Allentown, Pennsylvania, native Will Travis first worked for the commission in the 1970s and returned as executive director in 1995. He retired from state service December 31, 2011.

Travis studied at Penn State, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in Architecture in 1967 and a master’s in regional planning in 1970. From 1970 – 1972, he served as BCDC’s first Bay Development Design Analyst, then over the next dozen years worked for the California Coastal Commission in a variety of capacities,  including heading the agency’s offshore oil drilling permit staff and directing its public access program, as well as overseeing budget and administrative functions. 

Travis went on to become chairman of the Shell Oil Spill Litigation Settlement Trustee Committee, and also worked for various other organizations in the fields of advertising, architecture, local planning and public relations before to returning to BCDC in 1985, to assume the role of deputy director.

In addition to his work for BCDC, he’s chaired a Downtown Area Advisory Committee established by the City of Berkeley to work with the University of California on developing a new plan for downtown Berkeley, and currently is a member of the National Research Council on Climate Change Education, on the Board of Trustees of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association and the EcoAdapt Climate Change Adaptation Innovation Center, and on the Community Advisory Board of KB Home Corporation, and Friends of One Bay Area.

Travis and his wife, Jody Loeffler, who live in Berkeley, are the co-authors of the 2008 memoir,  “Katherine’s Gift,” about adopting their now-teenage daughter at birth in Paraguay, and then traveling with her, when she was 13, to try to locate her birth mother.

Will Travis 2008 Comcast Interview on YouTube

Will Travis, M.R.P. (EcoAdapt)

Event Detail (American Institute of Architects)