Deputy Executive Officer of Equity and Community Programs | The Air District | San Francisco, CA
Description
The Air District is currently accepting applications for the position of Deputy Executive Officer of Equity and Community Programs. For the recruitment brochure, please click here.
ABOUT THE AIR DISTRICT
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District), created in 1955, is the state’s first regional agency to regulate air pollution. The Air District was created during this time, as the air in the Bay Area was often unhealthy to breathe due to burning, vehicle exhaust, and factories polluting the air.
The Air District is tasked with regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties that surround the San Francisco Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, southwestern Solano, and southern Sonoma counties. It is governed by a 24-member Board of Directors composed of locally elected officials from each of the nine Bay Area counties, with the number of board members from each county being proportionate to its population.
The Board of Directors oversees policies, adopts regulations, and promotes and incentivizes clean air actions to reduce air pollution in communities within the Air District jurisdiction. The Board also appoints the Air District’s Executive Officer/Air Pollution Control Officer (EO/APCO), who implements these policies, gives direction to staff, and provides air quality thought leadership on a state, national and global scale. The Air District consists of over 400 dedicated staff members, including engineers, inspectors, planners, scientists, and other professionals.
The Air District has a mission to create a healthy breathing environment for every Bay Area resident while protecting and improving public health, air quality, and global climate. This mission cannot be realized without a clear focus on our most impacted communities and addressing the past and current environmental injustices that they experience. Five core values that drive the Air District are: excellence, leadership, collaboration, dedication, and equity. The Air District also aims to achieve its mission through many strategic goals including: reducing and eliminating health problems caused by air pollution, achieving and maintaining air quality standards for all criteria pollutants, creating high-quality regulatory programs, establishing the Bay Area as a leading area for emissions reductions, and applying environmental best practices in all operations.
The Air District has made vast improvements in the quality of air we breathe by controlling air pollution from stationary emission sources such as factories, refineries, and power plants, and from small facilities like gas stations and dry cleaners. However, new approaches are needed to reduce the disproportionate and cumulative environmental impacts that remain in overburdened communities. The Air District oversees one of the most robust air monitoring networks in the nation with more than 30 air monitoring stations that measure air quality throughout the Bay Area and inform daily air quality forecasts. The Air District also ensures that businesses comply with some of the nation’s most stringent air pollution laws and regulations, provides incentives and grants to encourage clean air alternatives and actions, and prioritizes our work in communities on the frontlines of pollution exposure. On days where ozone or fine particulate pollution levels are high, the Air District issues “Spare the Air” alerts to warn the public of the potential health hazards. While the Air District has improved air quality over the past six decades, there are still challenges today due to the growing population, traffic, catastrophic wildfires driven by climate change, and the legacy of concentrated burdens in underserved communities.
The Air District recognizes and values the contributions of every employee and works to sustain an environment where everyone is respected. We incorporate the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion within our decision-making strategies, policies, procedures, regulations, funding initiatives, public outreach, planning, and hiring.
Examples of Duties for this Position
THE POSITION
The Air District is currently accepting applications for the position of Deputy Executive Officer of Equity and Community Programs. There is one (1) vacant full-time position. This position is appointed by the Executive Officer/Air Pollution Control Officer and serves under the terms of a three (3) year contract after which they will be subject to renewal.
Under direction of the Executive Officer/Air Pollution Control Officer, the Deputy Executive Officer of Equity and Community Programs provides high-level technical, policy, and strategic direction in the management of the Air District’s programs and activities. The Deputy Executive Officer of Equity and Community Programs leads the agency in advancing environmental justice and institutionalizing the use of an equity lens to address systemic and programmatic disparities in the District’s policymaking, operations, community engagement, and overall environmental impact. The Deputy Executive Officer of Equity and Community Programs oversees the following functions:
Community Engagement and Environmental Justice
Engages with community groups, community members, environmental organizations, regulated industries, local governments, and other key stakeholders to reduce harmful air emissions, especially for those who live in areas of the San Francisco Bay Area most impacted by air pollution. Community Engagement is dedicated to protecting and improving air quality in the many diverse communities and overburdened neighborhoods of the Bay Area by partnering with community-based organizations, supporting community driven solutions, and actively promoting environmental justice across Air District programs.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Builds internal capacity through the training of staff in racial equity principles and advancing equity in the development of structures, policies, practices and procedures. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion seeks to drive diversity initiatives internally and externally, while also meeting the Air District’s commitment to recruit and retain a diverse, highly skilled workforce and to build an inclusive, supportive culture.
Strategic Incentives
Offers financial incentives for projects that improve air quality, reduce air quality health impacts, and protect the global climate. Strategic Incentives focuses on reducing criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases through mobile source and low- or zero-emission transportation projects.
Technology Implementation
Cultivates partnerships between technology developers and customers and offers grants and loans for low-carbon technologies for the industrial and transportation sectors to accelerate climate action.
