Robert Ruano is a dedicated and successful advocate for the environment, public parks, and cycling. Ecological stewardship and quality of life issues have been and remain at the center of his life, both personally and professionally.
Ruano believes in commitment to community. In his 12-year residency of the City of Coral Gables he has been actively involved in public service. Currently, he is the chair for the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and a member of three other boards including Bike Walk Coral Gables. He is a co-founder and founding chair of the local nonprofit that organizes the popular Gables Bike Day and monthly bike tours (now entering its fourth year).
Other community involvement includes serving as the immediate past-chair of the United Way’s Emergency Food and Shelter Board. In 2010, he was appointed to the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council, a national group that makes recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture on urban forestry issues and providing funding nationally.
In his professional life Ruano is president of Ecostrata Services, a private resource development company with a specialty in funding for environmental projects for public and private organizations.
Ruano founded Ecostrata in 2010, drawing on two decades of public and private sector management experience. He was the director of Grants and Sustainability for the City of Miami under Mayor Manny Diaz prior to starting his business. During Ruano’s tenure, he was responsible for all grant applications prepared by the city and for launching Miami’s first Office of Sustainable Initiatives.
Among his accomplishments are a successful state grant that saved six acres of prime urban green space from development and the completion of a climate action plan that put Miami on the path to sustainability.
“The climate action plan, bike action plan, environmental ordinances and the forging of successful public-private partnerships were personal achievements that changed the way Miami did business,” Ruano said.
Ruano is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a bachelor’s degree in communications; he is a LEED Accredited Professional. He and his wife, Laura, an attorney in private practice, have a son named Gabriel (who often accompanies Ruano to community events).
Ecostrata Services is located at 221 Aragon Ave., Suite 204, Coral Gables. For more information visit online at www.ecostratas.com or call 786-441- 9200.
Wish he had been around when all those sky scrappers were built along the Miami shores… As a result Miamians can't even take a walk along the shores of their own city……. Thanks to the greed of some Miami officials mixed with the lack of vision of the developers.