Søren Simonsen is the Executive Director of the Jordan River Commission, joining the Commission staff in 2017. He has a long history with the Commission, serving as Salt Lake City’s representative on the organizing committee that established the Commission in 2010, and guiding the Salt Lake City Council resolution to join the Commission as Council Chair in 2012. He also served as an at-large community member on the Commission’s Governing Board from 2014 to 2017.
Søren has a distinguished career as a community planner, urban designer, architect, and social entrepreneur, working to create safe, healthy, beautiful and prosperous cities and places in Utah and the West. His experience includes over 25 years of public service as an appointed and elected official.
Søren received his Master of Arts in Community Leadership at Westminster University in Salt Lake City, with an emphasis on organizational leadership, public policy and community organizing. His research and thesis focused on sustainable and equitable cities, and natural resource conservation and stewardship, which encompass much of his life’s work. He previously earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin, with a minor in urban planning, and an emphasis in environmental and urban design.
In his free time, Søren loves to spend time both recreating in Utah’s vast outdoors and advocating for conserving its natural resources. You can find him regularly riding and paddling the Jordan River Parkway.