Nancy Hughes is the executive director of The California Urban Forests Council – and has acted in this capacity since 2005. She leads an amazing staff addressing efforts in advocacy, education, and outreach, and large scale regional tree plantings throughout California. 

Nancy has instructed Public Service in America at the Thurgood Marshall College at UCSD and was chairperson of San Diego’s Community Forest Advisory Board. She has served as the executive director of both the Consensus Organizing Institute, a nonprofit effort to develop and implement pragmatic strategies for reversing civic isolation, and of People for Trees, San Diego’s former urban and community forestry nonprofit organization. She has also participated on the Board of the National Alliance for Community Trees.

Nancy currently serves as an advisor to the California Urban Forest Advisory Committee to the California Department of Forest and Fire Protection and as an Executive Oversight Committee Member for the Los Angeles Center for Urban Natural Resources Sustainability Center. Nancy sits on the Novato Streetscape Committee. 

Hughes earned a BA in Communications from Rowan University in New Jersey.

At home, she cares for five chickens, a fruit tree orchard, a vegetable garden, and is transforming the yard to drought-tolerant plant communities. Her heart’s desire is to hike in the hills of Marin county amongst the Oaks and Redwoods.