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Romel Pascual
Romel Pascual is the Assistant Secretary
for Environmental Justice for the California Environmental Protection
Agency (Cal/EPA). In this capacity, Romel leads the Agency in
ensuring that environmental justice goals and objectives are
achieved.
Romel's involvement with environmental justice began in community
organizations and grassroots leadership. He had worked with the
Urban Habitat Program, a non-profit organization based in San
Francisco whose focus is to build multicultural urban environmental
leadership. Pascual was the Project Coordinator of the Brownfields
Leadership and Community Revitalization Project. The project's
focus was to develop a regional environmental justice and to ensure
that communities played a leadership role in the design and
implementation of projects. In 1995, he co-founded the Bay Area
Regional Brownfields Working Group of approximately 70 residents,
community groups, nonprofit organizations, federal, state and local
agencies. This Working Group was the first of its kind in the
country.
He also worked with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)
as a planner where he conducted research on the relationship between
toxic facilities and the Asian Pacific Islander Community in Santa
Clara County, CA.
Prior to coming to the California Environmental Protection Agency
(Cal/EPA), Romel was the Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator
for USEPA Region 9, which serves California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada
and the Pacific territories. In this capacity, his work focused
on national environmental policy and program development and
implementation as it relates to environmental justice.
Currently, he sits on the board of the Neighborhood Initiative on
Chemicals and Hazards in the Environment (NICHE Project) and serves
as an advisor to Urban Habitat Program's Leadership Project. He
has served on the boards of the East Bay League of Conservation
Voters, Students of Color in Planning, City of Oakland Community
Committee on Urban Land Reclamation Project.
Romel has a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA, and Masters in
City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley.
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