About Us

Providing Holistic Evaluations

Ceto is a climate-focused boutique consultancy, offering holistic, pragmatic insights and recommendations to our clients. We are interdisciplinary and believe that a felxible approach is necessary to not only understand the challenges facing communities today but also o understand the implications and impacts solutions may have. Our recommendations incorporate social and environmental-justice impacts alongside economic and physical.

Our Story

Ceto grew out of Dr. King’s decades of experience providing economic insights, particularly on coastal issues. The dynamic nature of the coast and climate change meant, however, that economic questions are never purely economic, and therefore Ceto brings together an interdisciplinary team to tackle this complexity.

We are passionate about the coastal environment and coastal access. We are also pragmatic and understand the tradeoffs inherent in policymaking. Our work balances these two perspectives in all our practice areas.

Meet The Team

Dr. Phil King, Ph.D.

Founder & Principal Consultant

Dr. King has consulted as an economist with numerous State, local and federal agencies, completed dozens of economic studies, and published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals. For more than ten years, Dr. King has focused on increasing the resilience of local communities to climate change, in particular adapting to sea level rise. As a principal consultant at Ceto, and co-founder, he brings decades of experience and knowledge to each case. Phil is particularly focused on fiscal tools and local community financing, as well as the implications federal programs and projects have on local communities.

Dr. King is a professor emeritus of Economics at San Francisco State University, where he was Department Chair from 2002-2005. Dr. King also served as chair of the SF State Foundation’s Finance and Investment committee and implemented their divestment from fossil fuel stocks.

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Sarah Jenkins

Principal Consultant & Operations Lead

Co-founder

Sarah Jenkins is an economist with a focus on land use and regulatory issues. As a principal consultant at Ceto, she manages operations and handles data analysis and integration into Ceto’s reports. Sarah is particularly interested in the impacts of sea-level rise on coastal property and development, and the implications of local, state, and federal legislation and expenditure on coastal areas. Sarah has a background in Economics and regulatory compliance. She has published several peer-reviewed articles and co-authored economic impact reports and expert opinions for various agencies and in litigation.

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Dr. Kiki Patsch, Ph.D.

Principal Consultant, Geomorphology

Co-Founder

Dr. Kiki Patsch is currently an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Resource Management at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. Patsch completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia in Environmental Science and earned her Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences with a focus on coastal geology, processes, and hazards under the guidance of Dr. Gary Griggs at the University of California Santa Cruz. Patsch joined the CSUCI faculty in the fall of 2015. Through her work, Dr. Patsch aims to bridge the gap between policymakers, scientists, engineers, and private citizens on issues related to the coastal zone.

Dr. Patsch's past and current research focuses on coastal geomorphology and processes, shoreline hazard assessment, sediment budgets analysis, sea cliff, and beach erosion, reductions in the natural supply of sediment to the coast, and coastal armoring along the California coast.

At Ceto, Dr. Patsch is responsible for data visualization and discussion of the physical impacts of coastal processes and climate change.

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Our Clients