Description
The Position: Cascadia Partners seeks a visionary Senior Associate to serve as a high-impact project manager and strategic leader within our growing multidisciplinary practice. This role sits at the intersection of transformative environmental planning and dynamic public engagement.
What You’ll Work On: In this role, you will lead high-profile projects that directly address today's most pressing environmental challenges - from crafting visionary parks master plans and expanding resilient urban forest ecosystems, to supporting cutting-edge climate action plans. You will help clients navigate complex, high-stakes public processes by designing engagement strategies, facilitating community conversations, and delivering accessible visual storytelling. If you are eager to manage impactful projects, lead cross-functional teams, and turn bold environmental visions into real-world change, this position is for you.
Our Work: Cascadia Partners is a multidisciplinary consulting firm headquartered in Portland, OR, with a team of over 20 staff who work in-person, hybrid, or remotely. We work on 40-50 projects across the country annually, ranging from large-scale city comprehensive plans, site-level master plans, housing policy, zoning code updates, scenario planning, and community engagement. We focus on actionable plans that get built and solutions rooted in equitable community engagement.
Position Details: As a Senior Associate, you will jump into the driver's seat of our most inspiring environmental initiatives. What you will work on includes:
Parks Master Plans: Spearheading visionary plans for green spaces, trail networks, and public parks that build community health, promote equity, and connect people to nature.
Urban Forest Plans: Designing strategic plans to expand canopy coverage, enhance biodiversity, build urban climate resilience, and protect vital ecosystem services.
Climate Action & Resilience Plans: Developing actionable, data-driven roadmaps to help cities mitigate carbon footprints, adapt to climate impacts, and center frontline communities in the green transition.
In addition to leading these flagship projects, you will fill a critical capability gap at the firm by taking ownership of our strategic engagement work—designing the full trajectory of community involvement, guiding stakeholders through complex trade-offs, and resolving high-stakes challenges. You will manage production, interface directly with clients, direct internal project teams, oversee project budgets, and leverage your visual design skills to craft compelling, publication-ready layouts.
Requirements
- Experience: Minimum of 5+ years of professional experience in urban planning, environmental planning, public policy, communications, or a related field.
- Education: Master's Degree in Urban Planning, Environmental Studies, Landscape Architecture, Public Administration, or related fields.
Project Management: Demonstrated success in managing projects and people, maintaining budgets, leading client meetings, and ensuring deliverables are on time and within scope. - Strategic Engagement: Experience designing planning processes and comprehensive engagement strategies and a willingness to champion this expertise within the firm. You have "been in the trenches," made mistakes, resolved issues, and know how to navigate tense or challenging situations with community members from diverse backgrounds.
- Meeting Facilitation: Proven ability to facilitate complex, multi-stakeholder meetings and public workshops, moving groups toward consensus.
- Visual Communications & Graphic Design: Skilled in layout design, graphic design, and visual storytelling, with the ability to translate complex planning concepts into highly polished, legible public materials.
- Environmental Planning Knowledge: Practical knowledge of frameworks related to environmental planning, climate action, urban forestry, sustainability, or parks and recreation master planning.
Desirable Qualifications
- Long-Range Planning Integration: Experience seamlessly blending engagement strategy into long-range environmental initiatives like climate resilience blueprints, urban forest plans, and parks master plans.
- Local Government Collaboration: Experience working directly with or within municipal governments (e.g., parks departments, sustainability offices, or environmental planning divisions) to deliver high-stakes public plans.
