September 15, 2026
Everything Is Connected
To Xavier Diggs, One Thing Always Leads to Another
Xavier Diggs is the kind of person who makes a room feel more energized. Bridgett Jacquot, Associate, Regional Manager of H&S’s Environment group, noticed it early.
“I have seen how easy it is for him to communicate with others about any subject. He is an amazing representative of H&S.”
Xavier will tell you his path into environmental science wasn’t a straight line. He’ll also tell you that’s probably why he’s good at it. “I always kind of wanted to do something in science,” he says, “but I didn’t know exactly what all was out there.”
Xavier graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, double minoring in GIS and geology. An ecology course early in his studies — the study of how living systems interact — planted an idea that never really left: everything connects to everything else, and the consequences of one decision ripple further than most people realize.
“I liked how interconnected the environment was,” he says. “If you start clear-cutting trees in one forest, it impacts the air quality, the soils, the vegetation, the animals — not just the mammals, but the birds and the insects. One impact has a chain reaction that people don’t realize down the line.”
That’s conservation thinking. And Xavier applies it in both directions.
“You build in a floodplain without accounting for water displacement and you may be creating a flooding problem for a community miles away,” he says. “The project looks contained on paper. The consequences aren’t.”
Not Every Path Is a Straight Line
Xavier didn’t walk into Horner & Shifrin as an environmental scientist. He came in as a GIS analyst, hired into our Geomatics group out of our O’Fallon, Illinois office. His environmental science degree was almost incidental to the role.
What changed things was a conversation with Bridgett Jacquot.
At the time, Bridgett was the lone environmental scientist at H&S, working to build out the group from scratch. She and Xavier had gotten to know each other through the office, and when she learned he had an environmental science background, the timing lined up.
Xavier joined the Environment group in 2020 and moved quickly. Within weeks he was in Ameren’s project meetings, answering questions and providing input. “Ameren’s Environmental team repeatedly states how wonderful it is to work with Xavier,” Bridgett says. “He has become invaluable — and I know the work is being done correctly and on time.”
“She definitely saw something in me and wanted to take the chance to bring me into her group,” Xavier says.
“She really took me under her wing and showed me all the different aspects of the environment. She helped me figure out what ways I wanted to take my career.”
The transition happened as his GIS project was winding down. He moved into the Environment group, and he hasn’t looked back.
“It’s the only firm I’ve ever worked at after college,” he says. “So it meant a lot being recognized by the company.”
That recognition came in December 2025, when Xavier was named a firmwide Rising Star. This honor typically goes to a single recipient each year, focused on creativity, ability, and a promising future in the field. He and Adam Bier are the only co-recipients in the award’s history.
“It kind of proved that I was doing the right thing,” he says. “Obtaining the certifications, getting the promotions, going out and doing business development, meeting with clients and other firms. It solidified my place and showed that I was going down the right track.”
That systems-level thinking has defined Xavier’s career. Those certifications weren’t just personal milestones — they were capabilities the firm didn’t have before Xavier earned them.
Two Certifications, One Clear Intention
In back-to-back years, while also being promoted, Xavier earned two industry certifications: the Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control (CPESC) and the Professional Wetland Scientist (PWS). The PWS is a credential that requires documented wetland science experience and peer review — and Xavier holds it.
Neither happened by accident.
“I knew I wanted something. I wanted to add letters after my name, and I wanted us to be able to expand our service lines and the companies we could work for,” he says. “I brought both of these to Bridgett’s attention and asked her what she thought. She fully supported it and really mentored me on obtaining them.”
He pursued both because the work demanded both.
“I do a lot of work in both,” he says. “I like being broad and working on a lot of different things, not just one service. And I started noticing that more and more clients were asking for their consultants to have some type of training in these areas. I saw that as an opportunity.”
