Our Advisory Council

Ted Haffner

Ted Haffner currently serves as a Steering Committee Member and Climate Change Goal Team Lead for Chicago Wilderness Alliance (CWA). Prior to CWA, Ted was a Landscape Architect and Climate Fellow at Openlands, a regional land trust in Chicago. He also served as Senior Associate and Project Manager with Terry Guen Design Associates (TGDA), a landscape architecture firm specializing in public and institutional landscape design, with a focus on the democratic notion of public space and shared universal access. Through his experience at Openlands and TGDA, Ted developed a focus on framing and amplifying local, regional, cultural and political dimensions of conservation for people and nature.

Blending a thoughtful approach to design and strategic thinking, Ted works to analyze and connect the natural world to the built environment. Integrating innovative and contextually based best management practices and policies, he employs conservation ideology to maximize ecological functions as well as community “green” benefits and resilience. Furthermore, Ted believes that unique and varied experiences create ideas and strategies to leverage synergistic solutions through robust, diverse networks and partnerships.