About Elmwood

Bruce Riordan, Founder, Elmwood Consulting

Bruce Riordan created Elmwood Consulting in 1998, focusing initially on sustainable and equitable transportation strategies for the Bay Area. Mr. Riordan had spent the previous thirteen years managing employer and local government services for Rides For Bay Area Commuters, Inc.. During Elmwood’s first years, Mr. Riordan was a key member of consultant teams addressing regional transportation planning, transit services for low-income communities, last-mile links to rail systems, improved access for seniors to healthy food shopping, and other important transportation/community issues.

In 2002, Mr. Riordan, moved by a New York Times report on global warming in Alaska, began studying the impacts of climate change and the strategies needed to address it. Gradually, Elmwood’s focus shifted, beginning in 2004 as a climate/transportation strategy advisor to MTC, and as a consultant to BAAQMD on two major public events featuring noted Stanford climate scientist Stephen Schneider (2005) and Vice President Al Gore (2006). In 2007, Mr. Riordan was trained in Nashville by Mr. Gore as part of The Climate Project and has now made more than 30 Bay Area presentations on climate impacts, issues and solutions. Other climate-related projects followed with BART, the California Attorney General, the Marin Community Foundation and Next 10.

In 2008, Mr. Riordan was hired as the new Climate Consultant (full-time) for the regional Joint Policy Committee. In this role, he worked with staff from the four regional agencies and their public/private partners, focusing on key strategies to advance Bay Area climate initiatives. For the JPC, Mr. Riordan created the Bay Area Climate & Energy Resilience Project, with supplemental funding from the Kresge Foundation. The JPC project was completed in early 2015.

In 2014, Mr. Riordan worked with UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to launch the Climate Readiness Institute. In April 2015, Mr. Riordan was hired as the CRI’s new Program Director.

Mr. Riordan was born in the Bay Area and has resided in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and Marin County. After attending UC Davis and San Francisco State University, he graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in Liberal Studies from SFSU. He has recently been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley and Cal State East Bay on transportation and climate strategies. Mr. Riordan currently lives with his wife Virginia in a 100-year old home in Berkeley’s Elmwood District. Their two sons are both proud Bay Area residents.