Will Travis was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1943. He attended Penn State University as both as an undergraduate and graduate student, studying architecture and regional planning. From 1970 to 1972 he worked as a planner for the then nascent San Francisco Bay Conversation and Development Commission (BCDC). In 1972 moved to the newly established California Coastal Commission, where worked in various capacities until 1985. In 1985 Travis returned to BCDC first as deputy director then as the agency’s director beginning in 1995. He retired from BCDC in 2011 and continues to work as a consultant. In this life history interview, Travis discusses his work both the BCDC and the Coastal Commission, focusing on accounts of particular preservation and development projects including the restoration of marshland areas around the San Francisco Bay. The interview also covers in detail Travis’s work documenting the threat of sea level rise as a result of climate change and how the Bay Area might plan for such a transformation.
Title
Will "Trav" Travis: Leading Environmental Regulator for the Public Interest
Published
Berkeley, CA, Oral History Center, 2015
Full Collection Name
Natural Resources, Land Use, and the Environment Oral Histories Individual Interviews
Type
Text
Archive
The Bancroft Library Oral History Center
Note
Travis, Will. "Will "Trav" Travis: Leading Environmental Regulator for the Public Interest." Interview by Martin Meeker in 2015. Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2015.
Interview date(s) 2015
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