Staff Members

Surlene Grant

Surlene Grant is a consulting senior facilitator. She is experienced with implementing and managing communications activities including public involvement and outreach, strategic planning and conflict resolution in private, government and non-profit sectors. Ms. Grant’s niche is with public involvement for community development and land use projects in ethnically, economically and socially diverse communities. Ms. Grant has planned, facilitated and guided small working groups, workshops, dialogue sessions, and large public meetings – ranging in size from 4 to 200.

Ms. Grant enjoys encouraging participation of voices that are often not heard in government processes. She is experienced in employing techniques and tools to solicit responses, generate ideas, encourage creativity and cooperation and developing action plans with measurable outcomes.

For the Center, Ms. Grant is leading a facilitation process for the Hamilton Wetlands Restoration Project. As a consultant, she has also co-created and implemented the Dumbarton Dialogue Project, which is a multi-jurisdictional effort to develop consensus for transportation issues of the Dumbarton Bridge / Hwy. 101/ 84/ 85 corridor; pre-development community meetings for Oakland’s Central Station, a mixed-used development, and Mandela Gateway Hope VI Development. She developed the strategy for the public outreach program to municipalities for the nine-county Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities Draft Compact. The document focused on sustainable practices in 10 program areas including housing, jobs and transportation. Ms. Grant also served on the award-winning consulting team for ABAG’s Smart Growth/ Footprint Project in which she facilitated key visioning sessions and public meetings in five Bay Area counties.

Most recently, Ms. Grant completed a decade of service on the San Leandro City Council. Ms. Grant has a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and a M.A. in Management from John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, CA.