uranium remediation, infrastructure planning, and land-use approvals. Rather than treating compliance as a standalone function, Chuck approaches it as part of a broader strategic framework for moving projects forward responsibly and effectively.
His executive career also includes significant leadership within aviation and tourism. As President of IKG Air, LLC, Chuck led a Native American-owned aviation company providing helicopter and fixed-wing air tours, charter services, and utility aviation throughout Northern Arizona and Tribal lands. His responsibilities covered flight operations, aircraft maintenance, regulatory compliance, workforce management, business development, and relationships with Tribal governments, tourism partners, and commercial stakeholders. That experience further strengthened his ability to lead in environments where safety, customer experience, operational discipline, regulatory requirements, and growth strategy must all work together.
Earlier in his career, Chuck developed deep experience in environmental consulting and infrastructure development through roles with Horrocks Engineers, WHPacific, and Brown and Caldwell. In those positions, he supported transportation, water, land development, and infrastructure initiatives throughout the western United States, frequently working on projects involving Native American communities and Tribal jurisdictions. His work required collaboration among engineers, planners, regulators, elected officials, community leaders, developers, and technical specialists. These experiences strengthened one of Chuck’s defining leadership abilities: bringing different perspectives together and translating complex technical and regulatory issues into clear, executable decisions.
Chuck also brings substantial public-sector leadership experience. At the Arizona Department of Transportation, he served in increasingly senior environmental roles and ultimately became Statewide Environmental Compliance Manager. There, he built the agency’s first dedicated Environmental Compliance Program, established program structures and policies, recruited a specialized team, developed statewide compliance protocols, and improved environmental accountability across transportation operations. His work required a sophisticated understanding of regulation, risk management, organizational change, and executive communication, while also ensuring that major transportation initiatives could continue moving forward efficiently.
Before joining Arizona’s transportation leadership team, Chuck served as Northern Region Environmental Manager for the Alaska Department of Transportation and as Project Development Manager and Regional Environmental Coordinator for the Oregon Department of Transportation. His Alaska responsibilities involved roads, airports, public facilities, construction, maintenance, environmental review, permitting, and emergency response in remote operating environments. In Oregon, he managed project development, environmental coordination, fish passage and watershed initiatives, and transportation infrastructure programs. These assignments gave him valuable experience leading through uncertainty, coordinating multidisciplinary teams, and balancing environmental requirements with operational and infrastructure priorities.
The foundation of Chuck’s leadership was built through hands-on work in biology, forestry, ecology, wetlands, fisheries, and natural-resource management. Earlier positions included work as a senior ecologist, forester, biologist, and fisheries technician, where he conducted wetland delineations, wildlife studies, forest measurements, fire ecology research, habitat assessments, environmental documentation, and regulatory permitting. This technical background remains an important part of his executive perspective. Chuck understands how strategic decisions affect real projects, real landscapes, real communities, and the teams responsible for executing them.
Beyond his professional roles, Chuck has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to community service and advisory leadership. He has served on the Navajo County Planning and Zoning Commission, including as Chairperson, and has been a professional advisor to the Western Navajo Water Technical Advisory Group. He has also served for many years on Northern Arizona University’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Industrial Advisory Board, including executive board participation, and has held leadership roles with the Shonto Community Planning and Zoning Commission. These commitments reflect his belief that experience is most valuable when it is used to strengthen communities, institutions, and future generations of professionals.
Chuck’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Forestry with a minor in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana, along with earlier studies in biology and recreation and wildlife resources. His professional development, however, has been shaped just as strongly by decades of working across private enterprise, government agencies, Tribal organizations, public infrastructure, and entrepreneurial ventures. That breadth has given him a generalist perspective that is particularly valuable in board and advisory settings, where the strongest decisions often require leaders to connect disciplines rather than evaluate them in isolation.
As Chuck considers additional board and advisory opportunities, he is motivated by the opportunity to contribute the perspective he has gained through more than 30 years of management, consulting, technical, and executive leadership. He is particularly well suited to small and mid-sized organizations in energy, mining, resource development, tourism, industrial services, environmental services, infrastructure, and businesses operating on or adjacent to Tribal lands. His interest in board service is not simply about adding another title; it is about helping organizations make better decisions, anticipate challenges, evaluate development opportunities, and benefit from lessons learned across an exceptionally diverse career.
What makes Chuck especially valuable in the boardroom is his ability to examine issues through multiple lenses at once. He can evaluate regulatory risk, operational feasibility, stakeholder impacts, government relations, development potential, environmental responsibilities, and long-term strategic consequences without losing sight of practical execution. His career has exposed him to projects that have succeeded, shifted direction, encountered obstacles, and required new approaches, giving him the judgment to recognize when persistence is required and when strategy must evolve.
Character:
Chuck leads with integrity, responsibility, and a genuine commitment to creating positive outcomes for organizations and communities. His longstanding service to planning, engineering, water, and Tribal-focused organizations demonstrates a leadership philosophy rooted in contribution rather than recognition.
Knowledge:
He brings extensive multidisciplinary expertise across environmental science, infrastructure, transportation, aviation, tourism, resource development, government affairs, and regulatory strategy. His ability to connect technical understanding with executive decision-making allows him to contribute meaningfully across a wide range of organizational challenges.
Strategic:
Chuck approaches complex issues by considering operational, regulatory, stakeholder, environmental, and long-term business implications together. His experience has taught him how to identify alternative pathways, anticipate obstacles, and help organizations move from concept to execution with greater clarity.
Communication:
Comfortable presenting to boards, conferences, government officials, community groups, technical teams, and industry audiences. He communicates complex subjects in practical, accessible terms and is skilled at building alignment among stakeholders with different priorities.
