From 1999 – 2007 Tom Steinbach was Executive Director of Greenbelt Alliance, the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading land conservation and urban planning nonprofit organization.  In this role, he focused on establishing Greenbelt Alliance's strategic direction, managing the organization's operations, and leading open space protection and livable communities policy development and advocacy efforts. Tom spearheaded environmental protection efforts leading to conservation of more than 300,000 acres of open space and helped transform growth management policies in cities and counties around the region.

Among Tom’s recent projects were helping craft effective land-use strategies for reaching greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets established in California’s climate change legislation.  He also spearheaded a multi-stakeholder regional effort to establish a coordinated vision and strategy for full protection of a three million acre greenbelt of private and public lands in Bay Area.  Finally he lead a comprehensive assessment of the region’s infill development capacity and developed a related strategy detailing the local, regional and state policy reforms needed to shift away from sprawling edge development toward identified infill areas.

Prior to joining Greenbelt Alliance Tom led conservation policy efforts at the Appalachian Mountain Club --- the nation’s oldest conservation and recreation organization.  His work focused on federal and state natural resource protection policy and sustainable community development.  He has also worked on resource conservation issues in Nepal, hazardous waste and community involvement issues as a consultant to U.S. EPA and DOE, and macro-economic analysis for Congress’ Congressional Budget Office.  In 2007, Tom was honored as a recipient of the University of California’s Nonprofit Leadership Fellowship. Tom serves on numerous nonprofit boards. He holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Rochester and a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.