Our Team
Meet the people that make RDN an incredible place to work.


Robert Niehaus, Ph.D.
Managing Director
Dr. Niehaus is widely recognized for his expertise in the economics of military housing, water resources, and the environment. He has assisted the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the different military services in developing and implementing the criteria, methods, and procedures used to project housing requirements and set housing allowances for military installations. He has conducted water resource and rate-setting analyses throughout California. His work in the economics of environmental quality encompasses growth impact assessment and planning; non-market valuation of view enhancement and preservation; energy and climate change; and the recreational and tourism sectors. He has forecast transportation demand for high-speed train systems, mountain-area cable projects, and auto commuter routes.
He has served as principal-in-charge for facilities acquisition, weapon system deployment, privatization, base realignment and closure, water resources, energy, transportation, and other projects for all of the uniformed services; the U.S. Departments of Energy, Transportation, Commerce, and Homeland Security; the State of California; and numerous local governments and private organizations. He has successfully directed completion of hundreds of contract research efforts throughout the United States, Europe, the Pacific, and East Asia. His prior experience includes work in private consulting, the non-profit sector, and as an economist with the Federal government in Washington, D.C. His Ph.D. (U. of Maryland, 1979) is in economics and his B.A. (Oberlin College, 1972) is in government.

Miki Hashimoto, M.A.
Program Manager, Senior Market Analyst
Miki is the Program Manager for the RDN Housing Market Analysis (HMAs) Client Services team. She is responsible for the coordination of dozens of on-site HMAs annually, managing a team of economists, analysts, and market researchers. Miki has served as project manager for more than 50 HMAs worldwide and has performed over 100 on-site HMAs for Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard installations in the United States, Puerto Rico, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, and Korea. She is an experienced on-site investigator, conducting interviews with real estate professionals, local government officials, and installation personnel. She also has expertise in the analysis and forecasting of housing market characteristics.
Miki provides support for business development, proposal preparation, contract administration, and GIS analysis. She is bilingual, fluent in English and Japanese, having lived and studied in Japan for more than three years. Her M.A. (Concordia University, 2021) is in organizational leadership and her B.A. (Claremont McKenna College, 2007) is in international relations, Asian studies, and Asian American studies.

Ian Monsma, C.B.E.
Program Manager, Senior Economist
Ian manages RDN’s data collection and analysis services for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) program. Since joining the firm in 2009, his work has primarily focused on advising the armed forces on foreign and domestic housing issues through a combination of economic modeling, survey design/research, and geospatial analysis.
Ian also supports RDN’s research, business development, and corporate strategy initiatives. His B.A. (Pomona College, 2009) is in Economics. Ian is a Certified Business Economist® (CBE), the certification in business economics and data analytics developed by the National Association for Business Economics.

Cindy Gau, M.S.
Program Manager, Senior Market Analyst
Cindy is the Program Manager for the RDN Housing Market Analysis Products and Deliverables team. She has expertise in local-area housing market forecasts and housing requirements analyses. She has overseen the creation, expansion, and comparison of rental databases for housing market areas worldwide.
Cindy is also experienced in water rate studies, having conducted comparative water rate analyses, compiled and analyzed primary- and secondary-source data on water rates, and has analyzed financial information for water purveyors throughout California. She is trilingual; fluent in English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese. Her M.S. (U. of Minnesota, 1989) is in computer science and her B.S. (National Taiwan University, 1984) is in horticulture.

Jack Lyon, B.A.
Director of Business Development
Jack manages RDN’s business development, strategy, marketing, proposals, and partnership efforts. He oversees account planning and works to foster relationships with customers, partners, and industry leaders. He also leads RDN’s contract formation, negotiation, and risk review processes.
Prior to managing business development initiatives, Jack served as an Analyst for RDN’s Housing Analyses program with the Armed Services and as a Team Lead for the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) data collection program. His B.A. (James Madison College at Michigan State University, 2013) is in Political Theory, Phi Beta Kappa.

Jessica Solis, B.A.
Contract Administrator & Human Resources
Jessica is responsible for contract administration, monthly billing, and invoicing. She also manages RDN’s Human Resources department and facilitates recruiting, onboarding, and development of current personnel.
Jessica also supports the HMA and BAH program and has collected and analyzed rental housing market data and military personnel survey data for Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy installations around the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Spain. She is bilingual, fluent in English and Spanish. Jessica received her B.A. from California State University, Channel Islands.

