Director of Wildfire and Land Use, North Bay - Greenbelt Alliance

Director of Wildfire and Land Use, North Bay - Greenbelt Alliance
9/09/2021

Opportunity Type: Job

Greenbelt Alliance's mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate to ensure the Bay Area's lands and communities are resilient to a changing climate. Central to our work is urgently accelerating the region's resilience to wildfire. This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced professional to lead our growing land-use policy advocacy at the nexus of wildfire risk reduction and infill development in fire-prone Sonoma County. This role will drive equitable and resilient outcomes that can be replicated across the Bay Area. Now is the time to forge stronger collaborations and generate innovative ideas on land-use planning that address wildfire risks to current and future communities while supporting the growth that the Bay Area needs to meet its housing goals.

We focus our work on ensuring frontline communities most vulnerable to climate impacts are centered in regional and local efforts to build climate resilience. Guiding this work is Greenbelt Alliance's 3-year Strategic Plan. This is our bold foundation for the equitable change we envision to achieve a Bay Area of healthy, thriving, resilient communities made up of lands and people that are safe during climate disasters and that recover quickly from wildfire, floods, and drought. A Bay Area where everyone is living with nature in new and powerful ways for generations to come. If you share this vision and urgency, this could be the role for you!

Position Overview

Greenbelt Alliance is creating a new position for a Director of Wildfire and Land Use, based in Sonoma County with a primary focus on the North Bay. This person will lead the next phases of planning and policy advocacy emerging from our current research on the wildfire benefits of greenbelts, priority land-use policies, and planning principles for local, regional, and state governments to implement in order to reduce wildfire risk. We seek a senior-level professional who will formulate and execute targeted wildfire and land-use strategies-centering data-driven, equity-based policy recommendations-to bring a multi-disciplinary approach to the role while establishing relationships across sectors and jurisdictions to achieve successful outcomes. The Director of Wildfire and Land Use will work closely with the Deputy Director and Director of Climate Resilience to advance the role of natural and working lands in fostering climate resilience alongside the city-centered, climate-smart development this region must achieve.

The Director of Wildfire and Land Use will influence the direction of Greenbelt Alliance's efforts to ensure the Bay Area prioritizes increasing greenbelts as strategic locations for wildfire defense through policy and planning; enhance stewardship on greenbelts to return beneficial wildfire regimes and increase overall wildfire resilience of landscapes; and explore innovative policy options, best practices, and market-based approaches that would direct development patterns away from high fire-risk areas to climate-smart growth zones while supporting sustainable natural and working lands for myriad social, economic, and environmental benefits.

Required Qualifications

• Five+ years of experience in conservation, environmental science, climate change, land use, or related fields.
• Demonstrated track record in policy advocacy and project management.
• Knowledge of the Bay Area's wildfire challenges, wildfire policy and planning, natural and working lands, and land management highly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to build strong relationships with diverse stakeholders, forging working partnerships and navigating political landscapes with diplomacy, and cultivating new audiences, especially with Sonoma County's Latinx and Indigenous communities and leaders.
• Strong project management experience, with demonstrated success developing, leading, and accomplishing ambitious objectives.
• Excellent writing and speaking skills, ability to translate complex technical environmental science and/or policy concepts into compelling and clear messages for general audiences.
• Experience with cross-sector convenings and stakeholder meeting facilitation is a plus.
• Experience in state legislation is a plus.

This is a full-time position with a salary range: $70,000 - 80,000.

How to Apply

Please see the link below for the full job description, requirements and to apply.