E. Joaquin Esquivel

E. Joaquin Esquivel was appointed to the State Water Resources Control Board by Governor Jerry Brown in March 2017, designated as chair by Governor Gavin Newsom in February 2019, and reappointed in 2021. He’s also a member of the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Advisory Council and Forum, as well as the Western States Water Council. Previously, he served as assistant secretary for federal water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency in the governor’s Washington, D.C. office, where he facilitated the development of policy priorities between the agency, the governor’s office, the California congressional delegation, and federal stakeholder agencies. For more than eight years prior to that he worked for US Senator Barbara Boxer of California, most recently as her legislative assistant covering the agriculture, Native American, water, oceans, and nutrition portfolios, in addition to being the director of information and technology. He brings this experience to the PPIC Water Policy Center Advisory Council. He was born and raised in California’s Coachella Valley. He holds a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in English.