Todd Gartner

Todd Gartner is the director of WRI’s Natural Infrastructure for Water and Cities4Forests projects working with governments and businesses to invest in conserving and restoring forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems in order to secure freshwater supplies, reduce flood risks, and obtain other economic and social benefits. Todd works with a broad range of stakeholders including policy makers, development banks, national and municipal level government agencies, multinational corporations, and civil society to achieve water and land use objectives across the globe. His work focuses on identifying and mapping water and ecosystem risk relevant to downstream beneficiaries, making the financial and business case for natural infrastructure investments, and advancing the needed policies, incentives, design elements and financing mechanisms to achieve scale and desired outcomes.

Gartner’s previous work included developing and running the Conservation Incentives and Ecosystem Markets program at the American Forest Foundation, field forestry work in New England, fire ecology and eco-tourism research in Botswana and India, business consulting for the USDA Forest Service and several years as a corporate financial consultant.

Gartner earned his Master of Forestry degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a B.S. in finance from University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business. He is also a Doris Duke Conservation Fellow, Switzer Environmental Fellow, Environmental Leadership Program Fellow, and an alum of PERC’s Enviropreneur Institute.

Todd is based in Portland, Oregon and is an avid hiker, rock climber, snowboarder and Baltimore Ravens fan.