Lylianna Allala’s connection to OSE dates back 20 years to her first role as a conversation corpsmember. The rightmost photo was photographed by Ludeman Photographic. Earlier this week, the Seattle City Council confirmed Lylianna Allala as Director of OSE! We’re sharing Lylianna’s journey to this role, from her roots as a community environmentalist to growing into a citywide climate leader inspiring national change.
Lylianna has spent nearly seven years with OSE, most recently as our Deputy Director, until Mayor Wilson appointed her as Acting Director in January. Before then, Lylianna was Seattle’s first Climate Justice Director and led work on the Equity & Environment Initiative and Seattle’s Green New Deal. She was also named in the 2023 Grist 50, which recognized 50 people helping build a greener, fairer future across the country.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this department of passionate people who are implementing policies and programs that meet community needs and improve quality of life through clean air and water, healthy forests and trees, access to fresh foods, and inclusive pathways to careers,” Lylianna said. “Caring for the environment must begin with caring for one another.”
Lylianna covered a lot of ground on her journey to OSE
Lylianna Allala grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and has strong family roots in South Texas. She spent countless hours a day outdoors and in her grandparents’ garden, forming a deep appreciation and love for the land.
She joined Earth Corps in 2006 as a conservation corpsmember and moved up to crew leader. She collaborated with the City of Seattle on several major projects, from restoration of the Duwamish Waterway Park and stream restoration in Thorton Creek, to trail work at Fauntleroy Park and blackberry and ivy removal at Kubota Garden. She later became a project manager for South Puget Sound habitat restoration projects.
Lylianna credits Earth Corps with inspiring her now 20-year-and-counting career safeguarding the health of communities and environments. “It spurred many career choices, from trail building with the US Forest Service and doing prescribed burning in Michigan with the Nature Conservancy, to running a family-focused salmon count program in Federal Way and leading 500+ person volunteer events stewarding a healthy forest in the West Duwamish Greenbelt,” she said.
After Earth Corps, she joined the United States Forest Service trail crew to build, maintain, and repair trails across Washington. She remembers making several marker signs on trails stemming from the I-90 corridor. “The wooden sign for Talapus and Pratt Lakes is my favorite,” she said.
She later spent time in West Seattle as the Urban Forestry Director of Nature Consortium, now a program of Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association. Nature Consortium was a member of the Green Seattle Partnership, a collaboration between the City of Seattle, community groups, businesses, schools, and thousands of volunteers working together to restore and maintain the City’s forested parks.
She established an environmental education program and created habitat restoration plans for the largest contiguous forest in the city of Seattle. And, of course, planted thousands of trees. She also led the Duwamish Alive Coalition while at Nature Consortium.
As a northwest recruiter with the Student Conservation Association, Lylianna recruited local high schoolers and young adults for jobs and internships working on Seattle parks and federal lands. One of the highlights of her experience was spending a week in the Olympic Rainforest with several teens from the Puget Sound region working on backcountry trails for the first time.
A couple of years later, Lylianna went from fellow to manager at the Environmental Leadership Program, a national organization that trains and supports environmental and social change leaders characterized by diversity, innovation, collaboration, and communication. She utilized her expertise in leadership development, change management, and organizational development to inform strategies in what would become Seattle’s foundational Equity and Environment Agenda.
She also launched the nation’s first fellowship program focused on increasing diversity in marine conservation — the RAY Fellowship. The program has expanded job pathways for emerging leaders from underrepresented backgrounds into conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.
Before coming to the City in 2019, Lylianna served as Policy and Outreach Coordinator for Congresswoman Jayapal of Washington’s District 7, which includes Seattle and surrounding areas. Lylianna worked on a variety of policies and coordinated with City staff to see where federal and city policies could intersect and strengthen one another.
She is most proud of working on Green New Deal legislation at the congressional level and is forever grateful to have learned from her colleagues and the Congresswoman. During this same time, Lylianna was selected by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Leadership Fellows Program.
After serving as OSE’s Equity and Environment Manager, Lylianna became Seattle’s first Climate Justice Director in 2020. Under her leadership, Seattle established the Green New Deal Oversight Board and worked to implement groundbreaking climate policies and programs like clean energy jobs through training programs and pre-apprenticeships and more. C40 Cities later recognized Seattle’s Green New Deal globally with a C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropy Award for “Building a Climate Movement.”
Her leadership has helped OSE strengthen partnerships with community organizations that are leading local climate justice projects through Seattle’s Environmental Justice Fund, and recently as OSE’s Acting Director, launching the First Peoples Climate Fund with the Seattle Foundation to invest in Native American and Indigenous-led climate action. Her direction also helped initiate the update for Seattle’s Climate Action Plan, which our office is currently working on!
Her trailblazing leadership earned her a spot on the 2023 Grist 50 list of top climate leaders. Lylianna was also selected to participate in the Obama Foundation’s Leaders USA program and earned a certificate in Climate Change and Health from Yale University.
See Lylianna Allala’s official bio on our blog. You can view Lylianna sharing more about her background and vision, as well as an overview of our office’s work, with City Councilmembers on the Seattle Channel.