MENLO PARK, Calif. – Tom Steinbach, a program officer in The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Environment Program, has been named its new director.
In addition, Foundation Vice President Susan Bell has been named a Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate. Bell will direct a portfolio of environmental grants in the United States, Europe, China, Mexico, and Brazil designed to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy and to address the problem of global warming. She will continue to serve as vice president.
Steinbach’s appointment is the culmination of a national search to succeed former Environment Program Director Hal Harvey. Steinbach will direct the Foundation’s western conservation grantmaking portfolio, which is aimed at protecting land and water resources and shifting from fossil fuel to renewable energy development in the western United States and Canada.
Steinbach, who joined the Foundation as a program officer almost a year ago, previously was executive director of Greenbelt Alliance in San Francisco. Before that, he directed conservation policy at the Appalachian Mountain Club, the nation’s oldest conservation and outdoor recreation organization. Steinbach has served on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Rochester and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Bell has been vice president of the Hewlett Foundation since 2000. In that capacity, she has managed the Foundation’s operations, and she works closely with the Foundation’s Board and staff to improve the effectiveness of its programs. She has worked on land conservation and energy projects and served as acting director of the Environment Program. More recently, she has assumed greater responsibility for the Foundation’s commitment to fight global warming, and her new appointment represents the Foundation’s deepening engagement on this issue.
Bell’s career includes a variety of positions in the areas of strategic planning, development, alumni relations, and communications at Stanford University, the Sierra Club, and Northwestern University. At Stanford, she helped direct the Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program. She serves on the board of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the European Climate Foundation, and on the advisory board of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.
About the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been making grants since 1967 to help solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. The Foundation concentrates its resources on activities in education, environment, global development, performing arts, philanthropy, and population, and makes grants to support disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. A full list of all the Hewlett Foundation’s grants can be found here.