Elaine Forbes, Executive Director, Port of San Francisco

October 4, 2020

Peter and Tyler sit down with the ED of the Port of SF

Peter, Lesley, and Tyler sit down with Elaine Forbes, Executive Director, Port of San Francisco. Elaine leads the Port to responsibly manage the waterfront as the gateway to a world-class city and advances environmentally and financially sustainable maritime, recreational, and economic opportunities to serve the City, Bay Area region, and California.


At the recommendation of the Port Commission, Mayor Edwin Lee appointed Elaine Forbes Executive Director of the Port on October 12, 2016. Forbes is one of eight women Port Directors in the United States.  Before her appointment as Executive Director, she served as Deputy Director for Finance and Administration for the Port for six years.

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Prior to joining the Port, Mrs. Forbes held executive management and leadership positions at both the San Francisco Planning Department and the San Francisco International Airport. She also worked for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget Analyst’s Office providing fiscal and policy analysis and evaluating and reporting on complex municipal issues.


Before beginning her tenure with the City and County of San Francisco in 2000, she worked as a redevelopment agency planner for the City of Oakland. She also has worked for several non-profit land use policy and economic development organizations including the Urban Strategies Council and the California Budget Project.


Mrs. Forbes holds a Master’s degree with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles in Community and Economic Development, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Mills College in Oakland. Mrs. Forbes is also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She was born in San Francisco and resides in the Castro neighborhood with her partner.

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Show Transcription
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Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.