Jackie Brenner (she/her), Partner since 2023 | Community Water Solutions

I fell in love with environmental science because it felt accessible, creative, and relatable: it’s understanding broad scientific concepts and thinking abstractly about how to explain and solve problems in a regulatory framework with that knowledge.

Creative problem-solving is at the heart of how Jackie approaches her work as a Community Water Solutions Partner at Willamette Partnership. After working in consulting for 10 years, Jackie has seen firsthand how difficult it is for people to care about environmental issues when their basic needs aren’t being met. At the Partnership, Jackie hopes to do both. With a collaborative “reach across the table” approach, she hopes to find solutions that can improve meeting people’s basic human needs and work toward positive environmental change. 

Jackie uses her experience in research and breadth of technical knowledge to find solutions with a big-picture mindset. By studying how others have approached similar challenges, learning from and listening to community voices, and adapting to what will work best given the circumstances, she hopes to problem-solve with a holistic understanding of the challenge at hand. This means finding and helping fill the gaps that might be typically missed or overlooked. With extensive experience as boots on the ground working to clean up and redevelop brownfields throughout the rural West, Jackie brings the context and background to support property owners, municipalities, and community members through complex environmental issues in development projects. Jackie is excited about doing meaningful work with communities and partners in collective knowledge sharing and providing resources and tools they can utilize through her technical assistance.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I understood from an early age the seriousness of drought in the West and the fragile nature of the future of places that don’t have a lot of water and/or poor water quality and made it a life mission to make my work part of the solution.

Jackie fits into the Partnership’s collaborative approach as the “Jackie of all trades”. Pushing beyond traditional thinking, finding the intersection of multiple perspectives, skills, and interests, and ultimately bringing her passion for conservation to each of her projects and relationships with partners. When Jackie isn’t working with communities and partners, you can find her outside: snowboarding, backpacking, trail running, or mountain biking.

• brenner@willamettepartnership.org
• 503.206.0250