Stephanie Sparkman
Lifetime Achievement Award NomineeNominated for: Lifetime Achievement Award
Title: Director of Environmental Compliance
Company: QTS Data Centers
Years in Profession: 35
Nominator: Will Locke, Enterprise Account Executive; Encamp - Vendor Account Manager
Title: Director of Environmental Compliance
Company: QTS Data Centers
Years in Profession: 35
Nominator: Will Locke, Enterprise Account Executive; Encamp - Vendor Account Manager
Provide an overview of the Nominee's 20-plus years of professional experience, including previous management positions held, current role, and key accomplishments. (500 word max.)*
Stephanie Sparkman, P.E., has been instrumental in furthering EHS&S excellence at some of the largest and fastest growing companies in the world for over thirty-five years. From Alcoa to Amazon, and currently QTS Data Centers, Stephanie is an inspiring leader and EHS innovator with a long track record of delivering results.
Stephanie started her career in 1989 at Westinghouse Savannah River Company, supporting environmental compliance for nuclear separations facilities. She coordinated spill response, prepared SPCC plans, and was responsible for seven NPDES discharge points. From there she spent eleven years at IT Corporation as a Project Engineer, conducting multi-media compliance audits and developing Risk Management Programs for commercial and government clients. At one point she was task manager for an air emissions inventory covering more than 700 sources.
In 2002 she joined Alcoa, where she worked her way up through four management positions over thirteen years: Sr. Environmental Engineer, Environmental Supervisor, Environmental Superintendent for Smelting Operations, and Environmental Manager for Rigid Packaging. She led Tennessee Operations through ISO 14001 certification, directed the environmental commissioning of a major automotive production expansion, and restructured the environmental department so that accountability lived in operations rather than in a corporate office. Compliance issues dropped 80% in a single year.
Stephanie arrived at Amazon in 2015 as a Regional Environmental Manager responsible for roughly 125 fulfillment centers, and went on to serve in leadership roles including Sr. Manager of Worldwide Field Environmental Program Support and Global Environmental Governance & Systems Leader. Over nine years she helped develop the systems and teams that scaled Amazon's environmental compliance program from under 50 locations to well over 1,500 across a global footprint. She designed the company's activity-based Environmental Compliance Management System, led the launch of the AUSTIN compliance modules, and built the global governance organization covering data management, permitting, and compliance.
After Amazon she spent a year as Principal EHS Consultant at BSI America, managing a team of six EHS professionals and advising pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and data center clients.
Today Stephanie is the Director of Environmental Compliance at QTS Data Centers, leading all aspects of the environmental programs for the fastest growing third party data center provider. At QTS she has established compliance processes covering the full lifecycle of a data center, from pre-development through operations. She has built the technology systems needed to keep pace with the company's growth, developed strong relationships with state and federal regulatory agencies, and created a culture of environmental excellence that reaches across the EHS, operations, and corporate sustainability teams.
Nuclear, consulting, aluminum, e-commerce, data centers. Few people in this profession have led environmental programs across five industries. Stephanie has, and at every one of them she left the program stronger, faster, and better prepared for growth than she found it.
Stephanie started her career in 1989 at Westinghouse Savannah River Company, supporting environmental compliance for nuclear separations facilities. She coordinated spill response, prepared SPCC plans, and was responsible for seven NPDES discharge points. From there she spent eleven years at IT Corporation as a Project Engineer, conducting multi-media compliance audits and developing Risk Management Programs for commercial and government clients. At one point she was task manager for an air emissions inventory covering more than 700 sources.
In 2002 she joined Alcoa, where she worked her way up through four management positions over thirteen years: Sr. Environmental Engineer, Environmental Supervisor, Environmental Superintendent for Smelting Operations, and Environmental Manager for Rigid Packaging. She led Tennessee Operations through ISO 14001 certification, directed the environmental commissioning of a major automotive production expansion, and restructured the environmental department so that accountability lived in operations rather than in a corporate office. Compliance issues dropped 80% in a single year.
Stephanie arrived at Amazon in 2015 as a Regional Environmental Manager responsible for roughly 125 fulfillment centers, and went on to serve in leadership roles including Sr. Manager of Worldwide Field Environmental Program Support and Global Environmental Governance & Systems Leader. Over nine years she helped develop the systems and teams that scaled Amazon's environmental compliance program from under 50 locations to well over 1,500 across a global footprint. She designed the company's activity-based Environmental Compliance Management System, led the launch of the AUSTIN compliance modules, and built the global governance organization covering data management, permitting, and compliance.
