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Mary Selkirk, Senior Mediator

Mary Selkirk has extensive experience in developing and mediating consensus-driven, collaborative public policy-making and planning efforts in California, with a focus on water and natural resources. Her collaborative policy-making experience is complemented by twenty-five years in the fields of clinical and organizational psychology.

Ms Selkirk has facilitated numerous complex natural resources and strategic planning efforts in the San Francisco Bay area. She has been lead facilitator for the South San Francisco Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project since 2003. Currently Ms. Selkirk is facilitating a consensus dialogue to enable removal of the Matilija Dam in Ventura County. She is also currently lead facilitator for the Alameda County Wind Resource Area Avian Mortality Scientific Review Committee. Other recent projects include: senior mediator on a groundwater issues assessment in Napa County, lead facilitator for the San Francisco Bay Subtidal Habitat Goals Project, and lead facilitator for the City of Fresno’s first Utility Advisory Commission. Since 2006 Ms. Selkirk has designed and conducted strategic planning processes for numerous public agencies including State of California’s Ocean Protection Council, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, and the San Francisco Estuary Partnership. Over the past several years she has led complex technical and policy workshops and expert panels on topics such as climate change impacts on flood management in California’s Central Valley, carbon sequestration potential of tidal wetlands, native oyster restoration, sea otter research priorities, land and ocean interaction modeling and management, and the impacts of public access on wildlife in San Francisco Bay.

Her clients have included the State Coastal Conservancy, the San Francisco Estuary Project, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Water Resources, San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission, the Presidio Trust, the Bay Area Open Space Council, Napa County, Alameda County, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District, the San Francisco Bay Joint Venture, and the San Francisco Estuary Partnership.

Ms. Selkirk has developed and taught numerous workshops and trainings on collaborative processes and strategic planning for public agencies and is a guest lecturer at CSU Sacramento and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of City and Regional Planning.

Prior to affiliating with the Center in 2000, Ms. Selkirk served as special assistant to the Executive Director of the CALFED Bay Delta Program, where she had also served as a member of the Bay Delta Advisory Council.

Ms. Selkirk served as an elected Board Member of the East Bay Municipal Utility District from 1995-1998. She holds a B.A. from Oberlin College, a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Oregon and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley.