About

Brent Plater is an Assistant Chief Counsel at the California Energy Commission, where he oversees the Chief Counsel’s Office’s work on building and appliance efficiency, renewable energy, and decarbonization. Previously he was the Lead Enforcement Attorney at the San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission, and the founder and Executive Director of the Wild Equity Institute, a non-profit organization that unites grassroots conservation and environmental justice movements in campaigns that create a more equitable and sustainable world for all. He also served as a Lecturer within San Francisco State University’s Environmental Studies Department; as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Golden Gate University School of Law; and as the Bay Area Director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Mr. Plater has received several honors and awards for his work, including the 2008 Environmental Education Conservation Award from the John Muir Association; a 2008 Unsung Hero Award from San Francisco Tomorrow; and a 2009 “Best of San Francisco” award from the editors of SF Weekly. In 2010 he served as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, where he taught in the University’s Science and Management of Tropical Biodiversity program and drafted regulations to protect the twin island nation’s imperiled leatherback sea turtle population. In 2011 Mr. Plater served as a Toyota/Audubon TogetherGreen Fellow, and in 2012 he received SFSU’s Environmental Studies Faculty Award for outstanding teaching and support of student engagement in the community.

Mr. Plater is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a first generation American of Chaldean (Iraqi) descent, and lives and works in San Francisco.