Steve Nicholas is director of the City of Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment, which provides leadership, tools, information, and ideas to increase the sustainability of City operations and services, and to accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices in the community at-large.  Mr. Nicholas served on the Governor’s Sustainable Washington Advisory Panel, and chaired the panel in 2004.  His previous lives included a three-year stint as director of the Institute for Sustainable Communities’ NGO capacity-building program in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, five years as a senior environmental planner with the Seattle Planning Department, two years as watershed stewardship manager for the King County Department of Natural Resources, and four years as an analyst and project manager with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.   Mr. Nicholas was a founding member of Sustainable Seattle.  He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Colby College.