Dr. Rob Brumbaugh joined The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2004 and is currently the Executive Director of TNC’s Caribbean Division and serves on TNC’s North America Region Leadership Team. In his 20 years with TNC, he has served in several other roles, including Senior Marine Scientist for TNC in Florida, Director of Habitat Restoration for TNC’s Global Ocean Team, and as TNC’s Global Lead for Integrated Ocean Management.

As Caribbean Division Director, Rob guides a matrixed team of conservation professionals based in seven offices throughout the Caribbean who are engaged in transformative conservation work in 17 countries and territories from The Bahamas to Barbados. Rob is based in TNC’s Caribbean Division office in Coral Gables, Florida.

A focus of Rob’s work over the years has been quantifying ecosystem benefits that marine habitats provide to people and society, including fish production, water quality improvements, carbon storage, tourism value, and climate risk reduction. Each of these benefits are critical for supporting economic and social well-being throughout the Caribbean (and globally). By applying this kind of new knowledge and spatial information, the Conservancy and its partners are able to shape private and public investments to drive conservation at both the national- and regional-scale. Much of this new ocean knowledge is generated through the Conservancy’s Mapping Ocean Wealth initiative, which Rob initiated in 2012. This initiative was recognized with the 2017 Tourism for Tomorrow Innovation Award by the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Rob holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in oceanography from Old Dominion University, holds a USCG captain’s license, and is qualified member of TNC’s Scientific Diving Program through the American Academy of Underwater Sciences.