After Amazon she spent a year as Principal EHS Consultant at BSI America, managing a team of six EHS professionals and advising pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and data center clients.
Today Stephanie is the Director of Environmental Compliance at QTS Data Centers, leading all aspects of the environmental programs for the fastest growing third party data center provider. At QTS she has established compliance processes covering the full lifecycle of a data center, from pre-development through operations. She has built the technology systems needed to keep pace with the company's growth, developed strong relationships with state and federal regulatory agencies, and created a culture of environmental excellence that reaches across the EHS, operations, and corporate sustainability teams.
Nuclear, consulting, aluminum, e-commerce, data centers. Few people in this profession have led environmental programs across five industries. Stephanie has, and at every one of them she left the program stronger, faster, and better prepared for growth than she found it.
Please list a minimum of two examples that demonstrate the Nominee's distinguished service and leadership within the fields of environment, health, safety, and/or sustainability at the corporate management level. Examples may include: Company or industry-related recognition and awards, board appointments, publications, public-speaking engagements, and relevant service or volunteer positions. (500 word max.)*
Stephanie's service to the profession goes back decades. In June 2007, Pollution Engineering Magazine published her article ""Saving on Compliance,"" on practical ways to reduce the cost of environmental compliance. She was writing about doing more with less long before that became the industry's default condition.
More recently she has become a regular presence at national industry events. NAEM selected her as a speaker for its OPEX/TECH conference, where she appears alongside senior EHS leaders from companies like CVS Health, Comcast, and Trane Technologies. At the EHS Leaders Summit USA, her breakout session 'Protecting People & Places: Why Safety Leaders Must Champion Environmental Compliance' pushed safety executives to treat environmental risk as part of their job of protecting workers, first responders, and communities. She co-headlined an industry webinar on the same topic, walking attendees through how to close reporting gaps, build cross-functional compliance playbooks, and turn site-level data into KPIs a board will actually read. Her comments on compliance in high-growth industries have appeared in the national trade press, including ISHN, and Encamp published a case study on the Amazon Tier II transformation she led. That case study gets passed around; EHS teams in other industries use it as a template.
Her credentials tell their own story. Stephanie maintains Professional Engineer licensure in seven states: Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and Iowa. She also held a Department of Energy ""Q"" clearance during her years supporting the Savannah River Site. Keeping seven state licenses current takes real commitment. It also means her professional name stands behind her work in every jurisdiction where she practices.
Inside her companies, her service has taken the form of institution building. At Amazon she launched a new global environmental governance organization from scratch. At Alcoa she wrote and personally delivered environmental training for operational and leadership staff, spreading environmental literacy well beyond her own department. At QTS she represents the company before state and federal agencies, and the working relationships she has built there improve the standing of the entire data center industry with regulators.
What ties all of this together is a habit of making hard problems teachable. Stephanie has spent thirty-five years in some of the most demanding operational environments in American industry, and she gives the lessons away, in print, on stage, and in the training rooms of her own plants.
More recently she has become a regular presence at national industry events. NAEM selected her as a speaker for its OPEX/TECH conference, where she appears alongside senior EHS leaders from companies like CVS Health, Comcast, and Trane Technologies. At the EHS Leaders Summit USA, her breakout session 'Protecting People & Places: Why Safety Leaders Must Champion Environmental Compliance' pushed safety executives to treat environmental risk as part of their job of protecting workers, first responders, and communities. She co-headlined an industry webinar on the same topic, walking attendees through how to close reporting gaps, build cross-functional compliance playbooks, and turn site-level data into KPIs a board will actually read. Her comments on compliance in high-growth industries have appeared in the national trade press, including ISHN, and Encamp published a case study on the Amazon Tier II transformation she led. That case study gets passed around; EHS teams in other industries use it as a template.
Her credentials tell their own story. Stephanie maintains Professional Engineer licensure in seven states: Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and Iowa. She also held a Department of Energy ""Q"" clearance during her years supporting the Savannah River Site. Keeping seven state licenses current takes real commitment. It also means her professional name stands behind her work in every jurisdiction where she practices.
Inside her companies, her service has taken the form of institution building. At Amazon she launched a new global environmental governance organization from scratch. At Alcoa she wrote and personally delivered environmental training for operational and leadership staff, spreading environmental literacy well beyond her own department. At QTS she represents the company before state and federal agencies, and the working relationships she has built there improve the standing of the entire data center industry with regulators.
