About Us

Ian is the founder of Commun-ET and oversees all business services including permit
expediting, utility coordination, strategic stakeholder engagement, and inspection
services for national retailers, commercial developers, large scale residential projects.
He has over 25 years of experience in permitting and strategic communications. He has
been instrumental in obtaining permits for complex projects for federal and local
government agencies. Mr. Swain has leveraged his knowledge of the building codes and
local municipalities’ nuances and management to provide our clients with invaluable
guidance through the permitting and utility coordination processes.
As a testament of Mr. Swain’s professional experience, he has served on advisory
committees focused on operational improvements to regulatory agencies. Ian
specializes in meeting project deadlines under extreme circumstances and client
demands. He is a strategic planner and problem solver. Mr. Swain simply gets the job
done.

Charlotte Ducksworth is currently VP of Business Affairs for Commun-ET and manages key facets of the Public Engagement & Permitting Services support. She is an award winning and experienced 18 -year Senior Executive overseeing Operations: including, Permitting, Infrastructure Design Reviews, Budgets, Divisional Project Management, Public/Private Sector Financing, Transportation Project Deployment, and Public Engagement. She has led permitting efforts for DGS, DDOT, DC Water (Green Infrastructure) and other private entities such as Kaiser Permanente. She has led interagency coordinating efforts for several DDOT projects, including D.C. Streetcar Car Barn, Vision Zero, Crosstown Study, and the Multi-Modal Congestion Study. Ms. Ducksworth’s expertise in providing insight to foresee elements that can impact critical permitting elements /project timelines between clients and the local municipalities has been commended by agencies, stakeholders, and development teams. She conducts routine meetings with regulatory agencies ensuring that Commun-ET’s client’s permits are being reviewed in a timely fashion.

Philip Agar serves as the Senior Coordinator/Project Manager of the Permitting Division at Commun-ET LLC. With over 7 years of permit and utility consulting experience at Commun-ET, Philip leads the simultaneous intake, submission, tracking, analysis, execution of permit and utility consulting tasks, reporting and closeout of approximately 400-500 permits and licenses annually for approximately 200-250 project sites for a wide variety of clients including Fortune 500 companies, retail businesses, developers, contractors, architects, and utility agencies. By leveraging existing relationships and creating new relationships with permitting agency supervisors, Mr. Agar expedites permits with approximately 75 different jurisdictions and independent agencies throughout Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia area and throughout the country. Mr. Agar collaborates and coordinate with contractors, architects, engineers, and developers to align and optimize workflows to meet and exceed permitting and utility project deliverables while maintaining consistent and concise communication with internal and external teams. He also reviews permitting documents to ensure compliance with submission standards for permitting agencies and performs related quality check on documents and drawings. He also builds custom permit tracking, business development and communications workflows including the use of dependencies to track, analyze, and improve permit expediting outcomes for new and existing customers.

Laurin Jo Curtis is the current Permitting Manager, managing utility coordination, permit expediting, and project management. She’s an Architect by trade with undergraduate and graduate architectural degrees from The Prairie View A&M University. In college, she held leadership roles in AIA (American Institute of Architects), CSI (Construction Specific Institute), and NOMA (National Organization Minorities Architects).

She has over 8 years of construction management experience in Texas-size state projects averaging $1-3M+. Laurin has managed some of the biggest public educational projects including refreshing university classrooms, the installation of public art and way finding, and an endless amount of interior renovations. She has also developed partnering relationships with countless general and sub-contractors. Laurin provides owner perspective on planning, design, construction, and facility management.

Laurin specializes in building stakeholder relationships, executing projects, and solving problems. She has a passion for discovering the critical path(s) and working through them. She’s also known for her communication skills throughout the life cycle of each project and discovering new and innovative methodologies.

Les Gaynair is a one of the Permit Managers at Commun-ET, managing permit expediting, utility coordination and project management. Mr. Gaynair spent years with Tesla in their energy division serving in many different roles including permitting coordinator, interconnection coordinator and project manager. With more and more of our clients focusing on energy conservation and green initiatives in their projects, Mr. Gaynair brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in that sector to Commun-ET with an emphasis on solar energy. With a passion for helping the world shift to renewable energy, Mr. Gaynair hopes to help our clients understand both the value and ease at which they can pursue renewable energy for their various projects.