Nancy Smith has worked for 19 years with The Nature Conservancy, developing, implementing, and managing conservation strategies to protect critical land and water resources. Currently, as Director of the Sustainable Food and Water Program for the Conservancy's Colorado Program, she leads a team dedicated to developing and testing innovative approaches to meeting the food and water needs of people in a manner that supports a thriving natural environment. Previously, with the Conservancy’s California Program, she worked with wine producers in Northern California to keep water in rivers to support endangered salmon populations. She also led the effort to secure protective environmental provisions in California’s 2016 marijuana legalization ballot initiative. She specializes in private/public sector partnerships such as the Shortgrass Prairie Initiative; she managed the team that developed and implemented this national award-winning effort, securing a $5.5 million contract to provide habitat mitigation services to the Colorado Department of Transportation by conserving 27,000 acres of critical shortgrass prairie habitat. She is a second-generation Colorado native with a law degree and MBA from University of Colorado in Boulder.