The PWS specifically is a capability Xavier earned and brought to the firm. It’s opened H&S to work that demands credentialed wetland expertise — including environmental permitting for a Tollway project near O’Hare Airport, where H&S handled the wetland delineation, Section 404 permitting, and endangered species consultation as part of a multi-discipline scope.
What the Work Actually Is
Ask Xavier to describe his job to someone outside the field and he doesn’t reach for jargon. He reaches for a metaphor.
“We’re the middleman between our client and the environmental regulatory agencies,” he says. “The engineers come to us with their project and say, ‘We need to build this here — how do we do it from an environmental perspective so we’re following the laws and regulations?’ And then we help them through that process.”
That process runs through a framework of federal environmental law — one that requires infrastructure projects to account for impact, consider alternatives, and involve the public before breaking ground.
And it’s widely misunderstood.
“People will say, ‘The environmental permitting stopped this project,’” Xavier says. “That’s a big misconception. I’ve never had the experience where an agency said this project can’t go forward. The process can be complicated. But if the communication to the client isn’t clear and concise — explaining why we have to do this, why these laws are in place — that’s when it gets frustrating.”
And when a client has already spent months planning a project, hearing that it’s going to take longer and cost more is a hard conversation. Xavier gets that.
His view of the work is more nuanced and layered than the reputation. Environmental review isn’t about stopping projects. It’s about asking the right questions before the first shovel hits the ground.
“It’s not, ‘How can I stop this project?’ It’s, ‘How can we make this project move forward and impact the environment in the least possible way?’”
That clarity is what makes Xavier effective in client conversations, and it’s what H&S’s Environment group is built around.
What He’d Tell Someone Starting Out
Xavier’s weeks don’t follow a pattern — one spent at a public meeting, the next writing agency coordination reports, the one after that in the field doing a biological survey. “We kind of do it all,” he says.
That range spans every business unit at H&S — Transportation, Bridge, Civil/Site, Water — and work across utility clients, federal land, and NEPA compliance in Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois, including projects where federal agencies coordinate directly with Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and Tribal nations while H&S works with the client on scheduling and design.
For someone coming into this kind of work, he has one piece of advice.
“It requires a lot of flexibility and being open to learning a lot,” he says. “When I was in college, I didn’t think I would work at an engineering firm like this. It’s required me to learn a lot about an industry I didn’t know much about. And it requires us to understand how every business unit works, who their clients are, what their restrictions are.”
He pauses, then adds something that sounds simple but isn’t.
“At the end of the day, we need these infrastructure projects. We need our roads, our bridges, our electrical system. We use energy every day. So it’s not about stopping anything. It’s about how we make it work.”
The Moment It Clicked
When asked if there’s a moment where he felt like he’d actually become the scientist he set out to be, Xavier doesn’t point to a single day or a single project. He points to right now.
“This past year, taking on the responsibility — especially the complex permitting project we’ve been working on for Ameren — has been huge for us,” he says. “There have been so many different types of coordination and sensitive environmental resources within this one project area. Being able to have my hands in all of it, work with multiple federal, state, and local environmental regulatory agencies on biological and cultural resources — I think it really solidified what I’m doing right now in my career.”
He’s still learning. He’ll tell you that too. But the through-line from that ecology course at Southeast Missouri State to a project spanning sensitive environmental resources across federal land is clearer than it’s ever been.
“Xavier is known for stepping up in critical situations,” Bridgett says. “He can always be counted on with a positive attitude and a clear focus on achieving results. He is an invaluable team member and a trusted colleague.”
“Bridgett really showed me the ways to do what I’m doing now,” he says. “And yeah, I definitely look back on that fondly.”
The same investment Bridgett made in Xavier, he’s now making in others. Arri Ayala, a newer member of the Environment group, has become someone Xavier mentors, similar to the way Bridgett and Jane Farrington — whose expertise in wetland delineation and waters of the U.S. has shaped his work — continue to mentor him. The chain continues.
Bridgett invested in Xavier. Xavier’s investing in Arri.
That’s how we build careers at H&S.
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