Holding the Line: Hurricanes, Restoration, and Resilience on the Gulf Coast
Roberta Swann, Director
Mobile Bay National Estuary Program
Mobile, AL
Communities across the Gulf Coast know the realities of climate change all too well—rising seas, stronger storms, and the lasting scars of disaster. But they also know how to fight back.
In this opening session, Roberta Swann shares hard-won lessons from the frontlines of hurricane recovery and coastal restoration. Drawing from decades of work in Alabama and across the northern Gulf, she’ll explore how restoration—when planned with people and place in mind—can strengthen disaster resilience, protect ecosystems, and prepare communities for a changing climate.
From living shorelines to watershed-scale strategies, Roberta brings a clear-eyed view of what works, what’s scalable, and where urgent investment is needed. Her insights are rooted in both science and community, offering a hopeful, grounded start to our exploration of resilience in restoration.
About Roberta Swann
Director, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP)
As Director of the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP) since 2009, Roberta guides a management conference of over 300 community leaders including federal, State and local government officials, business and industry, academia, environmental professionals, and grassroots groups in identifying and undertaking restoration, community capacity building, and policy related initiatives to conserve and improve the management of Alabama’s estuaries and coast. She has been on the Board of Commissioners for Mobile Housing Authority since 2019. She was the recipient of the Alabama Wildlife Federation 2021 Governor’s Conservationist of the Year award.
Prior to joining the MBNEP she was a consultant on Dauphin Island where her accomplishments included creation of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation and oversight of a successful acquisition campaign to protect migratory bird habitat for Dauphin Island Bird Sanctuaries. Before moving to Alabama, Roberta served as Assistant Director of the Community Redevelopment Department for the City of Lafayette, Indiana, where she led community development initiatives for housing, public facilities, and economic development in low income areas, being awarded a HUD Best Practice Distinction for the Lincoln Center Homeless Services Project. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, West Africa, Roberta taught business management and resource development to seven village cooperatives.
She is a native of Melrose, Massachusetts and earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Boston University. When not working, you can usually find her in the woods walking with her husband, two dogs, and a blue and gold macaw.