Miguel Delgado Helleseter, Ph.D.
Economic Advisor
Dr. Delgado Helleseter serves as a member of RDN’s Regional Economic and Water Teams. He brings 18 years of experience (nine with the firm) in applied regional and labor economics, applied micro econometrics, and economic impact studies. Dr. Delgado Helleseter contributes to water fee- and rate-setting projects throughout California as well as to economic impact studies across the country. He also helps develop and improve data collection and cleaning methods for the firm, including implementing automated processes through the use of scripts.
Dr. Delgado Helleseter is an Associate Professor of Economics at California State University Channel Islands, where he is also the Director of the Institute for Global Economic Research. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2013, 2004), and his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Riverside (2003).

Bjorn Kallerud, M.Sc.
Project Manager, Senior Economist
Bjorn is a senior quantitative economist specializing in application of statistical programming to water rate and housing market analysis. He is an integral part of RDN’s water, housing, and regional econometric modeling teams. He has conducted demand and financial analyses in support of rate-setting for water agencies throughout California. He has prepared housing market assessments for the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps across the U.S. and in Europe and analyzed alternative methodologies for DOD’s Basic Allowance for Housing program.
Bjorn’s M.Sc. in Economics is from the Stockholm School of Economics (emphasis in applied economic analysis), and his B.A. in Economics is from U.C. Santa Barbara (with distinction). His master’s thesis addressed the effects of drought on irrigation decisions regarding use of groundwater and surface water in the agricultural sector.

Anthony Elowsky, M.A.
Project Manager, Financial Analyst
Anthony performs Cost of Service analysis, water agency financial analysis, rate design, and applied econometric analysis. He has conducted over 20 comparative water rate analyses, including compiling and analyzing primary- and secondary-source data on water rates and financial information for more than 100 water purveyors. As part of RDN’s housing market analysis program, he conducted multi-level analyses for military installations. For the BAH program, he collected rental data for over 150 military housing areas across the country.
In the course of his M.A., Anthony has published and presented in academic forums and successfully obtained research grants. Anthony received his B.A. in Anthropology (California State University, Los Angeles, 2014) and his M.A. in Anthropology (California State University, Fullerton, 2019).

Elizabeth Schmitt, B.A.
Client Support Manager
Elizabeth (Betsy) leads external engagement efforts for the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) program, including training and technical support for military housing staff. Internally, Betsy supports recruiting, training, and personnel management for the BAH team.
Betsy also coordinates RDN’s recruitment and deployment of specialists supporting the FEMA Public Assistance Program. Betsy has contributed to a variety of company projects, including housing market analyses for military installations worldwide. She received her B.A. in Political Science from State University of New York at Buffalo.

Julian Mueller-Herbst, Ph.D. Candidate
Analyst
Julian is an Analyst with expertise in social science research design and quantitative methods. His work at RDN focuses on designing, implementing, and analyzing surveys that support RDN programs, including Housing Requirements and Market Analyses (HRMAs), the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), water rate studies, and regional economic analyses. Julian is also RDN’s project manager and lead analyst for the US Marine Corps’ annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey (TSS).
Julian is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Communication Science at UW-Madison while working at RDN. Julian’s academic research focuses on combining quantitative and qualitative methods to improve research design and validity. His B.A. is from U.C. Santa Barbara and his M.A. is from UW-Madison, both in Communication Science. Julian is fluent in German.

Ichiko Kido, M.B.A.
Technical Advisor, Senior Financial Analyst
Ichiko has extensive experience in financial analysis for water agencies, Cost of Service (COS) analysis, rate design, database management, statistical analysis, and applied economic research. She manages water/sewer rate studies and builds customized COS models to help agencies comply with laws and regulations to meet their short- and long-term financial goals. Previously, she managed more than 80 comparative water rate studies, compiling and analyzing primary- and secondary-source data on water rates and financial information for more than 200 California water agencies.
As the lead for the Army Housing Training program, Ichiko created course materials for the Army Housing Academy and facilitated in person training, eLearning, and online courses. She has also conducted housing market analyses for military bases throughout the United States and Japan. She is bilingual, fluent in English and Japanese. Her M.B.A. is from the Martin V. Smith School of Business & Economics (CSU Channel Islands) and her B.A. (Fukuoka University, Japan) is in law and education.

