Carter Strickland

Carter H. Strickland, Jr. has over 30 years of experience in the environmental field across a variety of approaches from strategic planning and implementation to regulatory counseling and litigation. He is currently the Chief Sustainability Officer and Executive Director of Climate Action at The State University of New York, which spans 64 campuses, including three teaching hospitals, and educates 1.3 million students.

Previously, Strickland served as Mid-Atlantic Regional Vice President and New York State Director for the Trust for Public Land, where his team worked with communities to protect land, create parks and greenways, build green infrastructure, and to pass the Bond Act and other funding for natural climate solutions. He was Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, where he oversaw the largest municipally owned water utility in the country, developed the country's largest green infrastructure program, launched a pilot to process food waste at the utility's anaerobic digesters, led the response to Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy, and developed resiliency, water efficiency, clear air, solid waste, and sustainability strategies, policies, and capital programs. Strickland teaches a graduate seminar on environmental infrastructure for sustainable cities at Columbia University and NYU, has been an advisor for Closed Loop Partner’s organics recycling business, and served as a board member of the Land Trust Alliance (New York), Billion Oyster Project, Natural Areas Conservancy, and Regional Plan Association. Earlier in his career, he served as a senior sustainability policy advisor to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a litigator and professor at the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, and a prosecutor with the Office of the New York Attorney General Environmental Protection Bureau.