Elizabeth McManus

Elizabeth is a talented analyst and a designer, convener, and facilitator of collaborative processes, routinely helping groups find common ground and define meaningful, durable outcomes. She works mostly at the intersection of science and policy, where her ability to quickly get to the heart of complex problems and synthesize technical information helps groups gel. Her experience working in state and federal governments and in both policy development and program implementation gives her insight into the workings of government and the practical challenges that policy makers face.

Elizabeth grew up on Puget Sound, and her recent work has focused on Puget Sound recovery, from helping to support the original collaborative that resulted in the legislation to form the Puget Sound Partnership, to ongoing work leading the Puget Sound Future Scenarios effort. At the regional scale, Elizabeth has led projects to create and update the Puget Sound Action Ageda, develop and implement the Puget Sound Pressure Assessment, and update the Puget Sound vital signs and their indicators and most recently the Puget Sound Future Scenarios project. At the local scale, Elizabeth is the longstanding coordinator for the Alliance for Healthy South Sound, an organization of county and tribal governments working on Puget Sound recovery in the South Sound, where work included development of the South Sound Strategy. Beyond the Puget Sound work, Elizabeth has worked successfully with diverse stakeholder groups on projects related to brownfields program creation and assessment, water allocation in the Columbia River, watershed characterization, alternative approaches to aquatic mitigation, invasive species policy and funding, forest health, allocation of salmon funding, salmon hatchery policy in the mid-Columbia, pharmaceutical waste management, and cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Prior to joining Ross Strategic Elizabeth worked in hazardous waste cleanup programs at the state and Federal level where she developed regulations and policy for RCRA corrective action and closure, treatment and disposal of hazardous debris and soil, and integration of state and federal cleanup programs and policies. She remains a sought-after advisor on clean up and hazardous waste policy.

As managing principal for Ross Strategic, Elizabeth is responsible for day-to-day financial and management decision making; convening and facilitating the larger principals group; and being the liaison between principals and operations leaders.

Outside of work Elizabeth grows a slightly bigger food garden each year; paints, and paints, and paints a 100-year-old dairy barn one side at a time; and watches birds. She thinks a lot about rowing and occasionally still gets out on the water to row. Her nonprofit board service includes Audubon Washington and Cascadia Research Collective.