What ties all of this together is a habit of making hard problems teachable. Stephanie has spent thirty-five years in some of the most demanding operational environments in American industry, and she gives the lessons away, in print, on stage, and in the training rooms of her own plants.
Identify and define the Nominee's impact on company performance. Outline pertinent EHS&S initiatives and/or programs. Provide measurement of impact through metrics or KPIs. (500 word max.)*
Stephanie's impact shows up in numbers.
At Alcoa, she restructured the environmental department to push accountability down to the operating departments. Compliance issues fell 80% from 2010 to 2011. She led the Smelter Fluoride Team through a legacy emissions problem the site had lived with for years, and performance improved 30%. She took Tennessee Operations through ISO 14001 certification, put an environmental dashboard in every operating department, and ran the environmental commissioning of a major automotive expansion, securing permits and overseeing construction of the wastewater and air control systems so the business could grow on schedule.
Amazon hired her in 2015, when the compliance program ran on spreadsheets and manual effort. ""We knew that we needed to transform from this very manual way that we're managing compliance into a more systematic, data-driven compliance methodology,"" she has said of that period. As Regional Environmental Manager she oversaw about 125 fulfillment centers. She developed the Pre-Sort Process for managing product upstream of disposition, first in the Southeast Region; it is now mandated across North America, is used in the EU and APAC, and measurably improved waste processing compliance. She worked out the design concept behind what became the Gensuite Waste Tracker, which automates hazard classification for every nonsalable product and now runs across North America and Europe. Her guidance document for the ENHESA self-assessment audit cut findings year over year across several businesses.
Promoted to lead global environmental governance, she designed the Environmental Compliance Management System, which converts regulatory requirements into concrete tasks tied to what associates actually do on the floor. She led the launch of the AUSTIN Compliance, Waste and Donation Management, and Regulatory Interaction modules, and designed a voice assistance tool for spill reporting in the U.S. The automated Tier II program she championed saves Amazon about 15,000 hours a year. Tier II season lands during Amazon's Q4 peak, the worst possible time to ask a fulfillment center for anything, and her systems held. Over her nine years, the program grew from under 50 locations to well over 1,500 worldwide.
At QTS, a delayed permit can hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in development. Stephanie has built compliance processes that cover a facility's entire lifecycle, from pre-development through operations, and defined the requirements for compliance technology that can keep up with the company's growth strategy. Her relationships with state and federal regulators help QTS bring new capacity online at the pace its customers need, and she has made environmental performance a shared concern of the EHS, operations, and corporate sustainability teams rather than one department's problem. This is driving QTS to be the fastest scaling third party data center provider in the world.
Her method has stayed consistent through every company: simplify the process, standardize it, put data behind it, and give the workforce tools they will actually use. The 80% at Alcoa, the 15,000 hours at Amazon, and the permitting pace at QTS are all the same idea, proven three times.
At Alcoa, she restructured the environmental department to push accountability down to the operating departments. Compliance issues fell 80% from 2010 to 2011. She led the Smelter Fluoride Team through a legacy emissions problem the site had lived with for years, and performance improved 30%. She took Tennessee Operations through ISO 14001 certification, put an environmental dashboard in every operating department, and ran the environmental commissioning of a major automotive expansion, securing permits and overseeing construction of the wastewater and air control systems so the business could grow on schedule.
Amazon hired her in 2015, when the compliance program ran on spreadsheets and manual effort. ""We knew that we needed to transform from this very manual way that we're managing compliance into a more systematic, data-driven compliance methodology,"" she has said of that period. As Regional Environmental Manager she oversaw about 125 fulfillment centers. She developed the Pre-Sort Process for managing product upstream of disposition, first in the Southeast Region; it is now mandated across North America, is used in the EU and APAC, and measurably improved waste processing compliance. She worked out the design concept behind what became the Gensuite Waste Tracker, which automates hazard classification for every nonsalable product and now runs across North America and Europe. Her guidance document for the ENHESA self-assessment audit cut findings year over year across several businesses.
Promoted to lead global environmental governance, she designed the Environmental Compliance Management System, which converts regulatory requirements into concrete tasks tied to what associates actually do on the floor. She led the launch of the AUSTIN Compliance, Waste and Donation Management, and Regulatory Interaction modules, and designed a voice assistance tool for spill reporting in the U.S. The automated Tier II program she championed saves Amazon about 15,000 hours a year. Tier II season lands during Amazon's Q4 peak, the worst possible time to ask a fulfillment center for anything, and her systems held. Over her nine years, the program grew from under 50 locations to well over 1,500 worldwide.
