Ted Kowalski

Ted is a Senior Program Officer at the Walton Family Foundation, where he leads the Colorado River Basin Program. In this role, Ted advances innovative and collaborative solutions to promote water conservation and to improve management of the Colorado River for the benefit of nature and people. In this role, Ted has helped re-connect the Colorado River to the sea, and connect communities to the value of their rivers. Ted is also Chair of the Water Table, a funder collaborative housed within the Water Foundation, where he has helped grow the field of water philanthropy by hundreds of million of dollars to take on the most pressing problems related to rivers and water resources.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ted was the Chief of the Interstate, Federal and Water Information Section, for the Colorado Water Conservation Board. In this role, Ted represented the State of Colorado in State, Federal, interstate, and international negotiations. Ted is recognized for his deep expertise in Colorado River water management issues and the role of philanthropy to drive towards impactful change. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and before the various state legislative bodies and he has spoken at hundreds of conferences and events across the globe. Ted started his career in the Colorado Attorney General’s office working on water law issues. Ted has a law degree from the University of Colorado and an undergraduate degree from Cornell University.