Navigators: Trusted guides for community climate action
Meeting communities where they are
Navigators are climate resilience experts who work directly with communities, especially those with the fewest resources. They listen to local leaders and help them identify the next steps towards cutting climate pollution, adapting to climate impacts, and building long-term resilience.
They are skilled listeners, connectors, and problem-solvers, helping local leaders navigate the complex web of funding opportunities, technical tools, and service providers. Whether a community is just getting started, deep into planning, or already implementing solutions, Navigators help them reach their next milestone.
Currently Navigators start by serving communities with Community Disaster Resilience Zone (CDRZ) designations, but their role can extend to any community that is at risk of serious climate impacts and needing extra support to plan and take action.
Navigator Organizations
Each Navigator is anchored by a trusted organization in that state, territory, or Tribe. These organizations are trusted local groups that have:
- Strong climate expertise
- Established, productive relationships with community leaders across the state or territory
- Experience partnering across sectors
- A collaborative, nonpartisan approach to their work
These host organizations hire and supervise the Navigators who work directly with underserved communities in their locality. They also connect their Navigators with additional resources that help them better serve their communities.
How Navigators and Climate Innovation Centers connect
Navigators are often the first step of a state, territory, or Tribe entering the Climate Ready America network. They help map out the existing climate services and identify what is needed to launch a Climate Innovation Center.
Once a Center is up and running, Navigators use its tools, resources, and expertise to better support the communities they serve.
In some places, Navigators are hosted by the same organization that convenes leaders to guide the new Center. In others, they operate independently but remain closely connected. In both cases, Navigators help their Centers:
- Identify local challenges and priorities
- Collect up-to-date information on needs, successes, and gaps
- Make sure statewide resources are accessible to all communities
This two-way relationship expands the Center’s impact across the state and strengthens the Navigator’s ability to provide timely, effective support.
Benefits for communities
Communities working with Navigators gain:
- A single point of contact for climate resilience guidance
- Tailored help finding and applying for funding
- Connections to technical experts and peer communities
- Support in building local capacity and leadership
- Advocacy for their needs at the state, regional, and national levels
The Role of Geos Institute
We ensure Navigators have the tools, training, and connections they need to succeed. Our support includes:
- Onboarding, training, and professional development
- Facilitating peer learning across the network of Navigators
- Bringing multi-state concerns to the Regional Collaboratives
- Maintaining the data collection system to measure and track impact
- Linking Navigators with their Regional Collaborative and the National Strategy Team
- Providing technical assistance through our Regional Coordinator
The Southeast demonstration project
Our first Navigators deployed in early 2024 across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to serve 72 federally designated Community Disaster Resilience Zones (CDRZs). These communities face high climate risk and high social vulnerability, but often lack the resources to act.
Since the start of this demonstration project, Navigators have supported 137 climate actions across 39 jurisdictions, including:
- Securing new funding for resilience projects
- Hosting climate resilience planning workshops
- Building local leadership networks
These early results have proven the value of the Navigator model, and we are now working to expand the network nationwide.
Help grow our network of Navigators
We are building a nationwide network of Navigators so the communities most at risk have direct access to the support that helps them cut climate pollution and build resilience.
Arsum is the Senior Adaptation and Coastal Resilience Specialist for the National Wildlife Federation’s Southcentral Region. In this role, she advances climate adaptation efforts, with a focus on nature-based approaches to address the impacts of climate change and extreme events across the Gulf region. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications on climate impact assessments and adaptation solutions. Additionally, she regularly participates in state-based coastal resilience and hazard mitigation planning across the Gulf, collaborating with regional and local stakeholders.
Frank is the former President of the Reinsurance Association of America. Frank currently serves on the Advisory Board of the OECD’s International Network for the Financial Management of Large-Scale Disasters, the RAND Center on Catastrophic Risk Management and Compensation, and the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner III Center for Insurance and Risk Management Advisory Board.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.