At QTS, a delayed permit can hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in development. Stephanie has built compliance processes that cover a facility's entire lifecycle, from pre-development through operations, and defined the requirements for compliance technology that can keep up with the company's growth strategy. Her relationships with state and federal regulators help QTS bring new capacity online at the pace its customers need, and she has made environmental performance a shared concern of the EHS, operations, and corporate sustainability teams rather than one department's problem. This is driving QTS to be the fastest scaling third party data center provider in the world.
Her method has stayed consistent through every company: simplify the process, standardize it, put data behind it, and give the workforce tools they will actually use. The 80% at Alcoa, the 15,000 hours at Amazon, and the permitting pace at QTS are all the same idea, proven three times.
Describe the Nominee's leadership style and provide examples of their commitment to expanding the influence of EHS&S professionals. (500 word max.)*
Ask Stephanie about leadership and you will hear about simplification. Her view, held across thirty-five years, is that compliance fails where processes are complicated and succeeds where they are standardized and flexible enough for the actual workforce.
The Environmental Compliance Management System she designed at Amazon is the clearest example. Amazon associates change roles constantly and wear many hats, so a compliance system organized around job titles would have broken down immediately. Stephanie built the system around activities instead, things like waste processing and emergency engine testing, with the regulatory requirements attached to the activity itself. If you perform the task, the system tells you what compliance asks of it. Design decisions like that are her leadership style in miniature: she builds around the reality of the workforce, not the org chart.
She also builds teams and hands them real ownership. At Alcoa she restructured the environmental department to move accountability into operations rather than keeping it fenced inside a corporate function, and compliance issues dropped 80% in a year. She wrote and personally delivered environmental training for both operators and plant leadership. At Amazon she started a global governance team from nothing. At BSI she managed six remote EHS consultants across a demanding client portfolio.
She has spent just as much energy raising the profile of the profession itself. Stephanie argues that environmental compliance belongs in the boardroom, and she teaches other practitioners how to get it there, by turning site-level data into KPIs that speak to risk, cost, and safety at the executive level. Her message to safety leaders at national conferences is blunt: gaps in environmental reporting endanger first responders and communities, and EHS leaders who own the whole picture earn a bigger voice in the business. At QTS she has pulled EHS, operations, and corporate sustainability into one working culture, so environmental thinking shapes decisions well outside her own function. The instinct is an old one. Back at Alcoa in the 2000s she built an environmental webpage and automated incident tracking so that environmental performance was visible to the whole plant, not just her staff.
Thousands of associates execute compliance every day through systems Stephanie designed. The consultants she managed and the professionals she trained carry her approach into other companies. Her influence runs through people and systems that will outlast any single role she has held, which is about the best thing you can say about anyone's leadership.
The Environmental Compliance Management System she designed at Amazon is the clearest example. Amazon associates change roles constantly and wear many hats, so a compliance system organized around job titles would have broken down immediately. Stephanie built the system around activities instead, things like waste processing and emergency engine testing, with the regulatory requirements attached to the activity itself. If you perform the task, the system tells you what compliance asks of it. Design decisions like that are her leadership style in miniature: she builds around the reality of the workforce, not the org chart.
She also builds teams and hands them real ownership. At Alcoa she restructured the environmental department to move accountability into operations rather than keeping it fenced inside a corporate function, and compliance issues dropped 80% in a year. She wrote and personally delivered environmental training for both operators and plant leadership. At Amazon she started a global governance team from nothing. At BSI she managed six remote EHS consultants across a demanding client portfolio.
She has spent just as much energy raising the profile of the profession itself. Stephanie argues that environmental compliance belongs in the boardroom, and she teaches other practitioners how to get it there, by turning site-level data into KPIs that speak to risk, cost, and safety at the executive level. Her message to safety leaders at national conferences is blunt: gaps in environmental reporting endanger first responders and communities, and EHS leaders who own the whole picture earn a bigger voice in the business. At QTS she has pulled EHS, operations, and corporate sustainability into one working culture, so environmental thinking shapes decisions well outside her own function. The instinct is an old one. Back at Alcoa in the 2000s she built an environmental webpage and automated incident tracking so that environmental performance was visible to the whole plant, not just her staff.
Thousands of associates execute compliance every day through systems Stephanie designed. The consultants she managed and the professionals she trained carry her approach into other companies. Her influence runs through people and systems that will outlast any single role she has held, which is about the best thing you can say about anyone's leadership.