Liping Chung, B.S.
Market Analyst, Graphic Designer
Liping has been actively involved in a variety of projects since joining RDN. She is part of the Housing Market Analysis (HMA) team and has expertise in housing market forecasts and housing requirements analysis. She has conducted military housing requirements studies for the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy in locations throughout the United States and overseas. Liping has provided support for creating market area maps and GIS analysis. She has also created report covers, diagrams and graphics for reports and proposals, and posters for the Marine Corps Tenant Satisfaction Survey with her graphic design skills.
Liping is bilingual; fluent in both English and Mandarin. She has a background in business, receiving her B.S. in Banking and Finance (Tamkang University, Taiwan, 2004).

Trung Pham, B.S.
Data Collection Manager
Trung is part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) team at RDN. He provides customer service and ensures quality assurance for data collection processes. Additionally, he facilitates the day-to-day operation of BAH from training market researchers to performing on-site data collection for military housing areas throughout the United States.
Before RDN, Trung conducted scientific research and drew up NIH grant proposals at the University of California, Davis where he received his B.S. in Cellular Physiology.

Giovanna Anghera, B.A.
Associate Analyst
Giovanna has prepared installation-specific market area maps and survey maps for Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard installations, and conducted interviews for housing market analyses and water rate comparison studies. She has collected and analyzed rental housing data for numerous housing markets worldwide. For water agencies, she has conducted comparative water rate analyses, compiled and analyzed primary- and secondary-source data on water rates, and analyzed financial information for purveyors in California.
Giovanna is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish, and French. Giovanna received her B.A. in Italian and Spanish/Latin-American Literature (UC Santa Barbara).

Zachary Van Dinther, B.S.
Economist
Zach is an economist at RDN supporting the Water and Housing Market Analysis (HMA) teams. As part of RDN’s water team, he performs demand projections, financial analysis, cost of service analysis and rate design for water and sewer agencies throughout California. For the HMA team, Zach serves as a project lead, coordinating with the installation, prime contractor, government contracting and headquarters level service representatives. He also analyzes economic conditions in housing markets for military installations, and has prepared housing market assessments for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard installations across the U.S. and in Asia.
Prior to RDN, Zach worked as a research assistant under Dr. Jan Beecher for the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University, where he received his B.S. in Environmental Economics.

Mina Haitsuka, M.Eng.
Market Analyst
Mina is part of the Housing Market Analysis (HMA) team at RDN. She has expertise in programming and has used her skills to efficiently collect and analyze rental housing data for Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, and Navy housing requirements analyses in locations throughout the United States, Japan, Korea, Italy, Spain, and Germany. In addition, she has travelled on-site to Japan, conducting interviews with real estate professionals and local government officials for the military housing requirements studies.
Before joining RDN, Mina worked as a software engineer at Fujitsu Japan Ltd., developing structure calculation systems. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Architecture/Civil Engineering (Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan, 1997, 1999). She is bilingual and fluent in both English and Japanese.

John Nono, M.S.
Economist

Quinn Dahl, B.A.
Associate Economist
Quinn is an Associate Economist with the Housing Market Analysis (HMA) team. In this role, he analyzes economic conditions in housing markets for Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard installations. He has traveled to Marine Corps and Air Force installations to conduct research on-site for HMAs. During his time at RDN, he has also provided support for the Navy Military Personnel Housing Surveys. Quinn received his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley with a minor in Data Science.

Alexander Healy, M.Sc.
Associate Economist
Alex is an economist at RDN supporting the Housing Market Analysis (HMA) team. In this role, he carries out on-site data collection and analyzes economic conditions in housing markets surrounding military installations. He has also provided support to the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) program by conducting on-site data verification and comparative analysis of utility cost estimation methods.
His M.Sc. is in Inequalities and Social Science from the London School of Economics. He also holds a B.A. in Economics from American University in Washington, DC. Prior to joining RDN, Alex worked as an economist as part of the BLS QCEW program at the Texas Workforce Commission.

Noah Pepperman, B.A.
Research Coordinator

James Dill, B.A.
Associate Economist
James is a part of RDN’s Housing Market Analysis (HMA) team. In this role, he analyzes economic conditions in housing markets for military installations. During his time at RDN, he has traveled to Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force installations to conduct research on-site for HMAs. Outside of RDN, James is an active member of the Santa Barbara County Chess Club. James received his B.A. in Economics from Oberlin College, where he also competed on the Varsity Men’s Tennis Team.