Tyler Wagner | Willamette Partnership

Tyler Wagner

Tyler Wagner (he/him), Partner since 2023 | Community Energy Solutions

“For me, centering listening and patience is at the heart of my approach to working with communities. Being attentive, identifying the issue, and finding the solutions together allows us to support better resiliency in our communities and nature.”

In 7th grade, Tyler was a part of a group science project, the topic: climate change. This was Tyler’s first time experiencing work that felt life-changing. Through the project, his team planted 200 trees to show carbon sequestration, a small action that felt big to their group of middle schoolers. Climate change can feel really overwhelming, but his first interaction felt grounded in action – something he now carries forward into his work as Willamette Partnership’s Partner for Community Energy Solutions.

Tyler works best in collaborative teams, and as a key team member of the Northwest Environmental Justice Center, he is centering problem-solving and listening to diverse perspectives at the heart of this work. Through his energy and environmental justice lens, he’s building trusting relationships with communities through conversations to guide and support them through the Center’s technical assistance.

Tyler has seen firsthand how individuals can be impacted by climate change – whether it’s extreme heat conditions that prevent patrons from walking to their local market to the impact on farmers who rely on their product and people in thin financial markets. In this role, Tyler hopes to learn through communities’ personal stories and experiences, to hear and listen to communities’ solutions and ideas, and to bring his own experiences to the table to make the outcomes and goals of this work greater as a whole than the sum of its parts.

When he’s not engaging with communities, Tyler can be found hiking Mt. Pisgah with his family, reading, or joining a friendly pickleball or pickup soccer game!