Team Member Candid Photo

Colleen Haraden is Balance’s Chief Operating Officer and Marketing Director she brings over 31 years’ experience in the geosciences, with a focus on water resources, environmental and public works fields. Colleen marries her passion for human connections, water resources, research, and art in her role at Balance. You can find her scrolling through historical images imagining early California, getting to know folks from a local watershed council, or strategizing with colleagues on how best to address a client’s needs. Throughout her career, Colleen has been involved in a broad spectrum of projects throughout the Western United States and Hawaii from regional groundwater studies to project management of technically rich projects such as the development of web applications and web portals for public outreach and program management, and GIS for analysis and presentation-ready graphics, she heartily jumps into project work or mentors staff in project management and client services. Colleen also supports our clients with Emergency Action Plans for dam failure planning and grant applications and strategies, she has prepared grant applications, assisted agencies with grant management (Prop 1, 50 and 84), and managed grant-funded projects. When she is not in the office, most likely she’s creating art or on or in the water – either swimming or stand-up paddleboarding in San Francisco and Tomales Bays. Colleen’s other job is working for the river otters, she is pleased to volunteer for the River Otter Ecology Project as a volunteer and Board member. Take a minute to visit some of her friends at https://riverotterecology.org/.

  • B.S., Geological Sciences, San Diego State University
  • Mountain Lake Remediation Alternatives Feasibility Study, San Francisco Presidio, San Francisco County, California. Ms. Haraden was the Project Manager for Balance’s role in supporting a large consulting firm in addressing water quality and restoring a portion of Mountain Lake, one of the few remaining natural lakes in San Francisco.
  • Martis Valley Groundwater Management Plan, Placer County Water Agency, Placer and Nevada Counties, California. Ms. Haraden developed the GIS of hydrogeologic and geology database and aquifer information to assist with preparation of a groundwater management plan, along with detailed illustrated geologic cross-sections.
  • Lacey Meadows, Truckee River Watershed Council, Nevada County, California. As GIS Analyst Lead, Ms. Haraden developed geodatabase, integrated field data and historical aerial image interpretation.
  • “Tools for Implementing Low Impact Development and Structural Controls for Stormwater.” Nevada Water Environment Association, Annual Conference, 2010. (with Whelan, E.)
  • Shaw, D., Chartrand, S., and Haraden, C., 2012, Messy creeks: restoring floods and sediment production and storage on alluvial fans, Ecesis: California Society for Ecological Restoration Quarterly Newsletter, v.22, Issue 4.

When I joined Balance Hydrologics I felt I had come home, I love the work we do and our clients. My creativity and ideas are valued and encouraged. These are challenging times for our environment, I am happy to work with a great firm, especially my talented coworkers, as we to do our small part to balance human impacts with our natural world. Whether we’re restoring a critical habitat or improving the health of waterway, we create space for nature to recover and humans to be inspired – a balance.

I’m a maker, artist, and creator. When carving wood, I love taking a block of hardwood and creating a wooden spoon or another tool. I work with all hand tools, I begin with only a subtle idea of what I’ll carve, I leave it to the wood to guide me through to the finished product. Other mediums I work in are textile and paint, my textile art pieces explore climate change or historical ecology, my work typically involves extensive research, a recent piece focused on climate change and its impacts on Antarctica. My other hobby is open water swimming, I start every morning with a swim in the San Francisco Bay when I’m traveling, I always try and find a place to swim in the wild.

Anywhere with water, warm or cold I will be swimming.