Steven E. LaMar

Steve LaMar has been Chair of the ACWA Federal Affairs Committee for the last two years, and a member of the ACWA Board of Directors.  He regularly attends Executive Committee meetings and serves on the ACWA Agricultural Initiatives Committee.  He is past chair of the ACWA Headwaters Task Force, where helped draft the ACWA Headwaters Policy and Framework.

He is also a member of the board of directors of several other water-related organizations, including the National Water Resources Association (representing 17 Western states), the Southern California Water Committee, and CalDesal.  He is a past Board member of the National Water Research Institute, and he is current President of the Natural Communities Coalition, a nonprofit responsible for implementing California’s first Natural Community Conservation Plan (NCCP) to protect 37,000 acres of coastal sage scrub habitat and multiple threatened and endangered species.

Steve LaMar was appointed to the IRWD Board of Directors in February 2009 to fill a board vacancy and was subsequently elected to four-year terms in 2010 and 2014. He has served as Board President 3 of the last 8 years. Director LaMar currently chairs IRWD’s Engineering & Operations Committee and serves on the Water Resources Policy & Communications Committee, as well as various Ad Hoc Committees.

LaMar is a water policy and planning expert with over 25 years of experience on statewide business and industry committees and has directly participated in many major water policy forums. He has served on statewide task forces and advisory committees on drought planning, desalination, the California Bay-Delta, the California Water Plan and on water reliability and conservation issues. LaMar is president and owner of LegiSight, LLC, a legislative monitoring and consulting firm located in Tustin, California.

LaMar has extensive water policy service. He was a member of the California Water Plan 2009 Advisory Committee and a member of the Delta Vision Stakeholders Coordination Group. He was Chair of the Economic Work Group for the 2006 California Landscape Task Force. He served as member of the 2003 State Water Desalination Task Force, the 2000 Governor’s Advisory Drought Planning Panel and past chair of the California Building Industry Association’s statewide Water Resources Subcommittee and Task Force.

LaMar has been honored for achievements and was the recipient of the 2001 Ernest Hahn Achievement Award from the California Business Properties Association, and the Building Industry Association of Southern California’s Gary Anderson Memorial Award. LaMar holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Pittsburg State University (KS) and a certificate from the Environmental Management Institute, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency environmental training program administered by the University of Southern California. He is past President of the Orange County Chapter of Alzheimer’s Association and is an avid hiker in regional parks.

Steve and his wife Jeanne are residents of Irvine since 1981, have two grown children, Kelly and Jack, and three rescue dogs.