Jerimy Billy has devoted his professional career working for American Indian organizations. Since 2019, he has served as the chief executive officer for the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority (SLRIWA), located in northern San Diego County. SLRIWA consists of the five member Tribes of La Jolla, Pala, Pauma, Rincon, and San Pasqual. The water authority was established in 1988, after water was diverted away from reservations and a lawsuit was filed in the late 1960s. The final settlement took effect in 2017, when the Tribes were finally able to structure an agency to manage their supplemental water sales and start economic development projects. He joined SLRIWA to help provide a foundation to build and expand new services to the member Tribes.

Brian Gray is a senior fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center and professor of law emeritus at the University of California in San Francisco. He has published numerous articles on environmental and water resources law and coauthored a variety of PPIC reports, including the 2011 interdisciplinary book on California water policy, Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation. He has argued before the California Supreme Court and the US Court of Appeals in cases involving wild and scenic rivers, water pricing reform, takings, and water rights and environmental quality. He is a recipient of the William Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Outstanding Professor Award. He holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in economics from Pomona College.

Letitia Grenier is director of the PPIC Water Policy Center, where she is also a senior fellow and holds the Ellen Hanak Chair in Water Policy. She previously directed the Resilient Landscapes Program of the San Francisco Estuary Institute. Throughout her career, she has worked with partners to conserve California’s resources by developing landscape-scale, collaborative visions and solutions. She’s been a leader in science-based management, served as a resource for local and national media, and advised government and agency staff. In 2020, Letitia was the PPIC CalTrout Ecosystem Fellow, for which she completed a report on smarter permitting for restoration of freshwater ecosystems, and she was also an adjunct fellow with the PPIC Water Policy Center. In 2015 and 2019, she served as the science lead for the State of Our Estuary report, and she was also the science lead for the 2015 update to the Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals, heading a team of over 200 environmental scientists, managers, and regulators to develop recommendations for managing San Francisco Bay’s wetlands in the face of rising sea levels. She completed her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.

John Tabinaca Plata has served as general counsel for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (ACBCI) since 2014. Prior to joining the ACBCI team, he was a partner in the Washington DC office of Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker, LLP and director of legal affairs for the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma in Lawton, Oklahoma. He has represented numerous Tribes before federal courts and agencies in matters regarding disaster relief, Tribal-state compact negotiation, internet gaming, intra-Tribal disputes, federal contracting, and sacred site protection. He has devoted his career to defending Tribal sovereignty and empowering Tribal government, and he is an enrolled Tribal member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma and a direct descendant of Comanche Chief Tabinanica, who was a signer of the 1865 Little Arkansas Treaty between the United States and the Comanche. Mr. Plata holds a bachelor of business administration with a finance specialization from Texas Wesleyan University and a juris doctor degree from the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.

Catherine Stites is a principal deputy general counsel with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. At Metropolitan, she handles the district’s environmental, groundwater, and operations work, including Colorado River and Tribal water law matters. Metropolitan’s member agencies serve about 19 million people in Southern California. From 1999 until 2005, she was an environmental litigation associate at the Los Angeles office of the law firm of Bingham McCutchen, where she specialized in water and environmental law and represented several public agencies, including San Diego, Pasadena, and Orange County. She obtained her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California, Irvine in 1992. Before entering law school, she worked at the California State Legislature, participating in the Jesse Unruh Assembly Fellowship, where she became interested in California water law. She graduated in 1996 from Washington University School of Law in her childhood hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.

Jay Weiner is Of Counsel to the majority Indian-owned firm Rosette, LLP and the principal water lawyer for the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe. He has worked with Tribes and Tribal governments since he interned for California Indian Legal Services while attending law school at the University of California, Berkeley from 1994–97. After law school, he clerked for US District Judge Charles C. Lovell and served as court counsel to the Supreme Court to the Republic of Palau before joining Rob Rosette’s law firm in Sacramento, California in 2003. He has developed extensive expertise in federal Indian water law, working on multiple Indian water rights settlements and representing clients in adjudications and other water-related proceedings in Arizona, California, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. He practices in areas of federal environmental law as well, including the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Jay also spent nine years as a staff attorney for the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission and another nine as an assistant attorney general in the Montana attorney general’s office, handling water and other natural resources litigation on behalf of the state of Montana. In addition to his private practice work, he now serves as an administrative law judge for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.