Joaquin Esquivel

Water Equity in Action – California’s Journey to a Human Right to Water

Biography: Joaquin Esquivel was appointed to the State Water Resources Control Board by Governor Jerry Brown in March 2017, designated by Governor Gavin Newsom as Chair in February 2019, and reappointed to the board by Governor Newsom in 2021. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary for federal water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency in the Governor’s Washington, D.C. office.

For more than eight years prior to that, Joaquin worked for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, most recently as her legislative assistant covering the agriculture, native american, water, oceans, and nutrition portfolios, in addition to being the director of Information and Technology. He was born and raised in California’s Coachella Valley. He holds a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in English.