Joan D. B. VanDervort
Joan D.B. VanDervort is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. Ms VanDervort has over 28 years of professional experience working with the Department of Defense across a broad spectrum of issues from climate change and energy security to environmental regulatory and encroachment impacts on military training. Before retiring from federal service in May 2014, she served as the Deputy Director for Ranges, Sea and Airspace in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness). Her portfolio included oversight of the Defense Department’s Sustainable Range Initiative, a multi-faceted program with Congressional oversight, designed to address training constraints and Readiness implications brought about by environmental requirements, renewable energy, climate change, and incompatible development. During her tenure, she was responsible for policy development, congressional responses and engagements, and representing the Department’s operational perspective in multiple interagency and intra-agency forums and committees to include the DoD Climate Change Adaptation Working Group. Her portfolio also included facilitating and strengthening partnerships with federal, state, and non-government organizations in establishing mechanisms to protect military training capability.
Prior to accepting her position with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Ms VanDervort served as a senior advisor on environmental, encroachment, renewable energy, and climate change issues impacting training capability for the Army. She also served as the Army’s Integrated Training Area Management Program Manager responsible for the long term sustainability of over 7 million acres of training land on 82 installations, worldwide. She managed the resourcing of a $96 million budget with a work-force of 226 personnel, program-wide.
A three-time NATO fellow, her international experience spans 14 years with NATO, Partner for Peace, and non-NATO countries in both bilateral and multilateral forums in an effort share technology, processes, and lessons learned in the area of environmental protection, conservation, and land management.
Ms VanDervort holds her Master’s degree from the University of Chicago in Geography, with a concentration in coastal geomorphology, and her Bachelor’s in Geography from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She also holds a certificate in Sustainability from the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business.
She is currently an independent consultant advising on Defense Department climate change impacts and adaptation strategies.