Provide two examples of Nominee's commitment to industry advancements or lifelong learning. Examples may include: Continuing education, corporate or university teaching, patents, strategic initiatives, breakthrough program development, and other definable actions. (500 word max.)*
Two threads run through Stephanie's career: she builds technology before the industry knows it needs it, and she keeps walking into industries she has to learn from scratch.
Start with the technology. In the 1990s at IT Corporation she built a VOC tracking system so an automotive plant could demonstrate air permit compliance. At Alcoa in 2002 she implemented the Title V Information Management System, pulling daily production data into automated emission calculations and compliance verification. As Environmental Superintendent she deployed enterprise air and waste data modules for the Tennessee and Indiana operations and supported the corporate rollout worldwide. By 2010 she had environmental dashboards in every operating department. At Amazon she conceived the Gensuite Waste Tracker, designed the activity-based ECMS, led the launch of the AUSTIN modules, and designed a voice assistance tool for spill reporting. Now at QTS she is writing the technology requirements for a company in hyperscale growth and speaking publicly about what AI can actually do for environmental compliance. The Amazon Tier II transformation, documented in a published case study, saves about 15,000 hours a year and has become a reference for EHS teams in other industries. Not many people can point to thirty years of shipping compliance tools that other people still use.
Then the industries. She started in nuclear at Westinghouse Savannah River, holding a DoE ""Q"" clearance. She learned multi-media consulting at IT Corporation across aerospace, glass, automotive, and government work. At Alcoa she learned heavy manufacturing from the smelter floor up and led Tennessee Operations to ISO 14001 certification, which required formal risk assessment of every significant environmental aspect of the plant. Amazon handed her a compliance landscape with no playbook at all, a business adding hundreds of sites a year, and she invented the governance model for it. Data centers are the fifth industry she has had to master, and arguably the fastest moving. Each move meant new regulations, new technology, and new operational realities. Each time, she turned the learning curve into an industry-leading program within a few years.
The credentials sit underneath all of this. She holds a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and maintains Professional Engineer licensure in seven states, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and Iowa, each with its own continuing education requirements. She published ""Saving on Compliance"" in Pollution Engineering Magazine in 2007. And she teaches, from training Alcoa operators and plant leadership to presenting at NAEM OPEX/TECH and the EHS Leaders Summit USA.
Stephanie has never treated learning as a private asset. What she figures out, she builds into tools and teaches to whoever comes next. It has been a pleasure to learn from her, and anyone who has spent time with her will say the same.
Start with the technology. In the 1990s at IT Corporation she built a VOC tracking system so an automotive plant could demonstrate air permit compliance. At Alcoa in 2002 she implemented the Title V Information Management System, pulling daily production data into automated emission calculations and compliance verification. As Environmental Superintendent she deployed enterprise air and waste data modules for the Tennessee and Indiana operations and supported the corporate rollout worldwide. By 2010 she had environmental dashboards in every operating department. At Amazon she conceived the Gensuite Waste Tracker, designed the activity-based ECMS, led the launch of the AUSTIN modules, and designed a voice assistance tool for spill reporting. Now at QTS she is writing the technology requirements for a company in hyperscale growth and speaking publicly about what AI can actually do for environmental compliance. The Amazon Tier II transformation, documented in a published case study, saves about 15,000 hours a year and has become a reference for EHS teams in other industries. Not many people can point to thirty years of shipping compliance tools that other people still use.
Then the industries. She started in nuclear at Westinghouse Savannah River, holding a DoE ""Q"" clearance. She learned multi-media consulting at IT Corporation across aerospace, glass, automotive, and government work. At Alcoa she learned heavy manufacturing from the smelter floor up and led Tennessee Operations to ISO 14001 certification, which required formal risk assessment of every significant environmental aspect of the plant. Amazon handed her a compliance landscape with no playbook at all, a business adding hundreds of sites a year, and she invented the governance model for it. Data centers are the fifth industry she has had to master, and arguably the fastest moving. Each move meant new regulations, new technology, and new operational realities. Each time, she turned the learning curve into an industry-leading program within a few years.
The credentials sit underneath all of this. She holds a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and maintains Professional Engineer licensure in seven states, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and Iowa, each with its own continuing education requirements. She published ""Saving on Compliance"" in Pollution Engineering Magazine in 2007. And she teaches, from training Alcoa operators and plant leadership to presenting at NAEM OPEX/TECH and the EHS Leaders Summit USA.
Stephanie has never treated learning as a private asset. What she figures out, she builds into tools and teaches to whoever comes next. It has been a pleasure to learn from her, and anyone who has spent time with her will say the same.