In 1999 I was competitively selected to become an US Presidential Management Fellow under the Clinton Administration where I served until 2001 with the US Department of Interior. As a Conservation Training Specialist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center I was both trained and learned to develop, design, and deliver training curriculum. My interest in exploring the field of environmental conflict, specifically, emerged while I was completing a conflict analysis of forestry/fisheries related issues in Juneau, Alaska. My tenure with NCTC also permitted me to serve as the Course Leader for six training courses that focused on a range of topics that included both education, outreach, conflict management, and collaborative decision-making. After 9/11, I joined the US Department of Commerce. My six-year tenure at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, Office of International Activities was highly successful, culminating in various leadership roles and awards. The most significant, of course, was NOAA’s support for me to fulfill an individual development goal, to do my doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, and extensive fieldwork in southern Honduras, while remaining a federal employee from 2004. Subsequently, I bring six years of experience as a Senior Program Manager with extensive knowledge of oceans, coasts, energy and climate related issues subsequent to working with a huge cohort of scientists and experts within NOAA and the USG. Immediately after joining NOAA, I secured $150,000 in Economic Support Funds (ESF) from the State Department and served as the Principal Investigator for a project funded by the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and International Scientific Affairs (OES). My efforts with NOAA, recognized at the highest levels, culminated in a United States Department of Commerce Leadership Award for successfully leading NOAA Research efforts in the development and implementation of the Regional Sea Grant Program in Latin America by June 2006. By May 2007, the Marine Policy Journal published our first findings. We determined programmatic efforts would be more fruitful outside of the federal bureaucracy, leading me to create the 501c3 Living Green Foundation, beginning in November 2007. I relocated to Boulder in 2008 where the Foundation was officially established, its exempt status approved by the IRS in 2009. US Government Awards and Experience

US Department of Commerce Leadership Award: Leading NOAA Research efforts in the development and implementation of the Regional Sea Grant Program in Latin America, 2006
US Department of State – $20,000 “White Water to Blue Water Funds”. Awarded for follow up activities related to the original OESI grant, 2004
US Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Award Recipient, 2003
US Department of State – $150,000 Oceans, Environment, & International Science Affairs Initiative Grant. Principal Investigator: Awarded to assess the feasibility of adapting the U.S. Sea Grant model of applied research, extension, and education to a developing country context to address critical marine and coastal resource issues. 2002
US Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Award, 2000
US Presidential Management Fellow, Washington, DC, 1999 – 2001

Principal Investigator: US Department of State Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and International Scientific Affairs Grant

In my role as the Principal Investigator for a $150,000 grant awarded by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and International Scientific Affairs Initiative (OESI), I was able to set out and meet a number of programmatic and professional goals from 2002. As the PI, I was responsible for development of university-based research, extension, and education programs in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador, modeled on and linked to the US Sea Grant College Program. The aim was to assess establishing programs and then discuss climate change and coastal resource management issues in the region, and work with stakeholders, universities, and governments to carry out creative policies to cut through complex issues. The State Department extended the grant, and awarded me an extra $20,000 for the purpose of engaging key actors after the “White Water to Blue Water Conference” was held in 2004, spearheaded by NOAA and the State Department in Miami, FL. Leading up to the conference and during it; I served as an international host, convener, trainer, discussant, and facilitator as the initiative took place with myriad actors from the wider Caribbean region. In my role as the Team Lead for Sea Grant International, I led development of the conceptual, institutional, and policy framework to create university based programs for resource management. I managed strategic development, implementation, budget, and grant reporting. I built support within government agencies, with US embassy staff and external partners, including universities and governments in the region. By so doing, I fundraised and leveraged over two million dollars to support program goals, while serving as a liaison between NOAA Research and the Department of State, World Bank, Global Environment Facility, Inter-American Development Bank, USAID, NGOs and foreign governments. Congruent to these efforts, I conducted in-depth research for my doctoral degree at Cambridge between 2004 – 2008. My portfolio while at NOAA included working with municipalities, universities and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, primarily in Central America, while overseeing programmatic efforts in North Africa, Asia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and the Pacific Islands with other team members. In relation to Central America, I routinely interacted and collaborated with the US Army War College, US Southern Command, and the US Department of State for the purpose of increasing civil-military coöperation on environmental security in Central America, and other foreign affairs and security related bodies. Often, my interactions in these forums included cooperating with Greenpeace, CI, TNC, and other organizations representing diverse environmental and political interests. During the course of my tenure, I identified the need for, and developed, an International Technical Assistance Program for experts from NOAA, and its cooperative institutes, with the aim of providing systematically targeted technical support to in-country partners. Furthermore, I developed a partnership with the Fulbright Senior Specialist Program to create a mechanism for technical experts to spend up to six weeks providing help to in-country partners at the request of a host university abroad.

Team Leader | Facilitator

With over 220 hours of facilitation training, and 14 years of experience; I view facilitation as fun, constructive, and outcome oriented. Facilitating meetings on behalf of foreign actors, businesses, multi-laterals, and government agencies, such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Department of State, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has led to accumulated practical facilitation experiences, and an array of tools and options to deploy in any professional setting. I enjoy facilitating ‘subject matter experts’ during policy dialogues, strategic business meetings, course design sessions, institutional design working groups, and conflict analysis processes that involve convened parties. Convening diverse actors through focus group research, or working with various stakeholders to simply offer a space for them to have a voice, and then take action, is important to my service. In addition to my required duties at NOAA, the Office of Diversity selected me to serve, lead, and facilitate dialogue around the results of the Survey, Feedback, and Action process used by NOAA Administrators to check agency programs. I facilitated several dozen meetings throughout this NOAA-wide strategic planning process, focusing on agencies outside of my own: the National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Ocean Service, and the National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service. My collateral duty led me to receive the US Department of Commerce’s Bronze Medal Award for Superior Federal Service. As the Team Leader for International Partnerships and Funding Opportunities (Climate, Oceans, and Energy), I successfully built support for NOAA Research programs with multi-lateral institutions, foreign governments, the Sea Grant Association, the National Sea Grant Office, NOAA leadership, State Department, US embassy staff in countries worldwide; requiring routine interaction and communications with the laboratories, joint institutes, and university partners. These experiences have helped me to develop strong capacities in policy analysis, program management and development, fundraising and institutional partnership development. These skills complement any need for experience with collaborative efforts at multiple scales worldwide, although my expertise rest in the Western Hemisphere. Due to my accumulated experiences, I am a successful writer and editor, with the capacity to conduct in-depth analyses and assimilate information related to the social, political, economic, and environmental conditions affecting programmatic goals in domestic or foreign contexts. I consider myself diligent, flexible and patient. I believe that my level of experience and skill set make me an ideal candidate for any role that requires rigorous analysis. Administratively, I have supervised employees collating and analyzing country scientific, economic, political, environmental and legal information related to program development goals. I have established a variety of legal agreements, such as Memorandums of Agreement (MOA), or published US Government White papers to advance USG goals. I also drafted and completed inter-agency acquisition agreements, position papers, funding proposals, and science and technology, multilateral, and bilateral agreements to support US environmental negotiations and consultations with foreign countries. Ultimately, I had to work closely with the NOAA and Commerce General Counsel Offices on legal review of agreements. I navigate politics effortlessly. I am level-headed, pragmatic, and a great person to ease, and challenge the people around me in constructive ways, as I hope they might do for me. I would enjoy discussing my ability to create partnerships, leverage resources, and present a cursory overview of research trends that align with your current goals.